Eleazar looked out over the field of barley. He could see the Philistines beginning to gather. His stomach churned. He had a special distaste for Philistines, for their round flat noses, their bloated bodies, for the way their massive arms swung at their sides like limp sacks of grain. When they walked, they stumbled and drooped like flabby children’s dolls. They looked as if they couldn’t possibly feed themselves much less swing a sword. But when the battle began, they transformed, as if it was the sword that gave them confidence, filling their veins with zeal. They were the most skilled swordsmen of all Israel’s enemies.
Eleazar tried to prepare his new recruits for the Philistine transformation. Still, he watched each young Israelite soldier’s face when he met them for the first time. Eleazar saw the confident gleam in his eye, the smirk on his lips, thinking, sure, the Philistines are large, measuring at least four and a half cubits, most of them, but they wobble around when they walk, stumbling like they drunk too much wine. I can defeat them, the novices always thought. When the battle began, however, their enemy began to move with such form and precision that most Israelites cried out, terrified and surprised. Eleazar had lost too many men simply immobilized by shock.
Eleazar bent down and scratched the skin underneath the strap of his sandal. He spit on the ground, the yellow gob sat on top of the sun-beaten clay. Twenty years of battle and he still couldn’t settle his stomach before a fight. His wife longed for him to warm her bed every night. She told him that he had served his time alongside their king, David. It was time to set down his sword, she said, but Eleazar knew he was a man of battle, addicted to it, like his wife to the comforts of their home.
He was bonded to David in a way he was to no one else. To stand alongside someone and bring forth the innards of an enemy, that was a unique union. David and Eleazar fought like they were two halves of a whole, back-to-back they would spin in a circle like a single deadly weapon, their arms swinging their iron swords in tandem. Slicing one Philistine after another, as if they were merely clay pots being thrown in their direction.
Once, David dared Eleazar to fight with his eyes closed. Eleazar obliged, never disobedient to his king. He relied on the movement of his body, trusting his instincts instead of his eyes which sometimes were misleading when the sun filled them or the rain cloaked them. They won that battle with ease. Eleazar asked how David knew that closing his eyes would still win them the fight. Hadn’t he been afraid that Eleazar would misstep and cost them both of their lives? David just laughed and said that he had been closing his eyes during most battles, trusting Yahweh to lead him instead.
“I can hear Yahweh’s voice better that way.” He had said.
Eleazar felt a wave of terror through him, not for the fear of his life with a blind battle mate but rather for the fear of the size and power of Yahweh. Yahweh gave David the battle, even when his eyes were closed.
Eleazar stood and lifted his nose to the air. It smelled of the sweet grain mixed with a sour undertone. The sour musk of the Philistines. Eleazar knew it well. It was their ungodliness mixed with the salt of the ocean. His neck began to sweat.
He did not want to fight today but the Philistines had taunted them. Throughout the night, they had sent messenger after messenger with crude insults. They started by calling them rats, then naming their genitalia after women, then they called their women rats.
Shammah was getting the most irritated. Of the three men that were closest to David, he was the one with the shortest temper.
“They just want a fight.” David said to Shammah. “They are like children. Ignore them and they’ll go away. We don’t need a battle now.”
The messenger returned with an insult just for Shammah.
“Your father mistook a cow for your mother’s face and kissed it square on the mouth.” Shammah was so angry he woke David and asked if he could send his own message.
“No, Shammah. It takes more strength to resist a fight than to start one.” David said. “Go hack at the barley instead.”
Eleazar could see the blunt tops of the headless barley where Shammah had spent his rage.
The messenger had returned. This time with a message for David.
“Your god doesn’t know his right hand from his left.”
David sliced off the hand of the messenger and sent it back to the Philistines.
Now Eleazar’s men were beginning to assemble for battle.
The Israelites stood on the hillside, above the field. They watched the Philistines. They ambled toward one another, swaying and bumping into each other, like adolescent boys, not accustomed to their own limbs. Eleazar counted them, readying his stance. The number began to rise. There were easily 1,000 and still more appearing. A cold chill crept through his body as he realized why they had taunted them so. There were so many of them. They outnumbered the Israelites two to one. Eleazar choked. When had they grown to such numbers?
The men around him began to shuffle and sway as they realized the same thing. They couldn’t win this battle, even though they had the higher ground, there was no way they would outlast the swinging arms of all those men.
“Take courage!” Eleazar shouted. “Yahweh is with us.”
