Elijah (38 page)

Jehu bowed with practiced reverence. “My lord, king of Israel.” The words came smoothly, with no trace of his turmoil. He rose and stepped back to his place to watch the continuing parade of high officials bow to the newly-appointed king.

Ahaziah looked as much like Jezebel as he acted. He was almost as short as the Queen Mother but had allowed his body to become fleshy. He was not yet fat, but his skin was soft and slightly puffy. He wore a closely-trimmed mustache and goatee, shaved under the lip to form an oval around his mouth. He sported the king’s signet ring on his right hand, and on his left was a large emerald next to a wide gold band on his small finger.

The inaugural feast was a vexing affair, but Ahaziah did not notice. His personal enjoyment was immense, while his court officials feigned joy in his presence and frustration when by themselves.

He was not popular. Even Obadiah, Jehu noticed, bowed a bit stiffly. The new king looked on the every-growing reform movement with disdain while he continued to indulge himself in the excesses of Baal. He was as fanatical as his mother, yet he had little of her discipline. Jehu could not imagine that his rule could be constructive. His talent lay in commerce, while tension with Ben-hadad and the rising power of Assyria called for a man of war. The leaders did not trust his competence, while the Yahweh prophets spoke sternly against his allegiance to the Baals. Ahaziah showed little concern that the people did not support him.

After a flurry of effort, Ahaziah lost his enthusiasm and settled into the social routine of the court. Jezebel stepped into the vacuum, careful to work consistently through her son.

With a rich treasury at his command the king gave himself more and more to parties, letting matters take their course around him. Obadiah found it necessary to walk a narrow line between offending Ahaziah and maintaining fiscal responsibility. Jehu had less trouble, for the king cared little for military matters. The commander used the chance to build the army in his favor, toward the day when, possibly, the king might have to be dealt with for the sake of the nation.

It was at one of the court parties in Samaria that Ahaziah’s reign of only a few months came to its end. He and some young companions left the main banquet room to take some dancing girls to private chambers upstairs. All of them were drunk. Laughing and joking, they shoved one another along the corridor toward the rooms. One of the girls stumbled. Gallantly but drunkenly Ahaziah tried to catch her. In his stumbling haste he crashed into a lattice wall that ran the length of the corridor. With a soft crunching sound, the thin wood gave way. Ahaziah grabbed at the framing, but it was as flimsy as the lattice itself. Clutching a broken piece of wood and screaming, he fell eighteen feet and landed on his side across a high stone curb that encircled a small garden.

His companions scurried down the steps to his aid, while the screams of the dancing girls brought the palace to life. When sober help arrived, Ahaziah’s drunk friends already were carrying him by his arms and legs upstairs toward his room. A thin line of blood ran from the corners of his mouth. One side of his clothing was wet with blood.

The attendants took charge quickly. They placed him in his bed and stripped him. His side was badly skinned and abraded, but it was not pierced. He regained consciousness, groaning and crying out in his pain. The doctors cleaned the wound and bandaged the abrasion, but his throat continued to fill with blood. They propped him with pillows into a sitting position to keep him from choking and put a container by his bed for him to spit into.

The pain worsened. By the next day the abrasion was a deep purple-black. Ahaziah asked the doctors for their opinions. They could not hide the seriousness of the injury. Jezebel, by his bedside throughout the ordeal, asked his permission to send the doctors and attendants from the room.

The Queen Mother sat on the edge of the thickly-pillowed bed, careful to avoid aggravating his pain. “My son and king,” she said gently, “the gods can do wonders when doctors are helpless. I implore you to call on Baal to heal you.”

Ahaziah coughed into the container and leaned back on his pillows. He shut his eyes against the pain and nausea that dominated his midsection. “Tell me the baal that is best,” he said.

“Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron of Philistia,” she answered. “As God of Flies he can banish disease and injury.”

The king, in a moment of desperate probing, responded, “My father put Yahweh’s name in mine. Perhaps it is Yahweh that I should seek now.”

Jezebel took his hand.
He always was a weak son
, she thought. “No, my king. Your father called you ‘Yahweh Possesses’ before he learned of Melkart’s strength. He himself would call on the god who specializes in healing.”

“Very well,” Ahaziah grimaced as he spoke. “Call the attendants.”

The men arranged quickly for the trip. Ekron was fifty miles to the south, a very long and fast day’s journey. They could not return in less than three days. In lightweight leather chariots, one man to a chariot and each carrying his own provisions, the attendants raced through the gates, circled the wall, and doubled back toward the west for ten miles to catch the north-south Way of the Sea.

Elijah was at Gilgal when word came of the king’s accident.

“It is of God,” Macaiah said promptly.

Elijah picked up his mantle and pouches, fastened his leather girdle around his waist, and turned toward the door. He moved more slowly now. The weathered skin was aged, but his body still was vigorous and well-muscled.

Elisha grabbed his belongings and ran after him, his two pouches swinging from one hand, his girdle from the other, his mantle across his shoulder. He fell into step with his master.

The two men walked north in silence for a short distance, then turned west on the Joppa road.

