Love in a Broken Vessel Read online

  “We’ve been together almost seven years now,” Gomer whispered, letting her tears wet Merav’s robe. “I know better than anyone how you love the girls in this house, and I want to make sure we both have a place to live after I’m too old to provide food and shelter as a street harlot.” She lifted her head, holding the woman’s gaze intently. “I need to know who Tamir talks to at the temple when one of our young girls reaches the age for service in Asherah’s grove. And how does Tamir decide which girls become priestesses and which ones work as street harlots or serving maids? What other ways does she bring in food and income for this house besides the street harlots’ pay?”

  “Well, well,” came a silken voice from behind them. “It appears I’ve happened upon an important conversation this morning.”

  Gomer saw the fear in Merav’s eyes and realized Tamir had heard too much. She leapt to her feet and faced the brothel owner. “I was telling Merav the questions I intended to ask you when I returned from the sacrifice today.” She could hear the quiver in her voice and cursed herself for it. She’d perfected her conniving with men but still struggled when lying to Tamir. “Is there anything I can help with before I leave? Any special instructions?”

  Tamir’s eyes narrowed, and she placed balled fists on slender hips. “Yes, in fact, there is something you should know before you leave this morning. Today’s sacrifice will be the first of its kind in Israel. The drought we’ve experienced for the last two years has affected even King Jeroboam’s grain stores.” She glanced right and left, lowering her voice. “He’s finally desperate enough to show real devotion to the gods. Perhaps he’ll live up to the glory of his namesake, Israel’s first Jeroboam, who gave us the golden calves at Bethel and Dan. He’s built a new altar for the special sacrifice.”

  She twirled a lock of Gomer’s auburn hair around her finger. “The altar fire will glisten off your curls, and the beating drums will arouse the worshipers. Make sure you and the rest of the girls are near the altar at the moment of sacrifice. I expect a full day of celebration, and I want all payment in grain.” She dropped Gomer’s hair and shooed her away like a fly. “We’re low on grain here, and the servants can’t make bread from silver.”

  Everything within Gomer screamed indignation, but what other choices did she have? Where else could she go? “Of course, Tamir. I’ll do exactly as you ask.” She swallowed hard and tempered her voice, determined to find a way of escape. “Is there any other way I might serve you, my lady?” She bowed, hoping to hide the rage her expression could not.

  “Yes. Get to the sacrifice. Now!” The owner of the house stormed away, shouting instructions at one of the serving maids across the courtyard.

  Gomer trembled with pent-up fury and whispered to Merav, though she dared not look in her direction, “I will go as she commands, but when I return tonight, my friend, I will have enough silver for us both to leave this hen house.”

  Merav reached for her hand. “Just be careful, little one. I’ve seen that look in Tamir’s eyes before. King Jeroboam isn’t the only one who is desperate.”

  2

  • AMOS 8:11 NIV •

  “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “when I will send a famine through the land—not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD.”

  Hosea’s thighs burned with each step up Samaria’s rocky hill, and he noted the faltering gait of his old teacher. Jonah leaned heavily on his walking sticks. Why hadn’t Hosea asked Isaiah to stay and help Jonah rather than sending him ahead to await their signal north of the city?

  “Let me help you.” Hosea placed a supportive arm around Jonah’s shoulders, but the crusty old prophet issued his familiar reply.

  “Yahweh and my walking sticks are all the help I need, thank you.” He shrugged off Hosea’s arm, offering half a smile, assuring his student of his gratitude—and refusal. They’d left Amos’s farm in Judah four days ago. Jonah’s stamina had weakened. His good humor hadn’t.

  Hosea sighed, shook his head, and let Jonah lead. In the man’s younger days, he’d traveled to Nineveh and back, survived three days in a fish’s belly, and turned a generation of Assyrians to repentance. Who was Hosea to insist he needed help? Yahweh, give him strength. You know how much he means to me.

  Hosea released his teacher to the Lord’s care, focusing on the gleaming white palace, awed at the capital city of his homeland—a city he’d never seen, a homeland he’d left twelve years ago.

