Elijah (18 page)

“Elijah, meet my wife, Ruth.”

Ruth reached out both her hands to his. “You are Elijah, the prophet of Yahweh?”

He nodded.

She squeezed his hands tightly. “You are welcome in our house, Elijah.” She beckoned toward the table. Eliham quickly drew up another stool for the prophet, while Ruth poured wine for them all.

Seated, Elijah grasped Rejab’s fat arm. “How do you come to be here, my friend?”

Rejab looked at Miriam, then back at the prophet. “Elijah,” he began, “matters became very hard in Israel. I had to choose. Either I had to cheat in order to compete and keep my business or I had to lose my business and starve.” As he related the incidents of false weights and foreclosures, Elijah sat without speaking, but Miriam noted the gradual tightening of muscles in the prophet’s arms and neck. She noted, too, that he ate the food slowly that Ruth set before him.

“And so,” Rejab concluded, “Miriam and I decided to come here to her cousin’s house at Jezzin.”

Eliham interrupted. “Rejab is a good merchant. We have combined our efforts. He spends his time buying, while I spend my time selling. My market—
our
market—is open more now than when I either had to wait for farmers to bring in their produce or close shop and go into the fields to buy.”

Rejab smiled excitedly. “I travel even beyond the farmlands of Jezzin now, into Coele-Syria, or the plain of Ijon. When no more grain is available, I will go to Sidon for fish.”

“We are getting along well, Elijah, the four of us working together,” Ruth added. “Not as well as before the drought, but better than most.”

“I am glad,” Elijah said softly. Then he asked, “But do you not have the same problems of weights and measures here that you had in Bethshean?”

Eliham laughed. “No, Elijah. Here I am one of the largest merchants. Since Rejab came, the two of us handle more produce than anyone. We are big fish in a small pool, rather than the other way around. We are honest, and the others must follow our lead or lose their customers.” Eliham’s voice deepened and grew more cautious. “Elijah, when will the drought end?”

“You said Melkart and Asherah are winning?”

“Yes, I said that.”

“The famine will not end until the people know beyond a doubt that it is Yahweh who controls the rain.”

Eliham poured wine into his cup. “And suppose that day never comes?”

“The day will come,” Elijah insisted, “and when it comes, even you, Eliham, will know that Yahweh is God.”

“I know it now,” he responded sternly.

“You know Yahweh is God, but you really do not believe he is stronger than these forces of evil.”

The host set his cup down and stared at the prophet.

“You don’t believe Yahweh can defeat his adversary, so you, Eliham?” Elijah repeated.

“And do you never have doubts about the outcome, Elijah?”

The prophet looked from one inquiring face to another. “Yes,” he answered finally. “I have moments of doubt.”

“Then why do you judge us?” Ruth interjected.

“I do not judge you. I simply state that Yahweh has said he will win. What he says, he will do. Baal is very strong even in Israel. How Yahweh will win I cannot say. But he will win. My certainty is greater than my doubt.”

Eliham rose from the table. “It is time for sleep.”

Ruth handed Elijah an oil lamp. “You will sleep in the guest chamber upstairs,” she said, and smiled tenderly at this prophet she wished she could believe. “Sleep well, and come down only when you are ready.”

“Thank you, Ruth. Good night, my friends.” He turned to go outside and up the side stairway, then stopped at the door. “Yahweh
will
win,” he said.

He awoke early and lay for a while thinking of the conversation of the night before.
Even Yahweh’s faithful do not believe he will win,
he thought.
What must Yahweh do then to convince those who do not believe?
Three years of drought. Elijah began to see why Yahweh had to make the famine so long. The victory over Baal must be a resounding one.

Breakfast was not strained as Elijah had feared it would be. Eliham assured the prophet that he would pray hard for Yahweh to give him faith. Rejab and Miriam, always stalwart supporters, told him of the widespread knowledge throughout Israel of his pronouncement.

“But they still pray to Baal, just in case he is stronger than Yahweh,” Elijah countered, recalling the scenes he had witnessed on his journey.