“Ahaziah serves Baal,” Elijah explained. “If he is true to form he will send messengers to inquire from Baal-zebub whether he will recover. We will intercept the messengers.”

The prophets walked rapidly, running when they could. By early afternoon they came to the marketplace of Aphek-on-the-plain. They learned from the villagers that no royal messengers had passed through. The two men started north toward Samaria from the city. After three miles, at a rise in the road, they sat down to wait.

Within an hour the chariots came into sight, their wheels and horses’ hooves trailing a long trail of dust. Elijah waited by the roadside until they were near enough to see him. They slowed a short distance away, eyeing him curiously in his prophet’s garb. He stepped into their path and held up his hand. Elisha stood silent beside his master.

The drivers reined up their teams. The leader tied his lines to the chariot, dismounted, and asked cautiously, “Whose prophet are you?”

Elisha glared at the man. It was incredible that Elijah was known throughout Israel but not in the king’s court.

Elijah answered sternly. “I am a prophet of Yahweh.”

“You have reason to stop us?”

“I judge that you go to Ekron to inquire from Baal-zebub whether the king shall live or die.”

The man looked back at his companions, surprised at the prophet’s accuracy.

“I will tell you the answer to your inquiry,” Elijah continued, catching their answer in the silence. His voice rose in force. “Go back now to Ahaziah and tell him that his choice of gods was a choice between life and death. Why should he send messengers to Ekron to inquire of Baal-zebub? Is Yahweh too weak to heal?”

Elijah look hard into the leader’s eyes and stretched his arm north toward Samaria. “Tell Ahaziah this word from Yahweh: ‘Is there no God in Israel that you must send to Baal-zebub for an answer? Because you call on the baals rather than on Yahweh for help, you will not rise from your bed. You will die.”

The messengers looked at one another. One of them ventured nervously, knowing he was out of line to advise the leader, “We should obey the king and proceed.”

“Yahweh is God in Israel,” the leader responded, inwardly pleased to be rid of Ahaziah. “We have our answer.”

He remounted the chariot and pulled hard on the right rein, flicking his whip simultaneously to turn the horse in a short arc. The other men followed suit. The prophets watched them break into a gallop and disappear in clouds of dust.

Chapter Nineteen

Ahaziah angrily received the messengers as soon as they returned, concerned at the quickness of their trip.

“We were met in the road above Aphek by a prophet of Yahweh,” the spokesman reported. He fidgeted nervously, but continued. “Forgive me, my king.”

“Speak quickly,” Ahaziah snapped.

“The prophet gave us this word to you from Yahweh: ‘Is there no God in Israel that you go to inquire of Baal-zebub? Because you did not seek Yahweh but rather the baal, you will not rise from your bed. You will die.”

Ahaziah struggled to maintain his dignity. “What did the prophet look like? Describe him to me.”

The messenger swallowed. “He was a stout man,” he answered, “fairly old, and his body was covered with hair.”

Coughing, Ahaziah waved the men out, then turned to the doctor. “Get the Queen Mother,” he ordered.

Jezebel came quickly, already dressed in case her son’s condition became worse. She noticed Ahaziah’s drawn face and nodded for the doctor to leave them alone.

Ahaziah spoke loudly through his pain. “It’s Elijah again,” he blurted. “He says I will die.”

Jezebel, not having seen the prophet for several years, was caught by surprise. She paled. Seeing the change in his mother, Ahaziah began to weep, coughing and clutching his side from the pain brought by his spasms.

Jezebel spoke gently but firmly. “Get hold of yourself, son. You are a king.” She took his hand in hers and held it until the shaking stopped. Then she spoke evenly. “If Elijah prophesied your death he did so at the word of his god. Baal is stronger.”

Ahaziah responded weakly. “You’ll use my life to fight your battle, won’t you, mother?”

“Not my battle son, your battle. We are talking about your life.”

“No, mother. You want me to live but you want more to see Melkart beat Yahweh. My injury is your battleground.”

Jezebel spoke carefully, realizing that her son had the power to order her death. She mistrusted the weak spirit bound now to an injured body. “Yahweh as thrust forward the challenge, son, not I. Your injury is a battleground of the gods only because Baal must make it so for you to live.”

The king pushed himself up painfully on his elbows. “Yahweh cursed my father and he died. Baal could not save him.”

“Ahab was a great man,” Jezebel entreated, “but he vacillated between Baal and Yahweh. He never truly gave Melkart a chance.” The Queen Mother knelt beside the bed and kissed the back of her son’s hand. “Please, Ahaziah. Fight.” She spoke in a low, intense voice. “Fight for your life. Take up Yahweh’s challenge.”

The son gripped his mother’s hand and sank deeper into the pillows. He looked at her. “All right. What shall we do?”

Jezebel smiled and reached to push a lock of hair form Ahaziah’s forehead. “Select a captain who is fervent for Melkart,” she said. “Explain to him the challenge of Yahweh. Send him with his fifty men to arrest Elijah. Then Yahweh will be in Baal’s power.”

Ahaziah nodded his assent, only half understanding the battle lines but glad for the hope his mother instilled. Jezebel left the room quietly and sent the doctors back to her son.