Elijah (14 page)

Jonadab pulled his legs to his chest and rested his head on his knees. A jackal howled its long wail. The tall, wiry nomad rose to his feet and, with his thumbs tucked into his wide belt, stared at the low, steady flame. Finally he turned toward his friend. “You cannot be successful in what you plan, Elijah. Either you will become the worst of ruffians or you will die a disillusioned and broken man.”

Elijah looked up at the tall nomad, and he spoke in a tone both agitated and intimate. “And you expect Israel to be saved from Baal because you heard sheep and chant the
Shema
in these hills?” Elijah chuckled. “Or would you have me stand on Mount Nebo and shout curses to MelKart?” He threw a clod into the fire, and sparks flew in protest.

“Do you not believe in the strength of example, Elijah? Can’t you see that those who really believe in Yahweh will join us? Better that a few protect the laws of Yahweh than that all men bow the knee to Baal. It is the will of God that we multiply and raise our children to obey the laws of Yahweh. The faithful of Israel will know of us and will join our tribe.”

“You pull a veil over your eyes, Jonadab. The cities of the plain and hills do not even know we exist. They know only our wool. We could live and die protecting God’s laws. What difference would that make to the rest of the world? No, my friend. You stay if you must. I cannot watch in peace while our people pray to their little baals and listen to the wind for answers.”

Jonadab grunted. “The choice is their affair.”

“No, Jonadab. It is my affair, too. Israel is my affair.” Elijah picked up his mantle and stood face to face with his friend. He stared imploringly at the tribal leader for a moment, then said softly, “Good-bye, Jonadab.”

“Wait, Elijah.” He spoke softly, pleading. “Elijah, you can teach us the ways of Yahweh. When you joined our camp my father was convinced that Yahweh had sent you. He taught you to read the Law and to think the ways of Yahweh in a manner I never could learn. You had insights. Yahweh speaks to you. We need you.” Jonadab placed a hand lightly on Elijah’s shoulder. “Stay with us, my friend.”

Elijah’s muscles grew tense under the feel of Jonadab’s hand. He spoke nervously, as though the words brought pain. “You truly have been a friend, Jonadab, and your father more than a teacher.” He paused. “I have learned much from Rechab, but Yahweh has spoken to me also. My heart has stirred for a long time for a duty I should someday perform. Who can say what the outcome of my life will be? All I know is that I must go.”

Elijah tenderly grasped the arms of his friend, squeezed them tightly, and without another word walked away.

At the top of the crest overlooking the circle of tents, Elijah looked back. Jonadab had gone to his tent. The dawn was new and a mist rose from the sparse pastureland to meet it. Through the haze Elijah watched the animals. Camels, Sheep, and cattle mingled together around the mass of black, square-rigged tents. Black sheep and dirty white ones, all with huge, fat tails, grazed contentedly in small groups. He hated to leave the traveling sanctuary. The Rechabites lived austere but happy lives, hidden from the world halfway between the Dead Sea on the west and the Great Desert on the east—the first hidden from their camp by a high rocky mountain ridge that once had known the trudging footsteps of the great Exodus, the latter by low, rolling plains.

The procession wound through the narrow streets of Aphek. Hundreds of villagers filed past Obadiah, following the woman. She carried a dummy dressed in women’s clothes and ornamented heavily with jewelry. Her chant told Obadiah what he had come to find out. The villagers did not know where Elijah was in hiding. The people chanted with the woman leader in monotonous tones:

O Mother of the Rain, O Immortal, moisten our sleeping seeds.

Moisten the sleeping seeds of Asherah, who is ever generous.

She is gone, the Mother of the Rain, to bring the storm.

When she comes back, the crops are as high as the walls.

She is gone, the Mother of the Rain, to bring the winds.

When she comes back, the vines have attained the height of houses.

She is gone, the Mother of the Rain, to bring the thunders.

When she comes back, the crops are as high as camels.

Obadiah watched the procession without dismounting. When the last of the throng passed by he remained unmoving until the chants could be heard only dimly from other streets out of sight.

He had seen the people resort to superstition often since Elijah pronounced Yahweh’s curse. In the drought people grasped at every childhood story and every dim belief that promised relief. The people of Aphek were desperate. Their River Kanah was only a trickling stream now, and one day soon it would be dry.

