“Mother?”
He’s alive!
Jehovah, the strength of my life, had answered! Habakkuk was alive again!
I thought my heart would burst with wild relief and joy. Tears of unspeakable gratitude flooded my eyes, and I fell down before the servant of the King of heaven.
“Blessed be the God of our fathers. Blessed be the God of Elisha who has heard my cry and answered me today!” I flung myself upon his ankles once again but this time in celebration. “Thanks be to God, my Lord, whom you serve!”
Elisha touched the top of my head slightly. “Take your son.”
“I’m hungry, Mother!” Habakkuk said. I burst into laughter and gathered him into my arms.
“Shunammite?” Elisha spoke again.
“My lord?” I turned toward him.
“Famine comes,” the prophet said, his countenance as if beholding a furnace blast. He looked to be a man exhausted from the visions he beheld in the wake of the resurrection.
I learned that the power that coursed from the Presence of the Lord had been at first as sweet as honey in his mouth. But it had turned to bitterness when He who holds all knowledge had passed by. In His wake as if carried in His train, there were dark clouds, dust swirling, and out of the storm Elisha heard the cries of a nation in anguish. Pestilence. Israel begging bread and languishing from lack of water.
The immediate future of our people. A recompense for sin in turning from the Lord to empty idols. God’s people had filled themselves with vanity. They trusted in the strength of their own flesh to save them. The plenteous harvest had filled the fruitful land, but His people had forgotten their God. Religious and useless. Like sheep without a shepherd or a child who refuses correction. No imagination was too vain to pursue, no doctrine too perverse to proclaim.
The Lord would empty Israel’s storehouses as He emptied their bellies. He would empty their pockets and turn their revelries and feasts to mourning and cleanness of teeth. He would pour out His judgments until they came to the end of themselves and returned to the God who loved them. Cleansing would come like a refiner’s fire.
Elisha had watched in his vision as flames dried up the ocean and burned up the land. They licked at the prophet’s garments and seemed to singe his beard and smoke the very hair of his arms. His body felt the racking pangs of hunger from a nation in famine and darkness of soul.
Gehazi stared wide-eyed.
Then as if regaining strength, Elisha looked at me directly, his gaze stern and clear.
“Rejoice today for the return of your son. Let your house and husband and the harvesters fill the barns and store up food in your larder. Give thanks and praise the Lord who gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater. Remember this harvest,” Elisha said.
The red storm of blowing dust and the cries of hungry anguish had folded up as a tent and disappeared as the vision had come to him. In its wake the word of the Lord dropped down upon his servant, and Elisha spoke from a place of knowing what natural men cannot discover—the knowledge of what was to come.
“This is what the Lord says, noblewoman: ‘By this time next year there shall begin seven years of severity in Israel.’”
In just an instant my thrill at seeing Habakkuk drained out of me as if from a vessel suddenly pierced. It was a strange moment. Since the day I had compelled Elisha to come to our house, the room we had built had become the place of unusual encounters. They were bitter as well as sweet. But I knew as surely as I stood there that the word from the man of God would surely come to pass.
“What shall we do?” I asked him.
“You must take your household and turn aside in the land of the Philistines until the famine is past.”
“Philistia? The land of our enemies?”
There is much I could tell you of our next seven years. The Philistines were men of long smooth hair and flowing garments, who sometimes carved dark inked figures on their skin and who ate unclean food of swine and even dogs! Their wine feasts and cultic worship surpassed the sins of Israel.
In the first years of our sojourning Joktan employed himself at the bellows, for the Philistines used much iron work and kept an arsenal. When Joktan began to grow weak with age he took young Habakkuk along with him. Our boy came home drenched in man’s sweat. And inside I would pray God forbid that any spear or arrow thus forged be used against our people.
More and more Habakkuk asked for stories of our forefathers and of our religion. He could sit for hours listening. So while we were in exile, we were not without the Presence or the blessing of Jehovah. And while we longed for home and had to keep ourselves separate for caution’s sake, we were not ungrateful or without times enriched with joy.
