Elijah (21 page)

The chatter ceased as each man took his place, anxious to hear the new idea. Abinadab quickly called for Machir to speak.

“
Thank you, Abinadab, for your wonderful party, and for allowing this interruption.” He glanced from eye to eye. “My idea is simple, but effective, I believe. For all of Israel’s history, farmers have observed the laws of gleaning. Never have we reaped the corners of our fields, nor have we retrieved the grain that was dropped, nor have we picked the olives and grapes the second time. All of this produce was left for the poor, that they might have food to eat.”

He paused. His listeners were uneasy, he noticed, and they would respond cautiously to what appeared a call to break an old law that had been so assiduously honored.

“
Now,” he continued, being careful not to force confidence into his voice, “we are in the midst of a drought. Not only the poor but the average farmer and worker as well secures his food with difficulty. We who know better how to stretch the produce.” He was interrupted with laughter. “We who know better how to stretch the produce must take the initiative for the good of all Israel.”

Dekar shifted his weight, not trying to hide the worried look on his face. “You’re speaking of breaking an ancient law of Israel, Machir. You put me in an awkward position.”

“
Let me finish, friend Dekar,” Machir insisted. “Your part in the plan will be honorable.”

Dekar gestured for him to continue.

“
Elijah is a great and powerful prophet. He said there will be no rain and no dew until he pronounces Yahweh’s word that the drought is ended. Perhaps Ahab will find him soon. Personally, I think not. Perhaps Baal is stronger than Yahweh, but Baal has not yet broken Yahweh’s drought. We will be wise to assume that the drought will continue.

“
We have been able to plant only near the streams that still flow. We will have little grain. The lentils will be like the grain. The olive roots and grape roots will find some water, but those crops will be slim. We must make the best use of what we have, and even at that we will have to buy food from Egypt.

“I propose,” he continued, “that all of us reap every head of grain we can, that we send slaves behind the reapers to glean the fields, that we reap the corners, that we pluck every grape from every vine and every olive from every tree. This policy will accomplish two goals. We’ll control the supply so that it will be distributed most wisely. Further, because there will be no gleaning for the poor to eat, they will give themselves to us to be our slaves.”

“Machir,” Dekar interrupted, “I cannot allow such disregard for the laws of Israel.”

Machir held up his hands for silence. “Dekar, the poor will starve if the drought continues, and it will continue. We will show compassion if we make them our slaves, for a master is obligated by law to furnish food for his slaves. Many will live who otherwise would die. Should we not break the laws that some may live? Should we not put aside the law to show mercy?”

A chorus of approval greeted Machir’s argument, no one caring to test the shallowness of the solution.

“And of course you will release them from slavery in the Sabbatic Year,” Dekar said, “and return the land to them or their families.”

“Of course,” Machir smiled, “according to the laws of Israel. Naturally, if a slave marries during the time, his wife and children are not to be released. That is the law, is it not?”

“Yes,” Dekar said softly. He looked at the other men to study their reactions. Abinadab nodded. At his cue, the other men nodded their agreements.

Abinadab took charge. “Then it is done. To show mercy to the poor, and to provide the best distribution of the available supply of food, we shall reap cleanly and thoroughly. Now, back to the party.” He clapped his hands loudly and the doors swung open. The eight men rose from their couches and made their way to the banquet table.

“Abinadab,” Beriah complimented, “you set a table fit for a king.” The men took their places, and the parade of food began.

Chapter Eleven

The woman was in the center of the room standing on the stretched out and disheveled sleeping pads when Elijah entered. Her son’s ashen face lay still on her shoulder, his arms limp to his sides. She held him stoically, her arms locked under his buttocks.

“Bosheth is dead.”

Elijah started to move toward the boy.

“Go away.” The woman’s voice was low and distant, as though the words were spoken from another part of the room.

“Let me look at the boy.”