“Yes,” Rejab answered. “But they know that Yahweh has spoken. That’s the first step to victory.”

Elijah left as early as possible. His pouch was full of breadcakes and his head was full of directions. He must travel west for a short distance to a difficult road that cuts south. The next day he would stand by the Great Sea.

The sun stood high at noon when the prophet caught sight of the dark soil of the sea coast, a muted contrast against the blue waters. He turned south to follow the ancient dirt road down the coast. Occasionally, he slowed his walk to watch the sails of a ship glide effortlessly along the surface, an intriguing wonder for the prophet from Gilead.

The mountains edged in closer toward the sea as he continued, soon closing the plain almost completely. There, on the point, was his journey’s end. Zarephath stood gleaming in the sun. In her harbor, low-slung ships with sails down sat at peace.

Ahead, he saw a woman come out of the city’s gates and approach a small cluster of trees that grew near the edge of the harbor. She bent to pick up some dry twigs from under the trees, added them to the small bundle in her left hand, then stood upright, her eyes searching the trunk of the tamarisk. Grimacing each time as the twig snapped, she broke several deal twigs that jutted lifeless from the trunk.

Engrossed in her task, she did not notice Elijah’s approach. “I could use a drink of water,” he said softly.

The woman jerked around, startled, and dropped the sticks she had so painstakingly collected. As Elijah bent to pick them up, she looked at him carefully. His rough, sturdy mantle and stiff leather girdle marked him as a prophet, while his unruly, abundant hair and beard frightened her. He obviously had tried to wash off the dust and dirt from some journey, for she could detect streaks on the backs of his legs. His clothes were filthy.

He stood and handed her the sticks. She was a stout woman, but the loose skin at her cheeks and neck revealed the famine’s effects. Her head was covered with a shawl, and a wide, loose tunic hung from her shoulders to the ground. She was almost as tall as he was, and he looked straight into her eyes, which were lined with strong but thin eyebrows.

“Please,” he said, “I am very thirsty. Please bring me a vessel of water to drink.”

She could hardly refuse. Custom demanded that she not turn a stranger away without water.

“Very well,” she answered. “I will return in a few minutes.” She moved toward the city gate, clutching her bundle of twigs.

Perhaps this is the widow God had in mind
, Elijah thought. He called after her. “Bring me a bit of bread, if you will, just a small piece.”

She stopped and faced him, her eyes unblinking, a look of placid resignation on her face. The two looked at each other a moment before she spoke. “I’m sorry. I have no food to give you.”

Elijah felt a stirring in his chest, a sign, he felt, that this must be the right woman. He pressed his request. “None at all?”

The woman did not move. She stared at him, her jaws tightening, and Elijah saw tears form in her eyes. “No,” she said. A tear slid down her cheek, but she made no effort to brush it away. The prophet did not speak, and she mistook the look in his eyes for disbelief. “I am telling you the truth.” Still Elijah only looked at her. She gripped the bundle of twigs tightly and shook her head. Anger at his unfeeling attitude rose to her throat. “As the Lord Yahweh your God lives,” she swore, “I do not have a cake of bread in the house. All I have is a handful of meal left in my barrel, and a tiny bit of oil in my cruse.” She thrust her handful of twigs toward him. “I just gathered a few sticks to return home and cook a last meal for myself and my son.” The tears flowed freely now, but she still looked straight into his eyes. She shook the sticks at him. “Then we will just wait to starve to death.” Her words were more resigned than bitter.

Elijah spoke softly. “Don’t be afraid. Trust in my God. Go prepare that last meal for you and your son. But first, prepare a small cake for me. Yahweh makes a promise to you, and I stand as a witness to it, that your barrel will not run out of meal and your cruse of oil will not become empty. Your provisions will last until my God sends rain to end the famine.”