  He cast a sideways glance at Jonah and noticed him shivering. Hosea unwound his mantle and wrapped it around his friend’s shoulders. This time Jonah offered no protest but tugged the woolen garb closed at his neck. The winter breeze must feel cooler to an old man’s thinned blood. Jonah was now covered head to toe, hiding his milky-white clumps of skin—the enduring evidence of his three-day lesson in the belly of the fish.

  “How far from Samaria is your hometown, Jonah?” Hosea decided to make conversation instead of gawking at the poor man, waiting for him to collapse.

  “About the same distance north as your hometown Bethel is to the south.” His voice quaked like his shoulders.

  Hosea nodded but remained silent. He squeezed his eyes shut, mentally kicking himself for letting Jonah come at all. He’d feared the journey from Amos’s farm in Tekoa would be too much for him, but Jonah insisted on accompanying Hosea on his first prophetic mission. The night of Yahweh’s first revelation had been the beginning of a three-day holy windstorm, giving Hosea insight into where, to whom, and how to deliver Yahweh’s message. But the instructions hadn’t included Jonah’s presence on the mission.

  “Do you need the blanket from my pack?”

  “Enough! I’m fine,” Jonah said, his voice muffled beneath the folds of his robe. “Stop fussing like an overbearing ima.” Hosea noted a slight twinkle in his eyes. “I’m not sure whether I’m cold or nervous for you, but I can’t seem to stop shaking.” He pulled back his mantle just enough to issue an encouraging wink.

  Hosea saw pride in Jonah’s eyes, and he threw his arm around the man’s shoulder. “Don’t tell me you don’t want help,” Hosea said before his mentor could protest. “I’m resting my arm on you because I need the support.”

  Jonah chuckled, and they walked in companionable silence up the steep and rocky path. Hosea’s mind wandered to the first time he’d seen “the fish prophet,” as Gomer had called him when they were children. She had convinced him to sneak into the temple rafters again, spying on their abbas’ priestly duties, when Amos, accompanied by Jonah, had arrived to deliver Yahweh’s message of judgment on Israel. Hosea would never forget Amos’s words: “A famine of God’s Word is coming to Israel.” The high priest Amaziah had scoffed at the threat. But the words rang true in Hosea’s abba Beeri, and he left Israel with other faithful Yahweh followers and took Hosea to Amos’s farm to be taught with other would-be prophets.

  “Have I ever thanked you and Amos for beginning the prophets’ school in Tekoa?” Hosea kept his eyes forward, afraid his emotions would choke his words if he met Jonah’s gaze.

  “I’m sorry your abba Beeri isn’t here to see you prophesy. I think he’d be pleased that you are the first prophet to speak in Israel since Yahweh’s declared famine of His word twelve years ago.”

  Hosea’s heart squeezed in his chest. He missed his abba at moments like this. Jonah had been his guardian since Abba died two years after they arrived on Amos’s farm. Jonah had been both spiritual and earthly mentor since.

  “I miss Abba Beeri, but you have been a faithful abba to me, my friend.”

  Jonah stopped his trudging and straightened, forcing Hosea to meet his gaze. “The day you told me of your first Yahweh encounter—I think it was the happiest day of my life. Remember? I danced for joy—without these walking sticks!”

  Both men chuckled, recalling the spectacle. “I remember,” Hosea said, wiping happy tears. “Did Yahweh tell you He would command me to take a wife? Before you left that da
y, you said I shouldn’t take a wife unless Yahweh commanded it. Did you know He would speak to me?”

  Jonah’s merriment faded to growing intensity. “Yahweh hasn’t spoken to me directly for quite some time. I receive nudges—leanings. But you, Hosea—you are Yahweh’s prophet for this moment in Israel’s history. Speak boldly, my son. Speak with the authority Yahweh has given to you.” His piercing eyes set in that eerie white skin would make any man wince.

  Silence lingered between them as weary travelers walked past. Hosea felt like a child but needed to ask. “Yahweh told me to marry a prostitute, but He didn’t say exactly how to find one or how to go about—well, securing her agreement.” Feeling heat rise in his cheeks, he scuffed his sandal in the dusty path. “What if I find a harlot but she refuses me? I’m not as handsome as Isaiah. He would have no trouble winning a woman’s heart. He’s already won Aya.” He lifted his gaze, voicing the deepest fear of his soul. “What if I can’t even attract a harlot?”

