Jeremiah's Last Call

It is 580 BC. Jerusalem is a ruin and Judah's last king, Zedekiah, is blind and bound in chains in Babylon. The prophet Jeremiah is a prisoner of his own countrymen at Tahpanhes, an abandoned fortress on Egypt's eastern frontier. Jeremiah's fellow-captives include his friend and scribe, Baruch ben Neriah and King Zedekiah's orphaned daughters. While at Tahpanhes, Jeremiah receives a last prophecy that includes an assignment. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah saying
"Take some large stones in your hands and hide them in the mortar in the brick terrace which is at the entrance of Pharaoh's palace in Tahpanhes, in the sight of some of the Jews. (Jer 43:8-9)
Evidence exists that Jeremiah, though a very old man with no resources, somehow accomplished that task. Excavations conducted in 1886 by Flinders Petrie, an English Egyptologist, unearthed a platform of brickwork at a site in Eastern Egypt which Petrie identified as ancient Tahpanhes.
The location of Petrie's find was known to the locals as Qasr Bint al-Yahudi, the "Castle of the Jew's Daughter," an amazing bit of linguistic evidence supporting Petrie's claim to have found Jeremiah's last known home, as we know from the biblical record that "King Zedekiah's daughters" were among the remnant taken forcibly to Tahpanhes.
In Jeremiah's Last Call, after receiving the charge to take large stones in hand, Jeremiah persuades Baruch ben Neriah to enlist help then venture into the Nile delta to find suitable stones for the ordained project.
But the nearest rock quarry is an ancient, abandoned mound known as Red Hill, so-called after the characteristic color of the sandstone once mined there, which lay some 60 miles southwest of Tahpanhes near Egypt's ancient capital of Memphis and the site of modern Cairo.
Egypt's famed general Amasis, future Pharaoh Amasis II, heads to Tahpanhes bent on destroying it. How will Baruch deliver the stones to his prophet and thus fulfill his mission?

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