"Uriah,
the Hittite, was one of the thirty-seven mighty men who served king
David." King James Bible.
Uriah
and David were best of friends. So much so, they were virtually
fraternal twins. They lived on adjacent farms. In their teens, they
were shepherds.
On
a third adjacent farm, Bathsheba lived. An only-child. She was in the
same age group as Uriah and David. She was in so close a friendship
with Uriah and David, that it was assumed by everyone who knew them,
Bathsheba would eventually marry either Uriah or David.
The
time came when the boys made plans to graduate from the farms. They
planned to go work and live in a Big City. Bathsheba wanted to join
them, but her parents would not allow her. Instead, all five agreed
that whichever of Uriah and David returned first, financially secure,
would marry Bathsheba.
It
was Uriah. It was not easy to find well-paying skilled work in the
City. David went back to school, Business School, to earn more
qualifications. This was going to take him years.
At
school, he met Jonathan and Abigail. Jonathan had a crush on Abigail;
she preferred David. Because it was clear to David that Jonathan and
Abigail were close friends long before David entered their lives,
David, painfully, did all he could to stay out of Abigail's life. It
was difficult.
Abigail
enjoyed Jonathan's friendship, but she could not develop a romantic
connection with him because he was lame in one foot, from birth.
The
foot had been misshapen. Modern surgery had completely restored it.
The same leg was, too, shorter than the other. Modern medicine was of
no help. Jonathan wore a prosthetic boot which, most of the time,
eliminated most of the difference in his walk. Eliminated the
difference to strangers. Not to Abigail.
When
she was with David in the absence of Jonathan, she cried burning
tears about her not being able to overcome her dislike of Jonathan's
disability. David was in an equally impossible painful quandary for
not knowing how to help her.
Jonathan
had a
brilliant mind for business.
His class
written assignments
consistently earned
him the highest
grades. The Nation
was in war-time
economics.
Opportunities for illegal
transactions were
around every corner.Jonathan
could not
resist the temptation.
He was making money
so easily, he dropped
out of school.
Because
of his leg,
he could not drive a
car. He began to
arrive in chauffeured
luxury vehicles to
bring Abigail
to classes, and to
pick her up after
classes.
And,
then, suddenly,
he stopped appearing. After a
week-or-two,
military police arrived at
Abigail's home to
question her about
Jonathan.
He had
been one of the
fatalities in a
shootout with smugglers
of army
supplies.
Uriah,
with his High School education, enlisted in the National Armed
Forces to become a fighter pilot. This was paid employment, and, so,
within a year of having left the farm, he was able to return to marry
Bathsheba.
They
got married. David attended the wedding. The married couple in the
City lived not far from David who was married to Abigail. The four
lived a happy life in the City, despite the war all around them.
Uriah's
fighter jet went missing. Bathsheba was notified he was listed as
missing-in-action. She was counselled to assume he was dead because
his plane went missing over enemy territory. She would be collecting
his salary for as long as she lived his wife.
Bathsheba
was so grief-stricken, she spent a lot of time with David and
Abigail, in their home. David and Abigail were resigned that they
were not going to have children. They had tried and tried, without
success.
Bathsheba
had hoped if David and Abigail had a baby, her marriage to missing
Uriah would be less painful, somehow.
The
miracle sometimes happens that barrenness in a marriage is cured
by the presence of a true friend like Bathsheba. Abigail and David,
unknowingly helped by Bathsheba's true friendship, had a baby. All
were happy for a few months.
The
baby died.
Abigail's
grief was threatening her sanity. This time, Bathsheba made no secret
of it. She openly recommended to them they have another baby. They
did. They named the baby, Solomon.
Within
days of its birth, in a bombing raid of the City, Solomon died in the
bombing.
The
Nation was losing the war. David and Abigail were out of work.
Bathsheba was collecting a war pension because she was still Uriah's
wife. The three of them needed that income.
Abigail
and David had a third baby. It was born deformed. Abigail, beside
herself with grief, murdered her baby, and hanged herself in their
kitchen.
Bathsheba
was overwhelmed with grief at Abigail's death, the manner of
Abigail's death, and by the crime Abigail had committed. Without
letting David know of her intentions, she ran away from him.
Bathsheba
completely disappeared. Her monthly war pension remained undrawn.
After
a year-or-so, David married Michelle. Abigail's death, its manner and
place, so weighed on David's mind, he gradually became dysfunctional.
Michelle divorced him.
After
Michelle, David never married, but lived with five other women, in
succession: Noam, Maacah, Aggitha, Abi, and Egla. Each, eventually,
abandoned him as hopeless.
Within
days of the fifth woman abandoning him, David killed himself by
jumping in front of a fast-moving vehicle on a highway. So little of
his body was found, there was no funeral because nobody came forward
to identify the few remains.
Uriah's
fighter jet had run out of fuel. He had made an emergency landing in
a shallow lake in enemy territory. He was taken a prisoner-of-war.
He,
along with other prisoners of war, and some civilian prison inmates,
were put to work on farms.
A
woman guard on a farm was attracted to Uriah because of his
exceptionally conscientious work ethic. He worked the farm as if it
were owned by his family.
The
guard researched his background. She learned all about Bathsheba and
David and Abigail. The guard decided to not inform Uriah of the
facts. Instead, she fabricated accounts of bombings of areas she knew
Uriah would associate with where his friends lived. The guard never
missed an opportunity to hint to Uriah that his three friends were
all killed by the war. Eventually, Uriah lost all hope that he would
ever see his wife, Bathsheba, again.
Eventually,
the guard proposed an agreement with Uriah. If he officially became a
citizen, and vowed to never return to the country of his birth, they
could get married. They could live out the war in a town far beyond
the reach of the war.
The
proposal was especially attractive to Uriah for two reasons.
First,
the war was coming to an end; and this Nation, the Philistines, were
winning.
Second,
while working as a prisoner on a farm, he had discovered that the
farm was in territory of Ancient Hittite culture. Uriah's family was
of Hittite pedigree. When Uriah asked the guard, she said her family
was seven generations pure Hittite. She informed him, in addition,
that there were fewer than a dozen Hittite families throughout the
Nation.
Uriah
agreed to the guard's proposal. They were married. In time, they
became parents.