Though Joktan was faithful and skillful the work was hard on his body. In the sixth year my husband fell ill and did not recover. His last request was that Habakkuk and I take his bones with us when we returned to our city. I gave him my word, and as my tears fell I held his hand tightly to my heart with the gratitude of a wife who has been cherished.
My maids and I continued to work with flax and weave and sell garments to the merchants. Habakkuk, a boy/man in his twelfth year, also continued at the smith’s forge. We worked and watched and waited and knew that God would come and deliver us.
On a day in late summer a full year after my widowhood the news came that famine in Israel had ended.
Home! We were going home at last!
When finally we came into the valley between our mountains, Gilboa and Tabor, we were a picture of Issachar’s banner when Israel of old went out from Egypt—our laden donkeys going up surefooted between the mounts of blessing and cursing, and Habakkuk and I riding in the ox cart being drawn along. As I had promised, Joktan’s remains came with us to be laid to rest with his fathers once we reached Shunem.
We were not prepared for the sight that met us when we crossed into the inheritance of our tribe. Seven years she had been deprived of rain and loving husbandry. The famine was ended, but the land was only beginning its recovery.
Was this my Jezreel?
She had languished severely. Her trees were crooked spines, their bones without the fatted flesh of leaf and fruit. Her terraces were full of unturned stones and scars where the plow had finally given up the blade. I felt I could see ghosts of bent figures scraping for the last dried pods or dust-laden remnants of a former harvest, scavengers slowly plodding between empty homesteads searching for something to feed their famished children.
As we ascended the outcrop I strained forward as Shunem at last came into view. The first buds of her recovery were evident. A farmer plowed a terrace in the distance. I was confused as the plots had taken different shapes. I looked toward our vineyard to see a watchman in the tower, and my heart leaped. There were workers, but whose?
I shivered in cold prophetic anticipation of the scene within our courtyard. I feared I would find our old rooms scarred and abused by vagrants.
We turned down the lane and made the last few paces carefully, the servants following my lead. This was not the joyful return I had imagined. Militia men lined the lane. At our gate our entourage came to a rumbling stop.
“Halt, there!” A king’s militiaman called out sharply. “This is king’s property. Whom do you seek?”
King’s property!
“This is the house of Joktan, and adjoining the house of my father before him,” I told the man. “I am returned after seven years’ sojourn. I have brought the heir to his estate.”
“Call the captain,” the gate man barked behind him across my courtyard while he barred our way. “This woman claims it is her house.” He told me, “You may stand inside. The others must wait here. Which one is the heir?”
Before I could answer Habakkuk spoke.
“Here! It is I,” he said. In an instant he was standing straight and protective at my side.
We two stepped over the threshold into our courtyard and found it full of strangers.
Inside the gate were stabled militia horses, and men sat and stood and slept in the open space. Their arms and gear were in piles here and there. A fire smoked in the pit, and two men squatted there attending whatever it was they boiled in the pot.
Our beautiful noble house an occupation camp!
“You can bring yourselves and spend the night in the courtyard, but in the morning you will have to find new quarters,” the captain said.
I was speechless. The home I had come back to was not mine to have. Habakkuk’s estate stolen! Our security gone!
My pleas brought only a shrug and the advice to appeal to the king.
Once we were resettled safely within the walls of one of our tribesmen, I turned to our only recourse. And of all the sights I could never have imagined when I came home, the most astounding waited for Habakkuk and me in King Joram’s court. We made our entreaty and entered the portico of his famed ivory palace. The cool of the interior was welcome compared to the open sun. The pillars like carved palms resembled a forest! Egyptian motifs adorned the walls and circled the pillar bottoms.
Influence of Queen Jezebel, I thought.
I could not imagine there had been any lack within these walls. The portico thronged with audience of every sort. There were courtiers, militiamen, a few wizened councilmen. Habakkuk and I sat down among several others who had come to beg audience for a variety of complaints. The messenger returned almost immediately to us and waved us hurriedly in, to the disfavor of some who called out that they had been waiting for two days.
