Before he reached the Chamber door, he came upon three young men adorning the cowled robes of priests. They were not quite men of stature, but boys on the cusp of growing their first beards that would eventually identify their positions within the sacred hierarchy.
The moment they saw Abraham, a priest held his hand out for the old man to grab in purchase to better steady him. With lungs wheezing and his face taking on the pallor as pale as the underbelly of a fish, Abraham was eased against a wall to calm him.
“You must find others,” he told the priests between hitches of breathe. “When you do… then send them to the Sacred Chamber… where I will meet them.”
“Is it Shishak?” a priest asked. “Is he moving on Jerusalem?”
The old man offered a hasty nod, then: “Hurry! We haven’t much time!”
“What about you?”
Abraham waved his hand in dismissal. “I’ll be fine,” he said. “Go!”
Without further questioning the priests moved with urgency, leaving Abraham to gather enough strength to press on. With the alacrity of an aged man in faltering condition, he made his way through the hallways on legs that were going boneless. But his priestly convictions to save the Lord’s treasure drove him forward by reserve alone.
As the old man descended the stairway the atmosphere became sepulchral and dead, the air unmoving. On neighboring walls his shadow danced with macabre twists as flames from the heads of wall torches lapped the air. And in servitude to his Lord he begged for added strength, his words no longer coming in whispers.
“Please, God! Give me the power to serve You in this time of need. Give me the power to see this through.”
As the last word left his lips, Abraham reached the landing of the Chamber’s floor.
Not less than twenty meters away stood the bullet-shaped archway that led to the Sacred Vault.
After opening the thick wooden doors that were held together by black steel bands and rivets, the sight of the treasure never failing to steal away the old man’s breathe.
Along the walls several torches burned. The light of their flames danced in play over every piece of gold, casting a spectacular aura even from the smallest coin.
The Chamber was perfectly circular with pyramidal mounds of gold and rubies and sapphires lying everywhere, some piles as high as a man is tall. Against the wall opposite the Chamber doors were the Gold Shields of Solomon, nearly three hundred in total, each glittering spangles of gold as the light of the nearby torches reflected off their surfaces. But in the center of the Chamber was the most coveted item of all, something that carried brightness beyond what gold alone should have given it. Casting a perfect nimbus in ethereal shades of yellow and white, sat the Ark of the Covenant.
The high priest moved cautiously within its spectacular golden glow — into a light that appeared to be alive — and with his hands held out so that his palms faced ceiling-ward, he began to pray.
The Ark was brilliantly crafted, having been made from the wood of the acacia tree and covered with the purest gold. It was a cubit-and-a-half broad, a cubit-and-a-half high, and two cubits long with the upper lid, the mercy seat, surrounded by a rim of gold. On each of the two sides were two gold rings where two wooden poles are placed, so that the Ark could be carried. Situated on top of the Ark were two cherubim figures that faced each other with the tips of their outspread wings touching the others, forming what was considered to be the throne of God while the Ark itself was judged to be His footstool.
With Shishak getting closer, Abraham prayed for divine guidance, his answer coming in the form of eight men wearing hooded robes with knotted ropes that cinched their waistlines.
“The poles,” said Abraham, pointing to the long dowels covered with the decorative sheathing of gold. “We haven’t much time!”
Once the poles were inserted through the golden loops and fixed, Abraham grabbed one of the torches and beckoned the priests to follow.
Even with eight men The Ark of the Covenant was quite heavy as each man labored to carry it across the Chamber floor.
With Abraham leading the way the light of his torch lit upon an opening against the far wall. The access, however, was lost in shadows so deep that the light of his torch barely penetrated the darkness, until he was right upon it.
“This way,” he said.
The Covenant was led down a corridor, the surrounding walls rough and poorly bored, the surface which they walked upon often descending, then ascending, like the caps of rolling hills, a difficult terrain to manage with such a heavy weight to transport. The ceiling was also uneven, often rising and lowering in spaces which barely gave the Ark enough clearance. But at the corridor’s end lay a magnificent chamber, a second chamber, one that was capped by a hand-smoothed dome that transitioned downward into walls that were without blemish. In the center of the room lay an elevated block of stone on which to rest the Ark upon.
After the priests settled the Ark upon the platform, Abraham went along the chamber walls lighting one torch after the other, the light reaching the Ark from all sides. As it did the Ark seemed to come alive with something tangible and intangible at the same time, a spiritual force of unbridled warmth that prompted the priests to take to a bended knee.
Abraham, however, stayed his feet and moved with urgency.
Next to the last torch was a circular recess — a hole — that was large enough for a man to reach up his shoulder. Reaching inside, Abraham grabbed a steel ring and turned it counter-clockwise. And then the earth came alive. There was a grinding noise as mammoth stones rubbed against each other, the ground beneath them trembling, shaking, the entire chamber floor threatening to open into a chasm.
While the priests continued to kneel by the Ark, dust cascaded from the ceiling, showering them until their cloaks became the color of sand. And then with a final shudder the entrance collapsed with tons of falling rock blocking the way, the corridor imploding as thick, cloying dust raced into the chamber in a plume.
And then with a final shudder the shaking stopped, the chamber now a dust-laden cavern with no way in or out. A horrible silence fell over them.
One of the priests got to his feet, a fledging. The look on his face was incredulous with the realization that the fate of his life had been determined by the twist of an old man’s hand. “But why?” he asked him.
The old man placed the torch within its holder, and then ventured closer to the priests who were now standing. “Please forgive me,” he said. “I couldn’t allow Shishak the right to bear the Ark.”
“But there are the Shields of Solomon and the other treasures?”
“This is the only treasure,” he countered.
“And what about our lives?” asked another. “You didn’t even grant us the opportunity to save ourselves.”
“I couldn’t afford to,” said Abraham. His tone was truly sorrowful, but not repentant. “If Shishak got hold of any of you, then he would have stripped the flesh from your bones to obtain the whereabouts of the Ark.”
The old priest closed his eyes with his palms held ceiling-ward, and then turned toward the Ark. “This is bigger than all of us,” he told them. “Is it not better to die in the presence of God than by the hands of the Pharaoh Shishak?”
The other priests bowed their heads, one by one, with each man coming to terms that the elder priest was right. Dying in the presence of God was Glory compared to the tortuous blades of Shishak.
In unison, the Keepers of the Ark began to pray.
Jerusalem had fallen, the bodies of its citizens lying in waste in city streets, their blood running and becoming one with the blood-red sky as Shishak ordained. In the end it was not an omen of ill fate as thought by Darius, but an oracle of glory sent by Ra. This Shishak was sure of.