“No. Go away.” The woman turned her back. The boy’s mouth was open against the mother’s shoulder. His closed eyelids were almost white, his lips dark. The woman was crying now. “What do I have to do with you, prophet of Yahweh?” she accused through her choking voice. “Have you come into my house to call your God’s attention to my past sins? Are you here to call Yahweh’s attention to me? Is this your God’s punishment for the bad things I have done, to take my son’s life? Is this really why you came to my house?”

Elijah quietly made his way to her. “Give me the boy.”

The woman did not answer. Her shoulders were shaking now, though tears would not come. The prophet grasped the boy under the arms and pulled him from the mother. She did not resist, nor did she watch him as he went toward the door.

Outside, he climbed the stairs to the flat roof and made his way quickly to his loft. His own face was strained as he laid the boy on the bed.

He knelt beside the still body and looked up. He began to pray. “Oh, Yahweh Elohim, my God,” he began, “have you brought even more grief to add to this woman’s burdens, this woman who gave me, your prophet, a place to stay? Are you taking her son? Is this your will?”

Elijah felt a moving in his body, as though a wind blew deep in his bowels. He looked at the still body before him. The color in the boy’s lips was darkening, the limp body becoming colder. With careful precision, he stretched the boy’s arms straight out and up from his shoulders, then spread the boy’s legs.

The prophet spread himself on top of the boy, his legs on the boy’s legs, his arms on the boy’s arms. His stomach and chest pressed against those of the boy, and he placed his mouth over the boy’s mouth. He began to force his breath into the boy, breathing rhythmically, slowly and deeply, his chest and stomach forcing the movement of the boy’s chest and stomach in sequence to his breathing.

After a few moments he moved away from the boy. The color in his face looked better, but the boy still did not breathe. “Oh, Yahweh Elohim, my God,” Elijah called out loud, “let this boy’s breathing soul come into him again.”

The prophet placed himself again on the boy as before. Again he forced breath into the boy’s lungs. Silently, he prayed that life would pass from his own organs to those of the boy, from his heart to the boy’s heart, from his lungs to the boy’s lungs.

Again he rose to look at the boy. Still he did not breathe. Elijah repeated his prayer aloud and again spread himself on the boy. This time he did not rise to measure his progress. He breathed long, carefully, deeply, forcing air into the boy, praying silently to Yahweh, willing with all his mind that his own life forces would pass from his body into the boy’s.

He felt a movement under him, and quickly he rolled to the floor. The boy gasped, and his chest arched ever so slightly as wind moved into his throat. As Elijah watched, the breathing became less labored. The boy opened his eyes. They held a look of surprise, as though the boy awoke from a nightmare. He looked at Elijah with apparent difficulty.

“We almost lost you,” the prophet said.

The boy smiled feebly. Elijah picked him up and carried him to the roof. Bosheth did not speak, but he raised one arm weakly to place it around the prophet’s neck.

The woman was lying on the pads when Elijah entered. She did not look up. He walked to her. “Bosheth is alive,” he said. “Look and see.”

The woman turned slowly, unbelieving, and looked up. “Bosheth?” she whispered cautiously.

The boy’s voice was weak, but the mother heard him clearly. She whirled to a sitting position and held out her arms. Elijah laid her son against her bosom. She kissed his forehead and clutched him tightly.

“The boy needs fresh air. This summer heat will not aid his recovery. I will take him to my loft and leave the door open to catch the breeze from the sea.” Elijah took the boy again from the woman.

The mother followed him as he climbed to the roof and laid the boy on the bed. She looked long at her son, whose skin fast was regaining its color, then turned to Elijah. “There is no doubt in my mind at all now. Bosheth’s recovery can only mean that you are a man of God, and that the word of
the
God, Yahweh, is spoken by you.”

Elijah turned to leave the woman and her son alone. He had not wept in a long time, but he had to clench his teeth hard to fight back the tears
. Is it possible,
he thought,
that if a Gentile woman will believe in Yahweh, Israel also might believe again?