Our footsteps sounded hollow as we followed the king’s man along the passageway. As we ascended the stair to the second tier with the throne room itself, I prayed for courage and the right words.
We came into the king’s hall at last and found that it, too, was full of people, though less crowded. I surmised these were elders from several cities, commanders of the king and some noblewomen with their husbands who had been invited to sit at the king’s table. People came and went, and all seemed either to be accustomed to being there or else be engaged in some occupation. Habakkuk and I hid ourselves among them and waited to be called while the courier took my case to the scribe.
I came to realize that the people were the audience of some entertainment, as all eyes were on a wiry frame that talked and gestured. As my senses adjusted to the sights and sounds, his voice commanded my attention. It was strangely familiar. Through the onlookers I strained to see and discovered he was wrapped in a number of bandages, as lepers were. Suddenly I knew who it was.
Gehazi!
Yet, was he a leper? What was he doing in the king’s presence? And where was his master?
My worst fears for Elisha’s survival with this apostate king might be realized.
As my eyes adjusted to the sight, so did my ears. Ge-hazi was very animated and telling a story that I knew well. He was telling my own story! He described my ride across the Esdraelon and how I threw myself upon his old master’s feet. Then the story became the tale of Gehazi running back to the noblewoman’s house, Elisha’s staff firm in his hand.
The king lounged in his chair, a smile languid on his face. I had imagined King Joram to be an imposing character and was surprised to find him rather an ordinary-looking person. But beside him sat a far less ordinary regent.
The queen of whom I had heard since my childhood was strikingly beautiful. She carried herself tall and straight as though some craftsman had shaped her figure out of porcelain and painted it with colors of Phoenicia. It was impossible to guess her age, but I knew her to be at least half again my own. Her eyes were lined in the manner of the Egyptians with kohl and dragon emerald and her attire was Phoenician; one bare shoulder was trimmed in gold that would have paid a year’s hire. Her hair was neatly coifed. She seemed to float rather than sit on the chair beside her son. She wore a cold, proud look.
Jezebel, the infamous murderess!
I prayed the Shema within my heart and gripped Habakkuk’s hand.
Gehazi spoke on, animating every detail, and his audience appreciated all his antics. He became the center of the drama and was fully in his element as jester of this court. One might think he had raised the boy himself.
Habakkuk sat transfixed to hear his story.
“The woman came in and took her son and flung him in the air,” Gehazi was saying. The audience gasped and clapped.
“And then he told her, ‘Famine comes!’”
The court mumbled words of resentment. Who among them had not suffered for seven years?
The queen was iced yet smiling still.
“Where is this noblewoman now?” Joram’s voice broke the tension. “And the boy? Do they still reside there in that town—in Shunem?”
I found myself pushing through the audience in answer to his question, and before Gehazi could speak I said, “Here! Sire! I am the woman. I am the Shunammite of whom your servant speaks. This is my son who was dead and is now alive.”
My blood was racing, pounding in my head.
The room broke into great excitement.
“For truth! Shunammite! Boy!” Gehazi shouted. He grinned from ear to ear beneath his bandages and I thought he would rush toward us.
The king waved his hand at two courtiers near us. In a moment they had me by both arms almost carrying me forward. Habakkuk, still holding one hand, was pulled behind.
“Bring the Shunammite here. I would see her closely and hear from her own lips. Bring her here!” Joram barked. “Is this the woman?” he asked Gehazi.
My old guest raised a hand.
“It is, my liege!” Gehazi gushed, amazed. “She of whom I was just speaking, sire! The very same noblewoman of Shunem!”
On their thrones Joram and his mother sat leaning forward staring at Habakkuk and myself.
“Approach, Shunammite,” the king waved me forward. “And you, boy. Come nearer so we can see you.”
My son and I were now on exhibit.
“So it was in your house this miracle of Elisha happened, was it?” Joram was saying. Leaning forward, he looked me directly in the eye.
“Yes, sire,” I bowed before the throne and his court.