"The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment, for all that so do are an abomination unto the Lord thy God."
To this prohibition he was led to make one conditional exception—that in the event of the Fort of the Rocks being taken by the enemy, any disguise which might enable her to escape the danger peculiar to a captured woman might be used.
"If," replied Deborah, "for the safety of one woman the letter of the law may be set aside, why not for the safety of Israel?"
"You are right, my daughter. Should Israel need you, robe yourself as you will, yet remember it will be as when a victim is arrayed for the sacrifice. But with our brave men about you surely there is no need for you to mingle in the common fray. Your womanly presence now encourages us more than a band of swordsmen."
"But if—if"—Deborah hesitated in speaking—"but if the Voice should bid me?"
"The Voice! The Voice!"
Mattathias bowed his head upon his breast. "The Bath-kol! The daughter of God's voice! I may not dispute that Monitor; for only those anointed of heaven can hear it."
"How may one know the Voice? Explain to me the sacred Bath-kol"—and Deborah leaned forward, her hand upon the patriarch's knee and her face upturned toward his in reverent and eager inquiry.
Mattathias put his hand upon her forehead. "Alas!" he said, "I fear that the Voice has not been heard by any in our generation, for the days are too full of evil. God's voice is wordless; or rather, shall I say, the Eternal Word is voiceless. The Divine Mind shines through the mind of man as the lightning through the clouds. But since Malachi fell asleep, no soul of man has been so pure that it could transmit the heavenly glory and interpret its meaning.
"Yet," he continued, after a pause, "it may be that the Lord still teaches His own by indirection, by what we call the Daughter of the Voice; the echo of the heavenly from earthly things. Some of our wisest rabbis have held that, after one has prayed, the first words that fall upon the ear, especially if they be sacred words from the Law, the Prophets, or the Psalms, may be such echoes of the Divine Will. But in these matters I am unskilled. I only know that if God may not speak to a soul so true as thine, beaten pure by affliction, as the oil is beaten for the lamps of the sanctuary, then, indeed, are we left without the light."