[19 “Do you give the horse its strength                                              or clothe its neck with a flowing mane?                                  20 Do you make it leap like a locust,                                              striking terror with its proud snorting?                                       21 It paws fiercely, rejoicing in its strength,                                       and charges into the fray.
22Â It laughs at fear, afraid of nothing;
    it does not shy away from the sword.
23Â The quiver rattles against its side,
    along with the flashing spear and lance.
24Â In frenzied excitement it eats up the ground;
    it cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds.
25 At the blast of the trumpet it snorts, ‘Aha!’
    It catches the scent of battle from afar,
    the shout of commanders and the battle cry.] ~ Job 39:19-25
Benaiah had cleared the crowd and pressing of the market as he made his way over by the horses. He had loved horses since the first time he laid eye’s on one.
He remembered the day well. As he held his hand out to a pretty mare nearby… he remembered.
He was with his grandfather, at another caravan stop over, his grandfather was discussing local business with the traders and gathering news from the visitors from the north.
“Rumblings”, grandfather would call them. Rumblings of nationalism, rumblings of another king being chosen.
“Always rumbling’s and grumbling’s with this, our people.” He said.
Being young and living so far out on the edge of anywhere, Benaiah did not pay much attention to the ‘rumblings’.
Especially today. This caravan was loaded with horses. Benaiah had heard stories from the Bedouins and his grandfather about them but had only seen one or two and those were from far away.
His culture was a shepherding people and the terrain they navigated did not allow for chariots and his scripture studies taught him that their people should not covet horses lest they be led back to Egypt as a result.
Benaiah could see why people coveted the horse.
Just the beauty of them was inspiring!
His heart would be filled after this day. There were so many horses. He asked one of the younger Bedouins tending the horse he was patting,
“Why so many?”
“War. We always sell more when there is a war nearby. We have more coming in every day now. My father is a successful horse trader along the caravan routes. All of these are headed north.”
Benaiah always on the look out to learn something, quietly followed the Bedouin boy as he performed his chores around the horses. The Bedouin seemed happy to have someone to talk to as he was out where the horses were being kept by himself, and Benaiah knew all about feeling alone. He kept his questions to a minimum and mostly watched how the boy worked so effortlessly around these magnificent creatures.
It seemed there were some special horses and then ‘the herd’ horses. All beautiful and elegant, at least in the eye’s of Benaiah but he could tell the boy treated the horses different, even down to the individual.
So he asked, “Why do you treat each horse differently?”
His answer, “Because… each horse is as different as you and I and they all crave what you and I crave.”
Benaiah saw something in the Bedouins eye’s, a little glint, a little knowing wisdom.
“And what do you and I crave?”, Benaiah asked… a bit warily.
“Unfailing love, fidelity, and belonging.”
Benaiah wondered how old this ‘boy’ was, speaking such wise words…
he sounded like his own grandfather.
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