Baara was hurrying from the well, seeking to balance the jar on her head while almost running in her haste to return to Naaman's dwelling before Maacah arose from her midday repast. To avoid the jeering remarks of the other slave women, for months she had been going for water during the heat of the day while Maacah rested. So far she had managed to conceal her clandestine trips from her mistress. She did not want Maacah to know of her struggle for acceptance. Her mistress had been so kind about the nightmares that Baara had refused to bother her with the pettiness of the others.

Today a caravan had been at the well when Baara approached. Some male servants were watering the camels of the caravan, and so Baara had stayed in the shadow of the wall, knowing she could not approach while men were present, without appearing wanton. While tempted to return to the villa without water, Baara had known she could not do so without revealing her midday excursions to her mistress. To avoid having to make the hurried trip more than twice a week, she had allowed the jar to become almost empty before going to the well to replenish the supply she used in caring for Maacah's needs.

When the men had finished watering the animals and drunk deeply themselves, they had finally left the well. Baara had quickly partially filled the jar, placed it on her head and headed for home. Now in her haste, she stumbled. The jar began to slide and Baara lunged to catch the jar before it fell and broke. She managed to save the jar, but found herself holding the bottom with the top facing downward while the precious liquid sloshed out, making a mud puddle in the street around her sandal-clad feet.

Baara's involuntary cry of despair in the silent street, followed by a murmured, "Help me, Yahweh," brought an unexpected response from behind a nearby gate. The gate flew open as a deep voice asked, "Who calls on the name of Yahweh in the streets of Damascus?"

Expecting a vengeful man intent on pacifying the local god, Rimmon, Baara cowered as she turned toward the voice. Instead of confronting an irate male, she found herself facing a rather large, imposing woman, who from her looks was probably not more than ten years her senior. Instead of the scowl she expected to encounter, Baara found herself looking into a smiling countenance.

The woman took in the scene quickly and immediately continued in her hoarse, masculine voice, "I'm sorry. I did not mean to frighten you. Ever since I had a disease of the throat as a child, I have sounded like this. While the prophet Elijah healed me, Yahweh left me with this scratchy voice as a reminder of His watch care. I should have known my speech would scare someone with such a modest tone as yours, but as I rested inside the gate, I heard your murmured entreaty to Yahweh. I have not heard His name mentioned except in a curse since I was brought here as a slave eight years ago. I'm surprised you dare mention His name aloud in public."

"The street was empty," Baara replied, "and the entreaty almost involuntary. It is a habit I have not yet broken. I have only been here a few months, and my mistress is lenient. She allows me to worship whomever I please."

At the mention of her mistress, Baara's skin paled as she heard people begin to stir in the house beyond the gate where the other woman stood.

"I must hurry to get home before my mistress awakens from her midday repast," she exclaimed. "She does not know I go for water in the heat of the day, and now I have spilled everything and muddied the hem of my garment. The secret will be mine no longer. She will learn of the ridicule that has caused me to abandon the well in the mornings."

Baara's new acquaintance spoke quickly, "Let me fill your jar from my master's water skins. I am a trusted servant and am in charge of many others. Perhaps with my help you can still return undetected."

As the woman hustled Baara into the courtyard and began to quickly fill the jar, she suggested that, if discovered, Baara tell her mistress she had gone in the heat of the day this once because she had accidentally allowed the jar to become empty. She also suggested Baara come for water in the mornings as soon as she finished her chores. She indicated that she would wait until Baara approached to go for water, because she would like to talk to someone who knew of Yahweh.

"My name is Serah. As you can see, I'm aptly named," she laughed, spreading her hands in front of her large girth. "My parents were right in naming me 'abundance.' The other slaves will not dare ridicule you if you are under my protection. Go now, before your mistress stirs. We can become better acquainted on the morrow."

Baara scurried down the street and into Naaman's home, but her haste was wasted. As she slipped inside the gate, she heard Maacah's voice raised in uncharacteristic anger.

"Why did you not tell me the child was venturing out while I slept?" Maacah's irate voice challenged. "You are in charge of the gate. You know the dangers that can lurk in the city for one so young and vulnerable. If anything has happened to the girl, you will be held personally responsible. You will lose the honored position you hold and return to labor with the lowest of the slaves."

Lowering her jar and squaring her shoulders, Baara dared to interrupt the tirade.

"Do not fault him, mistress," Baara said clearly as she approached. "He cannot be held responsible for a decision I made despite his warnings. I am afraid I used my position in your good graces to coerce him into allowing me to do as I pleased. If anyone is to be punished for my foolhardy actions, it must be me."