The summer months passed hot even on the coast of the Great Sea. Elijah and the boy slept on the flat roof and left the upper chamber to the woman, so all three could feel the breeze, however slight, from the sea.

As severe as was the famine in Phoenicia, it was not so hard as in Israel. The Tyrian cloth, dyed from the Murex shellfish in shades of crimson and purple and delicate blue, provided a means of trade. The seagoing nation was able to buy its food from Africa and Asia Minor. Indeed, Tyre even resold food to those in Israel who could pay the price.

It was because of the commerce that Elijah heard news from Israel. No rain had fallen since his pronouncement to Ahab almost a year and a half ago. Nor had the heavy dew come, the dew carried into Israel on the wings of the Great Sea to touch the chill shoulder of Mount Hermon and fall heavy to cover the land, the dew that rises with the morning sun in a mist as heavy as a fog.

But the people were not turning to Yahweh. Even more, they prayed and sacrificed and copulated and paid levies to Baal.
Even so,
Elijah thought again and again,
if a Gentile woman will believe in Yahweh, is it possible that Israel might again believe?

They talked a lot, Elijah, the woman, and Bosheth. The woman was mystified that Israel would serve any other God but Yahweh, and the more so as she heard from Elijah the stories of Israel. He told her of Moses and the plagues that struck the Egyptian taskmasters. He told her of the crossing of the Red Sea, of the manna that fell from the sky to feed the wandering people of the wilderness, of the thundering voice of Yahweh from a smoking Mount Sinai, of the conquering of the land.

Was it not time, she asked the prophet, for Yahweh to send another sign, another miracle to prove his strength?

Yes, it was time. Elijah was convinced of that. But what was the sign to be? He prayed about it. When the coolness of the winter came and the woman and son moved back to the lower room, the prophet spent long periods in the upper chamber thinking, praying, about the end of the drought and the sign of Yahweh.

It was a chance remark by Bosheth, a reminiscence, that gave the answer. The boy mentioned Mount Carmel to his mother. Had she not gone there to thank Baal for a boychild? The woman was embarrassed, but, yes, she had gone, before she knew of Yahweh.

Mount Carmel. The ancient mountain that jutted out into the Great Sea like an aggressive guard that dared test the deep mystery of the waters, the god of the land in battle against the god of the waters. A sentinel home of the rival gods since long before Israel’s conquest of Canaan, that mountain always had antagonized the prophet of Yahweh.
Even now,
Elijah thought,
Yahweh’s shrine lies broken while Israelites worship at the squared-stone shrines of Melkart and Asherah.

What better battleground of the Gods? Looking over the Great Sea, at its right hand the fertile Valley of Jezreel, at its left the fertile Plain of Sharon, its spine pointing to the fertile Jordan, it was a fit place for Yahweh Elohim, the God of Israel, to put to flight the false Gods of Power and Fertility. But it must be a decisive battle. No doubt must remain among the people as to which God is real.

The winter passed slowly with its dry cold. The people talked in the marketplace of the strangeness of Lebanon whose brown ribs showed hard where usually they glistened white against the winter sun. They talked, too, in the marketplace of Israel, the land mysteriously cursed by Asherah, more angry at that nation of Yahweh than at them. The caravans of food merchants no longer went into that drier land without contingents of armed soldiers, for the growing numbers of bandits ambushed every caravan and stole every unprotected morsel.

There was no gleaning any more for the poor in Israel, and the famine was so long that the wealthy men no longer could accept slaves, hardpressed as they were to provide for those they already owned. The returning caravaneers talked of beggars by the way, who sometimes threw themselves into their paths in desperation. But the caravans dared not stop, and the soldiers drove their horses through the plaintive cries. Both poor and wealthy foraged or sent slaves to forage the land for food. Every cache of honey was sought out, every carob tree was stripped of its pods, locusts were caught and placed in jars, fowl were hunted by those who could hunt, and wild boar were chased dangerously into the wild marshes and tangled bush.