  Still standing amid the tide of travelers, Jonah gathered Hosea under his arm and started trudging up Samaria’s hill once more. “Your harlot may refuse you.”

  “What?” Hosea stopped, but Jonah yanked his robe and drew him back under his arm to continue their walk.

  “I said she may refuse you, but you must remember why you’re here. Yahweh’s heart has been broken by Israel’s unfaithfulness. You must become vulnerable to the affection of the one you seek to marry. You must publicly declare your intentions to her and thereby risk rejection.”

  “This is not making me feel better, Jonah.” He kept replaying Isaiah’s happy dance after Aya’s bride negotiations, cringing that he’d never feel that sweet triumph.

  “It’s not my intention to make you feel better, my son. It’s my hope to prepare you for the calling Yahweh has given. Your struggle, your emotions, your joys and sorrows will often mirror Yahweh’s own.”

  Hosea fell silent once more, glancing again at Samaria’s white limestone palace. He realized his days as a student in the prophets’ school were over, but the days of learning to be Yahweh’s prophet had just begun.

  He swallowed hard, gathering courage to venture another question, glad Isaiah wasn’t with them. Though Hosea and Isaiah were raised together at the prophets’ camp, Isaiah was four years his junior and could be as annoying as any younger brother. And because Isaiah was born into royalty, he might not understand Hosea’s concerns.

  “What if I don’t want to obey Yahweh’s calling, Jonah? What if I don’t want to marry . . . a harlot?” Even the word tasted bitter on his tongue.

  Jonah smiled, and Hosea was humiliated. “I don’t see what there is to smile about!”

  Jonah lifted one crinkled eyebrow. “You’re asking me about disobeying Yahweh?”

  Hosea realized the irony of posing his question to the runaway prophet, and his defenses weakened.

  “God will have His way—with or without our participation. If we’re unwilling to obey, He’ll use another circumstance or find someone else to serve His purpose. But God will have His way because ultimately, His way is best.”

  Hosea nodded, and they continued their walk in silence, caught in the swell of humanity approaching King Jeroboam’s city. Samaria, like Jerusalem, was chosen as the nation’s capital by a long-ago soldier because of its military advantage. King Omri had valued Samaria’s position high atop a steep hill and carved its rear walls directly into a mountainside. Omri’s son, Ahab, added to the city by building extensively; in fact, it was Ahab’s extravagance and gifts to his wife, Jezebel, that caused merchants to muse about Samaria’s ivory palace.

  Hosea halted, shielding his eyes from the glare. He stared up at the palace and its grounds that occupied nearly one-third of Samaria’s hill. The two-story mansions east of the royal properties testified to the luxury and excess of all Israel’s leaders. Hosea’s heart squeezed inside his chest.

  Jonah stopped, anxiously watching those who hurried past, and tugged at Hosea’s sleeve, “What are you doing? If merchants’ reports are true, the sacrifice could begin at the temple any moment.”

  But Hosea turned in a circle, drinking in the sights. “I’m an Israelite by birth, Jonah, but I’ve never seen Samaria.”

  A man tilled the soil with his mule and plow. Children ran through an olive grove, laughing.

  Hosea’s throat tightened with emotion. “This will be destroyed if Jeroboam doesn’t listen to my message from Yahweh.”

  “Remember your training, Hosea. You are God’s prophet. You are not God.”

  Jonah placed his arm around Hosea’s shoulder and leaned into his support as the two walked through the city gates. Once inside Israel’s capital, they turned west, climbing up Samaria’s famed hill. In the center of the street flowed the city’s drainage ditch. Even two prophets from the country knew to stay as far from its foulness as possible. The smell nearly made Hosea retch. When the crowd slowed, he looked behind him and saw poorer dwellings at the bottom of the hill, the natural drainage destination for all the garbage and refuse of the city. Another reason the rich and powerful live at the top of the hill in two-story mansions.

  “It looks like we may have to separate,” Jonah said, nodding in the direction of the stalled crowd. “You’ll need to get as close to King Jeroboam as possible, and you won’t be able to get as far if you’re dragging an old cripple.” Hosea started to protest, but Jonah silenced him with a raised hand. “Yahweh has chosen you to deliver this message, my son. He will make the way clear and give you wisdom. Now go.” Jonah shoved Hosea’s shoulder, leaving no room for argument.