Turning to face her, Maacah said, "Baara go into my room and await me there." Turning back to the steward, Hegai, she continued, "I apologize for my shrewishness. The child is right. One should not be held accountable for the voluntary actions of another."

When Maacah quietly entered her chamber, she found Baara sitting on a bench along the wall, hands folded in her lap and head bowed as though in prayer. Maacah stood for a moment observing Baara and then cleared her throat as she slowly crossed the room to stand in front of the girl.

Raising her eyes to her mistress and jumping to her feet, Baara began to stammer an apology, but Maacah raised her hand peremptorily, causing Baara to halt in mid-sentence.

"Sit, child," Maacah commanded while continuing to stand over her. "I suppose as a mistress I have been remiss." Sitting on the edge of the dais beside Baara, she continued, "I have indulged you beyond the time it should have taken you to adjust to your new lot in life. I have purposefully given you no chores during the midday period, hoping the rest would help to restore your soul. I have not pressured you to adopt our gods, allowing you to pray to Yahweh, hoping the familiar would at least bring you comfort. You have long since ceased to cry out in your sleep, yet the dark smudges below your eyes grow daily. Rather than prospering as I had hoped, the disturbance of the soul seems to have grown. Rather than becoming the loyal servant and friend I thought, evidently you have chosen to rebel, leaving the quarters without permission several times each week while I rested. I suppose your activities would have gone undetected indefinitely had I not been afflicted with an extreme headache and sought you to try a massage. See to your chores and then go to your room. My head hurts too much to deal with your rebellion now. I will summons you later."

"Please, mistress Maacah," Baara began in an attempt to explain, but Maacah stood in dismissal.

"I have given you a command," Maacah interrupted. "Do not try my patience further. Go now before I say something we will both regret. Today you have lived up to your name, which can mean 'foolish.' Leave me now. We will deal with your foolishness later."

Baara left Maacah's room and retrieved the water jar she had abandoned near the gate. After placing the jar outside her mistress's chamber door, Baara went to the roof to work on the loom where she was weaving cloth from fine silk thread Naaman had brought his wife. Her loom was in a circle with several others tended by additional female slaves. The women wove all of the cloth to meet the household needs. Until today, Baara had been accompanied by Maacah, first to give instruction and then simply to sit with the women and talk. In her innocence, Baara had not realized Maacah's continued presence was mostly for her protection from the pettiness of the other women.

As she approached alone, the animated talk of the others died and they began to look knowingly from one to another. Ignoring the stares, Baara sat at her loom and took up her weaving where she had stopped the previous day.

Almost immediately one of the bolder slaves, who had been a ring leader in ridiculing Baara when she first came to the house, turned to the girl and noted, "I see little miss favorite is alone today. I guess the mistress sees through your act now. Your attempt to play on her tender sensibilities is exposed. I can't wait to see you, an Israelite who thinks you're better than the rest, out slopping the hogs. Can't you see her now, girls," she continued turning to the others, "dress torn and muddy, slipping tidbits from the hog slop into her pocket?"

As the others laughed at the picture, Baara's face colored but she made no retort, continuing to work at her loom.

"I see you have become a mute overnight," one of the others jeered. "Did all those pretentious screams in the night injure your voice?" she asked with a snide smile. "Perhaps you should try swooning at your loom. The mistress might think you ill and be guilted into restoring you to your private room in the family quarters. Surely you can think of some trickery, or should I say sorcery, to weave a spell over her."

Much to Baara's surprise, the female, Timna, an Amalakite slave who was in charge of the others, cut into the conversation, "Stop the torment now, lest you find yourself on the slave block. I do not know the girl's reasons for her actions, but she at least accepted responsibility and did not allow another to share in her blame. My husband Hegai might be out slopping the hogs now if it wasn't for her willingness to take responsibility for her own actions. Watch your tongues. You know I am in a position to have your services terminated. You have all heard stories of how many of the Armenians misuse their slaves. You are fortunate to be in the household of Naaman. Continue to ridicule the girl and you will jeopardize your place here."

After completing her speech, Timna turned and walked across the roof, not allowing an opportunity for Baara to thank her. The others lost their cockiness, looking from one to another in fear and fell silent. The weaving continued in an uncomfortable silence, until one by one the women slipped away to do other chores. When she was all alone, Baara finally stopped mechanically working her at her loom and rose to leave.

