Three years earlier, in Peniel.
Elijah lay face down on the dirt floor of his small shop, turning dust to mud with his tears. Heavy sobs shook his thinning frame, and each breath came as a jerky spasm of agony. With his hands clenched above his head, he pressed his face deeper into the grime, dust clinging to the damp strands of his coarse black hair.
“Seven years,” he sobbed into the dust. “Seven years on this same floor, breathing this same smell of sour grain and rotting hope.” He pounded his fists against the packed earth. “Lord, let it end. Tip the scales in my favor, Lord, or let me weigh out a single measure of good fortune.” Through clenched teeth, he whispered, “I see them pass by, Nathan in his new silk robes and old Eliab, growing fatter every month. And I still wear the cloak my father gave me. I have patched it so many times that there is more of my thread in it now than there is of his.”
He pulled himself up, his joints aching. The cloak his father had given him hung loose, and its extra fabric was a constant reminder of the man he used to be. He gathered the worn wool, disgust rising in his throat. He saw himself reflected in the eyes of his customers, a flicker of notice followed by dismissal. He was not ugly enough to warrant a second glance, not striking enough for a first, just a drab fixture, as forgettable as the dust on his shelves. He threw his hands out and stared at the ceiling.
“I know why I am shunned and why so few shop here, and so do you, Lord. It is because I will not display the image of Baal outside my shop. I struggle and scrimp because I will not dishonor you. Why is that not worthy of a little prosperity? Where is my reward for keeping faith with you?”
He collapsed onto the wooden chair. Tanner, weaver, landlord: the parchments were a familiar chorus of demands. He saw the numbers, the old, bitter arithmetic: pay one, another starves; pay none, and he starves. With a roar, he swept them from the table, and the papers scattered like dead leaves.
“But I am at an end. I am drained and dried out. What do you want from me? You give just enough to keep me from failing, just enough to keep me shackled to this shop, but never enough to breathe. The moment a single coin finds my purse, the customers vanish. I would rather clean stables than endure one more day of this!”
Elijah began to tremble. He slammed his fist against the table, unable to contain his anger. Seven years of frustration erupted inside him, and he jumped to his feet, overturning the table in front of him.
“What do you want of me?” he screamed.
As the question echoed and faded, his rage went with it, pulled from him like a tooth. A profound stillness, not silence, replaced the sudden emptiness, quieting the frantic pulse in his throat. He stood there with his eyes closed as the weight of seven years lifted from his shoulders. He didn’t feel peaceful; he felt scoured clean. Into that space, a comforting light began to bloom behind his eyelids.
A disembodied voice spoke his name.
“Elijah.”
He was floating in a warm, sourceless light. Below him, as if he were viewing it from the rafters, was his own body: a trembling, dirt-streaked man on a shop floor. He watched as the man’s eyes fluttered open. But they weren’t his eyes anymore. They looked past the rafters, past the roof, and into the light where he now existed. There was a sickening lurch, a sense of falling, and he slammed back into his own skin. He gasped, his lungs burning, the smell of dust and his own sweat sharp in his nostrils.
He stared at his hands, turning them over. They were his hands, yet they felt like foreign tools. A dry, choked laugh escaped his throat. “Still filthy.” The life that had been grinding him down was over. He knew this as surely as he knew his own name, but the relief was thin and cracked. A vision seared itself behind his eyes: a parched field under a white-hot sun and a king’s face twisted in fury. He understood the cost, and its weight settled on him, heavier than seven years of failure. He sank into the chair. “No more time,” he whispered.
That same day, in Samaria
“Solomon must be weeping,” said Obadiah, watching the royal procession pass below his window through a falling gray mist.
“How did it come to this?” he said, his voice low. “A line of grasping fools, each one greedier than the last.”
“It began with Rehoboam’s tax collectors,” Ruth answered from the kitchen, her voice sharp over the clatter of a pot. “He split the kingdom for a few more shekels. Jeroboam then flung the gates open to every idol that came knocking.” She walked into the room, drying her hands on her apron. “We reap what our kings have sown, Obadiah.”
“And I helped the worst of them build his monument to vanity on that hill,” he muttered, the memory still sour.
Ruth sniffed and said nothing.
“It was my job. We have to eat, don’t we? I do what I can. You know that.”
Ruth smiled. “I do. I know that you do.”
He turned back to watch the last of the procession as it headed toward the palace.
Ruth came to stand beside him at the window. After a moment, she slipped her fingers between his and held on.
“I am sorry I snapped at you. You have always been in a difficult position, serving the kings of Israel and remaining faithful to God. I know you have tried your best to steer them back to Him.”
She laid a hand on his waist and turned him to face her. Her eyes searched his for a long moment before she leaned in and kissed his cheek.
“I am proud of you,” she whispered in his ear.
Obadiah could not help but smile—Ruth had always had that effect on him. He kissed her forehead. “Thanks for that.”
Obadiah looked back out the window, watching the last of the royal procession disappear into the distance. “A fat lot of good I have done. I am losing hope that it will happen in my lifetime. Just look at who is king now. His own father would have nothing to do with him, and now he rules in Samaria. Did I tell you that we are building new barracks on the palace grounds?”
Ruth’s sudden stillness was answer enough.
“A thousand beds! “Has any god in history ever had more priests than this Baal?”
Ruth looked concerned. “Careful, my husband, lest you reveal your feelings to Ahab. You can do nothing if you are dead.”
Obadiah laughed. “If I had ever let my feelings get in the way of my job, I would have made some very different choices over the years. You, of all people, should know how well I can hide my feelings.”
Ruth winked. “You hid them so well that I was barely able to find them.”
Obadiah groaned as he wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her.
“I will be careful,” he whispered.
Ruth pushed herself gently away and walked back to the kitchen. When she was gone, the warmth drained from Obadiah’s face. He turned to the window; his gaze fixed on nothing. The king’s decree sat on his desk, a single parchment that felt heavier than a stone tablet. “A week of service.” He and Ruth had wept over the words, a thin veil over a ritual so vile he could barely think its name. He’d tried to dissuade Ahab, of course, warning him of revolt and divine wrath. But it was Jezebel’s decree. Ahab was merely her pen.
A wave of cold relief washed over him because his own children were grown and safe from this decree. He thanked God for it in a silent, fervent prayer. But the relief soured almost instantly, leaving a bitter taste of shame. What of the other fathers, the other children? He closed his eyes, asking forgiveness for a gratitude that felt like betrayal.
He watched the rain wash the grime from Samaria’s streets and wondered if there was enough water in all of heaven to cleanse the hill itself.