Elijah (34 page)

Elijah knew the city best for its school of prophets. He wondered if any of them had escaped into Judah, and if they had returned. He made his way to the marketplace.

Some of the stalls already had closed; other small merchants loaded their merchandise onto their donkeys while larger merchants pulled their produce and wares inside their stalls to lock them away for the night. Elijah was shrugged off by one merchant who said he knew nothing of a school of prophets. Another merchant heard that the school had been established again, but the prophets moved around in fear of further persecution. No merchant knew where they were now. Finally, a Yahwist offered the prophet lodging for the night.

The host was kind. His wife gave Elijah some salve for his cracked lips, which greatly relieved the pain, and she provided a soft mattress for the night. The rare dinner of meat, served as an honor to the celebrated prophet, was a proclamation to Elijah that he was back in civilization. The sleep was good, and after a breakfast of dates, berries, and wine, he left Jericho in high spirits.

Neither the host nor his wife knew much about the return of Yahweh’s prophets. The woman had heard talk that Macaiah had escaped Jezebel’s slaughter, but she knew no one who actually had seen him. Perhaps, she ventured, he secretly sought to locate and organize the prophets who survived. Surely Jezebel could not find every prophet of Yahweh. There were too many of them and too many caves in the wilderness.

Elijah raised the waterpouch and caught its stream in his mouth. Yahweh said seven thousand persons had not bent the knee to Baal. He had met two of them.

The road to Abel-meholah ran over barren land. The occasional run of tangled bushes fortunately was kept trimmed away from the road by command of the king, but still the road was not traveled as heavily as the better watered one east of the river. The lack of growth added a glare to the oppressive heat and accented the monotony of the trip. The prophet was force to his thoughts.

God would speak to men with a gentle voice. Yet Yahweh would cause Hazael and Jehu and Elisha to slay the Baal worshipers. Elijah knew that the three men would not necessarily wield the swords of execution themselves, but they would be as much the agents of slaughter as he himself had been on Carmel. Was his own slaughter of Baal prophets a mistake? The lesson at Mount Horeb made it seem so. Yet did not Yahweh commit himself to the same course of action? Perhaps there was a point at which God’s gentleness turned to vengeance. Yes, perhaps that was the answer. God speaks gently until the mind grows so calloused that it will not respond to truth, so warped that it becomes one with evil, so inextricably tangled with delusion that it renders justice impossible. Then God must cut out the diseased tissue.

The burden of the problem shifted.
What man can make that judgment?
He thought.
Who can decipher the love and anger of Yahweh? Who but God himself can tell when men are beyond repentance?

Elijah shuddered. The sword was so much easier an answer than gentleness, so much more in tune with the vengeance men would wreak on their adversaries, or on God’s. In the end, he determined that the man of God must make gentleness, not indignation, his stock in trade, and must be a prophet of judgment only at the overwhelming insistence of God. He knew fear then, for he knew himself.

The sun set an hour before Elijah reached Abel-meholah. By the time he arrived at Shaphat’s door, the night was settled well in the valley. Shaphat’s broad smile and Deborah’s meal restored the prophet’s tired spirit. Elisha came in later from his social meeting with some friends in the city. His hair remained long; he had not given up his Nazirite vow.

Elijah’s lips still were puffed and sore, and his back ached from the long day’s walk. The family postponed their questions and allowed him to retire early.

Deborah heard Elijah come downstairs the next morning and greet the men. She removed the top from the cone-shaped mud oven and reached inside carefully to remove the breadcakes from where she had stuck them on the hot side. She laid them on a platter and went inside. Elijah greeted her with a kiss on the cheek. Shaphat and Elisha already had engaged him in conversation, but the three men moved to the stools around the table while Deborah served the cakes and honey, figs, raisins, wine, and—for the Nazirite Elisha—slightly soured goat’s milk.

The young man interrupted the conversation to ask Elijah about his pilgrimage. Elijah told about the bleakness of the Tih and the hard wildness of Mount Horeb. Shaphat listened with great interest, while Elisha became more impatient for the prophet to describe his spiritual journey.

“Did Yahweh speak to you?” he finally asked point-blank.