As she approached the stairs, Baara could see into the back courtyard that served as both a kitchen and domestic animal yard. It was ringed by the slave quarters, the single women in dorm-style rooms on the left and single men on the right, with families beyond the two. The far end served as a stable. As she descended, Baara saw Timna overseeing the two stone pitchers that served as ovens as the bread was baked for the evening meal. At the base of the stairs, she impulsively turned toward the back courtyard where much of the activity to keep the household running took place during the day.

Baara spent most of her days in the front of the home where the family rooms surrounded the courtyard used to entertain guests, and where the children played and Maacah reigned as the family matriarch. She only went into the back to get her mistress's meals, heat water if Maacah wished to bathe, and to accomplish other household duties for the sake of her mistress. Because she had been singled out to serve Maacah while other experienced slaves who had served the family for years continued to toil in the back and sleep in the slave quarters, Baara did not feel comfortable in the rear courtyard. She ventured there now because she wished to speak a word of thanks to Timna.

Seeing Baara approaching through the short hallway between the two sections of the home, Timna left her work to meet her. Timna knew the other women would be looking for an opportunity to make Baara look bad despite, or perhaps because of, her threat to them. She intercepted Baara, asking if she needed something for the mistress. Baara shook her head in denial. "I came to thank you for defending me this afternoon," she said.

"Do not think because I defended you, I desire to become a bosom friend," Timna answered. "I was merely returning a kindness. Your actions kept my husband and me from losing our positions here. I appreciate that. I hope your sojourn here will be fraught with less turmoil than it has to date, but for it to be so, you need to stay mostly in the family courtyard attending your mistress. I do not have time to play the protector daily. I have done my part. Now go in peace."

"Yes, Timna," Baara replied. "I did not want you to think your actions went unnoted and unappreciated. I will resume my usual habits unless my mistress directs me otherwise. Peace be with you."

With those words, Baara withdrew into the family courtyard and went to await the summons of her mistress. As dusk began to fall and she still had not been called, Baara ventured into the courtyard to see if perhaps her mistress was ready for the evening meal. Maacah did not always eat at the same time, and so Baara was accustomed to awaiting her direction before going for the meal.

In one corner of the courtyard, Baara could see the men lounging around the leather mat that served as table. Under the olive tree, the women and children sat around a similar table, but Maacah was not in the group. Baara approached the women who told her Maacah had requested she not be disturbed, as she was not feeling well. They suggested Baara eat with the other slaves in the rear courtyard. Baara thanked them and returned to her room, choosing to spend the idle time in fasting and prayer.

Falling to her knees beside the bench that doubled as a bed, Baara poured out her heart to Yahweh. She began with a Psalm she had learned at the knee of her mother.

"O, Lord, you are my rock, my fortress and my deliverer. My God, you are my strength, in whom I will trust, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I will call upon Yahweh who is worthy to be praised; so shall I be saved from mine enemies." (Psalm 18:2-3)

Then continuing in a personal vein, Baara talked with her God just as she would have talked to her father had he been alive.

"Yahweh, I am in trouble. I am in a strange land surrounded by mostly hostile people. I have offended the one who befriended me and offered hospitality. Although I no longer cry out in my sleep, my nights continue to be filled with terror as I flee over and over again from the men who took me captive. I am afraid to go to sleep and so fight sleep most nights. Rarely do I have a complete night's rest without being disturbed by nightmares. I have no earthly family left to give me comfort. You are all I have left, and sometimes I'm not even sure You hear my cries." She stopped and swiped a tear from her check. "Perhaps the sins of my father, for which you allowed him to be slain, are being visited upon me as I languish here in captivity. I cannot imagine what my loving father, the one who taught me of You, could have done to bring Your wrath upon him. I am afraid my mistress will now require me to begin to worship her gods. I need some sign from You that I have not been abandoned. I need Your strength for I have none of my own left. I echo great King David with my cry, 'Preserve me, oh God, for in You I put my trust. O my soul, say to the Lord, you are my Lord. My goodness is nothing apart from You.'" (Psalm 16:1-2)

As Baara prayed she sank from her knees until she was sitting beside the bench with her head face down on her folded arms. Tears fell unheeded down her cheeks. As she talked of her father, she recalled the stories of Job who was a righteous man and yet suffered. She felt in the depths of her soul that her father, too, was righteous and his death had not been a punishment for some unnamed sin. If her father had not displeased God and incurred His wrath, then perhaps there was hope for her as well.

Her words gradually ceased and she sat sobbing, dejected and alone. As she cried herself to sleep Baara repeated over and over in her mind, "Preserve me, oh God, for in You I put my trust. You are my strength. Save me from my enemies."