Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Hunger (07/04/24)
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TITLE: Masada! | Previous Challenge Entry
By Lynae Fisher
07/09/24 -
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You drank water from the rock; for of the stores of the rain of a day could you drink year after year. So great were your unending stores that you were always filled with bread. Oh, self-sustaining island in the wilderness, you lacked nothing.
An army could stand forever surrounding you, but they would wait in vain. They could never climb the winding paths to your gates. The path of the serpent ascended the face of the rock, but it was deadly before them. All that you needed was within your gates. There would be no siege-famine for you.
Your stores were great. How you preserved fruit fresh as the day it was taken for a hundred years, we will never know. How you built such immense wonders, we can only guess. Yet, you lay forever a mystery.
In all your greatness, you forgot the greatest One of all. You claimed His name, but did every abominable thing before Him. You said you fought for Him. You admitted your sins. Yet you walked all the more in your abominations. Both you and all your brethren forsook the greatest strength of all. You clung to the rock in the wilderness, but neglected the Rock of Ages. You needed nothing — or so you thought.
Yet, a void remains inside each one, like the formless void in the beginning. You did not notice it in the heat of war. You did not notice it until that day. Oh, dreadful, dreadful day! You thought you were safe at last. You thought you had all you needed, when you locked the gates. You left one thing without. The one thing that could fill that void with life and beauty, you left without the gates. You thought you were invincible.
The army came. The siege was laid. You were safe within your walls. What foolish people these were that dared to come against you! You were unassailable. The enemy surrounded you, but they could not reach you. They could not even shoot an arrow against you. But then everything changed.
This enemy did something that no one had done before. They began gathering rocks against you. With the very rocks and stones of the Earth, they began building. A ramp began to ascend before your terrified eyes. There was nothing you could do but wait. You tried to shoot them down as they came, but they were the greater army. You could not raise you heads above the wall.
On the backs of slaves was the work done. Your own enslaved brethren carried victuals for the army in the wilderness. You could not bear the thought. The cries of your people churned in your blood. Now the void within you was opening into a vacuum to engulf all your fortitude, all your hope. How you needed as you had never needed before; hope. You forsook the One who had set your fathers free from bondage. Now you were lost.
At last, the enemy reached your gate. They broke down the gate, but you built another they could not break. They set it ablaze. The wind blew the fire upon them furiously. Then it turned back on you. You saw your error, but it was too late.
The enemy broke through in the morning. They came in with triumph. But you were all dead. From the greatest to the least, you were all slain. You had never known want, inside you powerful walls in the heights, but the void within you overwhelmed you at last. In all your bounty, you died of soul-famine. Oh, Masada, Masada. You, who lacked nothing, now lack everything.
Psalms 119:92 (KJV) “Unless thy law had been my delights, I should then have perished in mine affliction.”
(based on historical event)
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Blessings