He had seen other villagers try to placate Asherah and beg her mercy. In their desperation they combined their old and tenacious beliefs in local baals with their new awareness of the Great Baals, Melkart, and Asherah.

In Socoh, near Samaria and toward the Great Sea, naked women pulled plows in the parched earth, believing their nakedness would entice the Goddess of Fertility to send rain. The villagers of Jokmeam, toward the Jordan, had sent all the virgins of the village into the seeded fields at dawn for the ritual of water pouring. The virgins poured water over their naked, fertile bodies in hope that the water would carry their fertility to the soil, to prime the soil to bring forth its yield again—in hopes, too, that Asherah would understand their need for rain. The people of Hazor recalled an old belief that if the bodies of lepers were not burned the rain god would be angry, so they dug up the bones from every leper’s grave they knew of and burned the remains, amid screams and chants for Asherah’s mercy.

Throughout the farmlands of Israel, Obadiah had seen bits of dried dung hanging from the branches of carob trees, in the belief that any slight breeze would move the dung to call their needs to the attention of the gods of the wind and rain. Occasionally he had seen a frog or large black beetle hanging from a limb, put there by farmers in the belief that the struggles of the animal or insect would create a tiny stir of breeze to remind Asherah that she forgot to send the rain by the wings of the wind.

In a low, tired voice the governor told the captain to turn the contingent of troops and begin their return journey.

They left the village gates and started moving up the sloping hills toward the east. Obadiah rode at the head of the column with the captain, but the captain left him to his thoughts.

The captain was a Melkart man, but he was puzzled that Elijah, in the name of a god so much weaker than Baal, could control the rain this long. Why had not Jezebel’s priests and prophets been able to bring rain? There were so many of them to counteract the curse of the prophet. But the captain’s nagging doubts would not divert him from Melkart. Had not Melkart conquered more nations than Yahweh? Had not even the king of Syria acknowledged Melkart as his God?

Obadiah was troubled at the superstitions of the people, but he was even more concerned about how the famine attacked their morality. Many of them openly engaged in orgies in their fields and in sacred groves of trees, hoping to bring fertility back to the land by paying such homage to Asherah, hoping that the act of procreation in their own fields would entice new growth from the barren land. He could not but believe that the religious significance became an excuse for further indulgence, desperation forgotten momentarily in passion.

Upon his arrival in Samaria Obadiah informed Ahab of the village scene.

“And you deduce from the procession that the villagers do not know where Elijah hides?”

“If they were faithful enough to Elijah to hide or protect him, they would not perform an ancient rain goddess ritual. Indeed, they would be your ally in seeking Elijah.”

“Yes, of course.” Ahab sat thoughtfully, his hands clasped in his lap. He did not beckon Obadiah to sit, and the governor stood patiently. Finally, the king spoke. “According to your reports, Obadiah, you had had Israel searched thoroughly for the hairy one. Where have you not looked?”

“Searchers have been in every village, town, and city in Israel, and the countryside has been searched. I have sent cadres into the Bedouin areas across the Jordan, but there are wildernesses that are impossible to search, though reports satisfy me that the captains made extensive effort. Tribesmen and villagers alike know of the search and they, too, pray for an end to the drought, but no information has come from any of them.”

“Perhaps he is not in Israel.”

“That is possible.”

“Draw up papers to be sent to the kings of Sidon, Moab, Syria, Edom, Midian, Ammon, Judah, and the leaders of the Philistines. Solicit the aid of each king to find Elijah. They know the drought, too, and will be anxious to help. Elijah especially must have many friends in Judah. Give special attention to the draft to King Jehoshaphat. Send the papers by teams of runners. Tend to the matter immediately.”

“Yes, King Ahab. I shall do it promptly.”

As Obadiah left the throne room for his own quarters he had the feeling that he was only going through the motions, his body functioning apart from his mind. The search effort was wasted, he was certain, on a prophet so obviously protected by Yahweh, but Ahab must not develop doubts about his governor. The prophets hidden in the limestone caves below the city had not been found, and they must be kept safe against that day when Elijah might be successful, and Yahweh again become the God of his people.

Miriam heard the door and watched Rejab enter. Neither greeted the other. Rejab sank his heavy weight onto a stool and leaned tiredly against the wall. She walked to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, looking down at him with eyes that wanted to ask but feared the answer. Slowly, he raised an arm across his chest and covered her hand in his. Still he did not look up.