Uriah's Curse

Uriah walked slowly, guided by a gentle hand on his shoulder. He was brought to a round table, where three angels were sitting on pillows, waiting for him. When he arrived the men greeted him with a soft, sad smile. Uriah sat down in the empty seat on the floor. He looked at these angels, and half laughed to himself. “Before,” he thought, “I would be in complete wonder to see such divine beings, but now I have no fear or awe. So strange is death.”

The angel in the center sweetly began. “Uriah, we are judges. We are here to give a verdict on your case.” Uriah was silent. He sat in deep thought, and began to recollect his story. Slowly his face shifted from one of calm to one of sadness. As he began to remember more and more his face became distorted into pain, misery, suffering, hatred, despair.  All these waves crashed on his poor simple and naive soul. He began to weep like a child. The angels patiently waited, only glowing in love and comfort.

After some time, Uriah composed himself. “I have questions.”

“Ask, my son”, the angel in the center responded.

“Will she live a good life?” Uriah’s lips could not speak her name.

“Yes.” 

“Will they have children?”

“Yes.”

Uriah began to speak quicker and louder. 

“Will he be a prince?”

“Yes.”

Uriah’s face flushed red with heat.

“Will he be king?”

“The next after David, the builder of G-d’s temple. His reign will forever be remembered as the era of paradise on earth for Israel.”

Uriah’s body convulsed. He wished he could combat the bastard and kill him with his bare hands. He roared in anger. If only he could smash that head on the rocks. 

He stood up and began pacing like a beast, his heartbeat driving him. “Such injustice!” Uriah’s words leapt from his mouth, even as he knew this was not the way to be before angels. “How? I don’t understand? She was my lamb, my only one. And that adulterous fiend! How could she be so unfaithful? The king I loved and worshipped has become my enemy. He has been a thief to me, a murderer, a wicked conspirer! Aha! My heart! This injustice!”

Uriah continued his ravings as he walked to and fro. After he had exhausted all his curses and confusion, his body tired. Finally, he returned to the angels and dropped into his place. 

“Very well, Judge me.”

The two angels sitting on each side looked quizzically at Uriah. The center one only smiled and spoke. “No, my son. We are here to hear your claims against David ben Yishai.”

A wave of light joy washed over him. His flesh rejoiced with an opportunity to share with these divine beings the tragedy he was. And to bring pain onto his wrongdoers.

Uriah sat in silence, again deep in thought. And then Uriah spoke:

“What you have already decreed cannot be changed. But let this son from this unholy matrimony be the last of the line that rules all of Israel. May this bastard’s son only rule Judah, and no more. May this bastard be remembered as the cause for a divide in the nation that never heals.”

“But not only the royalty. This whole nation has known of my suffering, and has spoken nothing. May they be the nation to suffer more than any other in all times. May there be no suffering greater than theirs. May the name of Israel be synonymous with pain, with exile, with weakness.”

The center angel’s face became upset. But he spoke calmly.

“As you have said it, it shall be.”

At once Uriah felt blows to his body, each one stronger and sharper. Like being stabbed and killed again, only death did not relieve him this time. Each pain had a name, it was one of the curses being sent back at him. Each pain he decreed was being slung back into his bones. 

Every tear from every child upon watching a father martyred. Every sister watching her elder raped. Every parent moaning in misery and searching for his child. Every woman widowed. Every sage crying for his nation’s exile. All these pains Uriah felt.

When the barrage stopped, Uriah looked at the angels, stunned. 

“I take it back.” He whispered in shame. “This revenge will bring no good to the world. Not even justice.”

A heavy silence hung. The center angel shattered the quiet. 

“It has already been decreed.”