The woman stood immobile for a moment, then raised her free hand to her face. Finally, she lowered her hand and looked at him again. Elijah did not rush her response, but allowed her time to think and consider. “Yahweh will do that,” she asked, “just for giving you a small breadcake?”
He smiled. “Ahab is searching all of Israel for me, for it is at my mouth that Yahweh will bring the rain. I came to Zarephath to hide. I shall stay with you and your son.”

“If your mouth controls the rain, why don’t you call on it to come and save us all a lot of grief?”

“Yahweh will not send rain until my people are ready to turn away from Baal.”

“You are asking me to choose Yahweh now over Baal?”

Elijah did not speak.

The woman pulled her shawl across her face. “Very well,” she said, “I have nothing to lose. I have prayed enough to Asherah. She is of no help.” She turned toward the gate. “Come with me, prophet of Yahweh.”

Elijah followed her, a few steps behind as she led the way through the gate and up the streets of Zarephath. A short walk brought them to a small stone house. Mortar had fallen out from between some of the stones. Its second-story guest chamber was little more than a lean-to, built of rough, undressed wood and roofed temporarily with branches to form an enclosed arbor. A rope, hung with clothes, stretched from the front corner of the lean-to to a rock pillar at the stairway end of the roof.

“Why did you bother to wash if you were about to die?” Elijah asked.

“Water is free and the well is not dry. If my son and I must die, we will die as honorably as possible.” She entered the lower door and signaled Elijah to follow.

A half-grown boy sat listlessly on a low stool. He raised his head and looked at Elijah, then at his mother. The woman did not smile, but moved to the back wall of the house. She took two large jars from a shelf and tucked them into the arm that held the twigs, then she went out the back door to the oven in the enclosure behind the house. She nodded as she passed her son. “Give the prophet a drink of water.”

The boy stared, immobile, at Elijah.

“My name is Elijah. What is yours?”

The boy did not answer, and the prophet could read no emotion on his face. “I am a prophet of Yahweh, Elijah persisted. “What is your name?”

“I am Bosheth.” The boy’s lips hardly parted as he spoke.

“My throat is dry. Will you get me a drink of water?”

Bosheth moved then, slowly. He took a small bowl from a shelf, removed a cover from a large earthen jar, and dipped the bowl. Elijah looked at the boy’s thin arms. When Bosheth turned toward him with the bowl of water the prophet caught the drawn look on his face. He took the bowl from the boy’s hands. “Trust me,” he said quietly. “My God Yahweh is going to feed the three of us.”

Bosheth raised his eyes. He had his mother’s features, and Elijah guessed that if it were not for the famine the boy would be stocky. His shoulders were broad for a nine-year-old, but bony. “Are you going to stay here?” the boy asked.

“Yes,” Elijah responded. “I shall stay in the guest room upstairs.”

The boy turned and walked outside to join his mother. Elijah could hear then arguing, until the mother’s voice rose angrily to order the boy quiet. The voices died down but Bosheth did not return.

Elijah found a stool and sat down. The house was small, with only one room. A table was set to one side, and four wooden stools were placed against two walls. Shelves were attached to the back wall, near the door, with utensils and vessels of various sizes stacked neatly on them. The waterpot was on the floor beside the shelves, with two smaller pots beside it for bringing water from the town well. The other side of the room was bare except for a stack of neatly folded covers.

The woman returned after awhile with a medium-sized individual cake. She held the steaming bread in her hand with a cloth. She set it on the table without saying a word, then went to Elijah, took the bowl from his hands, refilled it, and set it beside the cake. “Now, prophet of Yahweh,” she said with slight belligerence, “you have your food. Eat.”

Elijah pulled the stool to the table. He broke off a piece of the round, flat breadcake and stuffed it into his mouth, then drank from the waterbowl. Not until he had eaten half of the cake did he look up. The woman stood beside her son, one arm around his shoulders, the other arm hard at her side. Her fist was tightly clenched. The boy’s eyes darted from the prophet to his mother and back to the prophet.

Elijah took another bite. “You cook a good cake,” he taunted, testing her decision. Tears welled into her eyes and she held her son more tightly.