Elijah paused and dipped his breadcake into the bowl of honey. He ate slowly, thinking over his response, while the men waited in anticipation. Deborah stood by the table, her arms clasped above her waist. “Yes,” he finally answered. “Yahweh spoke to me.” He paused again. “His words were not as before. I do not understand their meaning fully.”

“What did Yahweh say?” Elisha blurted.

The prophet shifted on his stool. He told them, with some reluctance, of the wind, the earthquake, the fire, and the gentle, soft voice of God in the wind. He did not reveal his new instructions.

Shaphat broke the silence that followed. “What does it mean? Is this a new revelation?”

“It is a new revelation,” Elijah answered. “I have wrestled with the meaning. I believe I understand Yahweh’s instruction, but I do not know yet how to live by it.”

“Do you not live by it simply by obeying?” Elisha countered. “What does a prophet do but obey?”

Elijah smiled at the young man’s innocence. “Surely,” he said, “that is true. But a way of life is hard to change. Even a prophet is bound in what he does by how the people think, and by how he has thought before. Will the people listen to a gentle voice when they are used to loudness?” He sighed “Every man is bound to his time. He can think above the people only to a small degree. He is one with them. His thinking will follow their response. Surely Yahweh’s way is to speak gently to men’s hearts. But what if they do not listen? How will Yahweh speak then? What will a prophet do then?”

“I still say a prophet simply will obey,” Elisha persisted.

“And does Yahweh speak to a prophet as though time does not exist? As though people are not what they are? No my young friend, the lesson is great, but it is not simple.” Elijah’s words were spoken with finality, to end the conversation. “Now,” he continued, “tell me of events. I have heard that Macaiah may yet be alive.”

Shephat answered. “We have heard that, too. No one in Abel-meholah has seen him, though. Perhaps Obadiah helped him escape.”

“And what about Jezebel?”

“Ahab must have stayed the queen’s murderous hand,” Shaphat continued. “We were fearful for Elisha’s life. He hid in the wadis for a while, but no soldiers ever came to search him out. He lives openly now. Perhaps the danger is past.”

“Then the miracle on Mount Carmel did some good,” Elijah said softly.

“Yes. It did some good.”

Elisha interrupted his father. “Elijah, people still talk of the mighty act. Some of the people do not sacrifice to Baal anymore. Jezebel finds it difficult to entice new priests from Phoenicia. They are afraid to come to Israel.” His tone became glum. “But the temples to Melkart and Asherah still stand. My vow is not complete.”

Deborah, silent until now, broke into the conversation. “Shaphat, tell Elijah about Naboth.”

Shaphat’s smile disappeared. He leaned on the table toward the prophet. “Elijah, a tragedy occurred in Jezreel just yesterday.” He told of Ahab’s desire for his neighbor’s vineyard and of the trumped-up charge against Naboth. “His sons and his wife were killed, too. It was Jezebel’s doing, surely. Ahab never would flout the law of Israel so openly.”

“But he allowed her to do it,” Elisha shouted. “He is as guilty of Naboth’s blood as Jezebel. His greed was stronger than the Israelite blood that flows in his veins.”

Elijah stared blankly as the conversation continued. He rose while Shaphat was in the middle of a sentence. “I must go to Jezreel,” he said.

The men grew silent.

“I must go.” He turned to the wife. “Thank you, Deborah, for everything. I would stay longer, but Yahweh calls me to Jezreel.”

“Let me go with you,” Elisha asked.

“I go alone.”

“I still want to be your servant.”

Elijah turned to him. “No, I go alone. I will come back to you later.” He took his mantle and girdle from the chair where he had draped them the night before. Deborah already was filling his waterpouch and gathering nuts and breadcakes to put into his foodpouch. She handed them to him at the door.

Elijah ran the distance to Bethshean, nine miles up the valley from Abel-meholah, then he turned west up the wide Jezreel valley and settled into a fast walk. Jezreel was another thirteen miles. He arrived at the city three hours later. The palace was on its west side, with Naboth’s vineyard below it on the slope toward the Great Sea.

