He returns from a major campaign, a triumphant hero. Imagine the scene: the people are ecstatic, overflowing with gratitude, crediting God for placing this leader among them. They wanted to know everything about his victory, the battle strategies, the turning points…
But Kenaz? He remains enigmatic.
He simply deflects, doesn’t he? "Ask those who were with me about my deeds," he says. A humble leader? Perhaps. Or perhaps, something more is going on.
Here’s where things get interesting. His men, the very soldiers who fought alongside him, are baffled. They admit they remember nothing! They woke up to a battlefield littered with the dead, utterly clueless as to how it happened. According to Ginzberg in Legends of the Jews, a layer of the miraculous seems to be at play here. (Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, 2)
Now, remember those thirty-seven guys Kenaz imprisoned before the war? The ones who dared to question his leadership, casting aspersions upon him? Kenaz confronts them. "Well," he asks, essentially, "what have you got to say now?"
Facing certain death, these men confess. They admit they were sinners, the very kind Kenaz and the people had previously executed. They believed God had surrendered them to Kenaz as punishment for their wicked deeds. And, in a final, grim act of justice, they too, were burnt with fire.
It's a stark, almost brutal ending, isn’t it? A cleansing fire that purges not just the battlefield, but also the doubts and dissent that threatened to undermine Kenaz’s authority.
So, what do we make of this story? Is Kenaz a divinely appointed leader, a warrior blessed with God's favor? Or is there a more earthly explanation for his victory, one that remains hidden beneath the surface?
Perhaps the true power of a leader lies not just in their strategic brilliance or military prowess, but in their ability to inspire belief, to embody the will of the people, and sometimes, to let the mystery speak for itself.