“There’s so many of them.” He heard one man say.
“We can’t win this.” Another said.
“We need to retreat.” Yet another said.
“No!” Eleazar yelled. “We stay, we stand our ground and fight.”
The men were already pulling back. One battalion after another retreated. Eleazar looked around him with desperation as the hillside emptied.
“No!” he kept saying. “We fight!” His words floated in the air and fell on the matted grass where his men had been.
No one stood with him.
He stared off into the distance as the Philistines grew nearer. The wind whipped up and blew his hair back. Fear rose from his belly and crept through his veins like a vine on a brick wall. His breath quickened and his chest felt tight. The panic drew him down and he placed a knee on the ground. Yahweh, he prayed, trying to catch his breath. This battle is yours. Then he stood again. He looked to his right. Never had he seen such a beautiful sight. There stood David. All of the other men had gone. It was just the two of them side by side while the Philistines advanced.
David looked over at him and nodded, lifting his sword up to the sky, “The battle is Yahweh’s.” He said.
“The battle is Yahweh’s.” Eleazar replied.
David and Eleazar assumed their position like two streams of water converging around a rock. Eleazar felt the comfort of David’s back as if it was a cool cloth on his forehead. He raised his shield and then his sword. Closing his eyes, he prayed, if this is the end of my life, Lord. Then praise to you, for giving me this battle.
They spun like the wooden top his children played with. They moved in formation, only David and Eleazar familiar with the steps. It caught the Philistine’s by surprise, the double-sworded machine careened down the hill going this way and then that and this way again. Eleazar felt the pressure of Philistine flesh against the sharp edge of his sword. One man after another fell by his blade.
He thought of the first day that he had been trained on his weapon. The iron was strange against his hand. The metal cold and hard. Lifting it took all of his strength. He couldn’t imagine swinging it with precision.
“Wield it like it’s your own hand,” His commander told him. “Pretend it has replaced your arm. Pretend you have as much power over it like you do a part of your body. You tell it where to go and when and you hold it like no one can possibly take it from you. Then you win every battle.”
At the time he never thought that would work. The weapon was too heavy, the hilt too cumbersome. But battle had been his biggest teacher, and now he could hardly sleep at night without gripping it like a bedmate.
The sharp smell of blood reached Eleazar’s nose as the fight continued. He heard David’s heavy breathing in rhythm with his own. He tilted his blade and sliced the neck of the closest man, then into the torso of the next and the legs of a third. Eleazar felt the power through him like he had never before. He watched his arm move faster than he had ever seen it, like he was no longer in control. Then he realized he wasn’t. It was Yahweh’s battle. It was Yahweh’s sword.
Eleazar felt like a spectator as he watched his arm kill Philistine after Philistine. He cried out in triumph and fury. These men had insulted Yahweh, they hated his people and they sought to kill them.
But Yahweh protected his people. Eleazar was witness to it at that moment.
David began to sing. He often did during battle. The song rose in the air and Eleazar’s arm began moving even faster. Soon Philistine after Philistine was on the ground dead or groaning in pain.
“Yahweh is with us.” Eleazar yelled.
“Yahweh is with us.” David repeated.
Eleazar closed his eyes and swung. The sun moved from one end of the sky to the other and still Eleazar held his sword, his aim true each time. The fight continued until Eleazar’s legs began to buckle and his head began to hang.
“Almost there.” He heard his friend say. Darkness was upon them. David’s sword hit the dirt with a heavy thump.
Eleazar opened his eyes. All around him lay the bodies of the Philistines. They piled so high that they made a wall around the field, surrounding them on all sides.
Eleazar lifted his sword high in the air. “Yahweh has delivered us from the hands of our enemies,” he said. The battle had been won.
Eleazar turned his palm over and saw that the sword had fused to his hand. The cells of his skin were woven with the grains of the metal. He couldn’t tell where his hand stopped and the sword began.
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David, a man who knew war well, had three men who fought nearest to him throughout his life. Eleazar was one of the three. This was his most valiant battle. There are many more valiant acts, led by God and executed by David’s men, that are recorded in 2 Samuel as well.
To think that God gave David and his most faithful men such incredible favor is a lot to ponder in and of itself. I don't often think of how God's favor plays out in my own life. The author took me into the battle with David's back touching mine, and I began to contemplate if I've ever chosen that kind of trust in the shield and favor of God. I want to.