  With his heart thundering in his chest, Hosea took his first steps toward a large building connected to the palace’s east side. Above the apex of the portico was perched the Phoenician god Melqart—no doubt built by Ahab for his queen, Jezebel. Hosea glanced behind him several times, watching more and more people separate him from Jonah—until finally, he could see his teacher no longer. The stunning white, two-story temple loomed before him. Immaculate gardens trimmed its outer edges, and stone images of every size and persuasion dotted the courtyard. He commanded his feet to keep moving, and the crowd pushed him forward.

  Delivered into the main sanctuary, Hosea gasped. Unlike the simple golden bull from his childhood home in Bethel, an enormous idol consumed much of Samaria’s temple. The shining bronze image of a man with a bull’s head nearly reached the peak of the temple. Its belly was aglow, belching smoke from a blazing fire. Hosea had heard stories of this god—to the Moabites, he was Chemosh; to the Ammonites, Molech. The Canaanites called him Mot and taught the Israelites that he must be appeased when drought threatened their land. Their stories told of Mot conquering the rain giver, Prince Baal, and taking him to the underworld until a sacrifice was made. No matter which god was named in this abomination, Hosea knew what that altar meant.

  A child was about to die.

  3

  • HOSEA 4:1, 3 •

  Listen to the word of Yahweh, you Israelites. . . . “There is no faith, no love, and no knowledge of Elohim in the land. . . . That is why the land is drying up.”

  Gomer sliced through the temple crowd with a skill borne of experience and purpose. The girls trailing behind her had maintained the pace admirably, and she’d noted their kohl-rimmed eyes followed her every move. “You, dance at the left of the king’s platform,” she instructed the youngest. Then, motioning to a tall, more experienced girl, Gomer added, “Stay near her until you see the customer pay an agreeable grain price.” Both girls nodded and hurried away, bronze bells jingling around their ankles with each step. Gomer assigned locations to the rest of Tamir’s girls—far enough from other harlots to avoid confrontation, close enough to the altar to attract eager worshipers.

  Finally, having placed all the others, Gomer surveyed the temple sanctuary to find her favorite spot. The precise site varied with each event, but her guidelines were the same: the most discreet location near the highest-ranking officials. An elder or judge—e
ven a priest—had no qualms about taking a harlot to his bed. But an official could be ridiculed if he paid for pleasure too often. Or if the woman was ugly. Gomer knew she wasn’t ugly; some of the most powerful men in Samaria had told her so. Repeatedly. So discretion was vital if she hoped to lure those who could provide enough silver for her escape tonight with Merav.

  The temple drums began a slow bass pounding, vibrating Gomer’s soul, setting her feet into motion. She began to dance and sway, moving with the beat toward a shaded area near the king’s platform. Jeroboam was seated on his temple throne with Israel’s newly appointed general at his side. Menahem was a ruthless soldier and an exacting leader. Like King Jeroboam, he demanded unquestioning loyalty from those he commanded. Gomer had felt the sting of the general’s whip two nights ago when she’d been slow to serve his wine. She’d never make that mistake again.

  Seated at the king’s right was Amaziah, Bethel’s high priest during Gomer’s childhood. She’d seen him a hundred times since she’d arrived in Samaria, resenting his promotion to Israel’s high priest. But today she felt six years old again, and in her mind’s eye she saw Amaziah rage at the prophet Amos, who had come from Judah to prophecy against Israel—and Amos brought that fish prophet with him.

  The fish prophet. He’s the one who took Hosea away. A fresh memory of Hosea’s kind face squeezed her heart. She hadn’t thought of her childhood friend for years—until this morning. Why had he plagued her thoughts today?

  Gomer covered her ears, shutting out the memory, concentrating on the flute and drum of the celebration to come. But she could feel Hosea’s arms around her. He was just a little boy, but he was like a big brother, strong and protective. When his abba Beeri declared he was taking Hosea to Judah—away from Israel’s pagan worship—Gomer remembered screaming, falling from the rafters. Her world went black. When she’d awakened, Hosea was gone—and soon her innocence was taken as well.