Elijah arrived at the vineyard shortly after the hour of the noon meal. He could see Ahab walking up and down the rows, the custom for laying claim to land. He approached quietly, at the king’s back, and waited for Ahab to turn toward him.

The blood drained from Ahab’s face when he saw the prophet. The two men stared at each other, Elijah with a terrifying look of judgment in his eyes, his clothes sweaty from his hurried journey, his hair matted and in disarray. The king’s face was blank, waiting.

The prophet raised his arm to point a finger toward Ahab. “So you have killed your man,” he said sternly, “and now you walk his land to take possession.”

Ahab, already conscience-stricken, answered in a low voice, “Have you found me out, my enemy?”

Elijah’s tone did not soften. “I have found you out.” His voice lowered but did not lose its hardness. The words, spoken evenly, without shouting, pierced Ahab’s ears with their curse.”You have sold your soul, Ahab, king of Israel, to do what is wrong in the eyes of Yahweh. By the word of God, I tell you that Yahweh will bring disaster on you. He will sweep you away and destroy every son of every mother in Israel who is of the house of Ahab, no matter how they are protected. Yahweh will deal with your family as he did with the families of Jeroboam and Baasha. You are guilty beyond measure of leading Israel into sin. You have provoked Yahweh’s anger by your actions and you will pay for your sin.” The prophet gestured toward the palace. He gritted his teeth. “Jezebel will be eaten by dogs by the walls of Jezreel.” He pointed to Ahab again. “Those of your house who die in the city will be left unburied as food for the dogs, and those who die in the country shall be left unburied as food for the birds.”

Ahab’s face drained. The prophet turned to leave the field. The king stared after him until Elijah was out of sight. He raised his trembling hands to his face. “My God,” he said, “what have I done?” Tears welled into his eyes and spilled through his fingers onto his purple robe. He sank to his knees and raised his bearish head toward the sky. “My God, what have I done?” he shouted. He bent over and tore handfuls of dirt from the earth, throwing the red soil onto his head and shoulders. His voice carried over the field to the palace, screaming again in anguish, “My God! Yahweh! What have I done!” The guilt boiled from his bowels to flow through his body. He lay prone on the earth, beating the land with his fists, ripping up the earth to throw it over his body and into his hair until exhaustion drained all his remaining tears. He rose slowly. Tear-formed mud caked his cheeks and neck. The red soil appeared as blood against the purple of his robe. Hair from his beard stuck under his fingernails. He looked toward the palace. “Damn you, Jezebel,” he shouted. He slapped at a growing vine with his soiled hand. “Damn you,” he screamed. “Damn you, Jezebel! Damn you! Damn you! Damn you!”

Chapter Seventeen

Elijah cupped his hands to his mouth. “Macaiah!” There was no answer. He moved east below the ridge of the hill, not knowing exactly where the cave was, pausing occasionally to repeat his call to the prophet. Macaiah watched Elijah cautiously from behind a bush-covered formation of large rock. Not until the hairy prophet was near enough that Macaiah could see his features clearly did he step out into Elijah’s path. He called the name with surprise, “Elijah?”

The two men faced each other, smiling broadly, before they embraced. “How did you find me, my brother?” Macaiah asked.

“By accident,” Elijah responded. “By a happy accident. I passed through Engannim on my way from Jezreel. A priest there told me you were hiding in this hill. He did not know where your cave was located, though. Did my shouting frighten you?”

“I have long been beyond fright,” Macaiah answered, “but not beyond caution.” He laughed and slapped Elijah’s shoulder. “But the danger must be over if you travel so boldly in daylight.”

“Perhaps.” Elijah smiled. “Perhaps. But the battle is not done.”

Macaiah shook his head soberly. “No, the battle is not done.” He caught Elijah’s arm. “Come. Let’s go to my cave where it is cooler. We can talk there.”

The two prophets moved down the slope for a short distance. Macaiah led the way behind a small myrtle bush that only partly hid the cave entrance. The men had to squat to enter the low, wide opening. They sat near the mouth of the cave to wait until their eyes became accustomed to the darkness. Macaiah offered his waterpouch to Elijah, who shook his head and pointed to his own. “But this is wine,” Macaiah said. Elijah smiled and reached for it.