The Slave and the Kings

The purple-wearing slave

Descended, his freeborn

Servants clearing the way.

Unto the sepulcher

He came, of ancient kings,

And there he found,

Beds fifteen,

And crowns thirteen,

And thrones but one.

Each royal bed

In gold arrayed,

Shining as the mighty Sun,

But empty was each of them,

For of the kings,

Asleep was none.

Upon his judgment-throne,

Sat ben-Amon, his wounds,

Still bleeding, pouring out,

The blood he gave

So God’s estate,

Of Egypt’s tread,

Shall stay unblemished.

‘Round him,

‘Neath him,

Jehoshaphat, builder of ships,

Whose keels were shattered afore

The shores of Ophir they cheered.

And there is Asa,

His afflicted limbs,

At last in death

By death were freed.

And Abiah,

And Rehoboam,

And Hezekiah,

And Uzziah,

And their aspect was stern

And their countenance grim,

As men who felt upon them

the eye of God.

And Herod felt,

His base blood

Curdling in fear.

For this trial

He knew he shan’t escape,

And justice’s breath,

He heard so near.

“Arise ye child of Esau,

Arise ye son of Antipater,

For thou hast desired our honor,

And as a king ye must answer”

Thus Josiah, his crimson brow,

Heavy under his crown,

Of iron made,

His flesh tormented.

“I am Herod, the great,

King of Judea,

And of Arabia,

And Galilee,

I am the friend of Caesar,

And the lover of the Hellenes."

“.. He (Herod) opened the sepulcher (of the Davidic kings) at night and went into it… he had great desire to make a more diligent search and to go further in even as far as the very bodies of David and Solomon. Where two of his guards were slain by a flame that burst out upon those who went in; as the report was. So he was terribly affrighted, and went out.”

Josephus Flavius. The Antiquities of the Jews, 16:7:1.