Unnamed Widow of Influence

By Sherri Stewart

Every month of 2022, I’ve been writing about women of influence in the Bible. The woman chosen for November is not the normal woman of influence; perhaps, that is why she is unnamed. Yet, this widow was and is a woman of influence in my own life. Before my husband suddenly died a few years ago, we had accumulated a lot of credit-card debt, which we were slowly paying off, but when Bobby died, and my monthly income had decreased, I was worried. My accountant told me I should call the credit-card companies and tell them I couldn’t pay them. Yes, my credit scores would drop to all-time lows, but a person has to eat. Instead of taking her advice, I sought the Lord’s, and I met this unnamed widow of influence.

According to II Kings 4:1-7, the woman was the wife of a man who deeply revered the Lord. He was called ‘one of the sons (disciples) of the prophets.’ Back then, Israel had separated from Judah and was a land of idolatry. There were few prophets and few believers in Israel, but this woman’s husband was probably a disciple of Elisha. Unfortunately, her husband had taken out a sizable loan, then died unexpectantly, leaving his family with a debt that they could not afford. As a result, the creditor was coming to take her two sons to be his slaves. That’s how people paid off their debts at that time. From this we can easily understand the emergency of the situation: the woman who had lost her husband was about to lose her two sons as well, and as a woman, she’d have had no way to support herself. 

 To face this problem she cried out to Elisha, the man of God. Her first four words say it all: “your servant, my husband.” Her husband was his servant. This means both he and she were loyal to Elisha; they were part of a group of followers of Elisha. In 2 Kings 4:2, it says, “So Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” Elisha was there ready to help this widow. He did not condemn her for the debt. What had happened, had happened. What counted now was not the past, but that in the present time, she needed immediate support, and to find it, she sought the Lord. Also see that Elisha did not try to get rid of her because the problem was too difficult. He certainly did not have a solution to her problem; nevertheless, his reply shows that he was ready to help in any way he could. This widow was really in great poverty. There was nothing in her house but a jar of oil. Obviously in her effort to get rid of the debt, she’d sold everything. There was no table, no beds, no cooking utensils. The only thing that was left was this jar of oil. However, this jar of oil was enough for God to bring deliverance to her.

God, through Elisha, told the woman to borrow empty vessels and to pour the oil from her jar into them. The word for “vessels” here is the most general term for containers. In today’s terms, it would include anything from a 5-gallon bucket or a Tupperware bowl to a wine bottle or a perfume jar. If we do not take God into account, these instructions may sound really crazy. For, according to scientific laws, a jar of oil cannot fill but another jar of oil of the same size. Therefore, scientifically speaking, what Elisha told the widow that would happen was impossible. What Elisha said would certainly come to pass, if the widow did exactly what he said: Borrow the empty vessels from her neighbors, shut the door, and fill the jars with oil from her jar. 

Elisha told her to collect as many empty containers as she could from her neighbors. Note how he employed the community in his miracle to help the widow. The neighbors’ charity to lend her their containers was essential to how she would find relief. Next, Elisha strangely ordered her to shut the doors behind her and her kids. What is the point of this direction? This step may be an allusion to a law in Deut. 24:10,11. It says that a creditor cannot enter one’s house to seize the pledge; instead, the debtor has to bring the pledge outside to the creditor. Inside they were safe. Elisha made her shut the doors to follow this law and to protect her kids.

Elisha then told her to take the flask and start filling up each borrowed container, one at a time. Her children brought her a vessel. She filled it, and then it was pulled to the side and replaced with an empty one. This has to be the slowest miracle ever! She collected some 50, 100, or more containers. With this slow dribble, the widow filled buckets, canning jars, tubs, and gallon jugs. This could have taken days. We can just picture the widow and her kids, exhausted and oily, sitting in a house crammed with vessels of oil with spills all over the place. And when they reached the last container, the oil stopped flowing. 

She came and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on the rest. Elisha provided the miracle of oil, so that the widow would pay off her loan and not lose her children. And there was enough oil to live off of for the rest of the their lives. The flask of oil, which represented the widow’s utter poverty, became the very source of becoming debt-free and living daily life. Elisha didn’t forgive the debt, but he produced income to pay the loan off. This was not a usual miracle, but it is one that surely shows the Lord’s compassion on his people—in this case, a nameless, poor widow.

Sherri Stewart loves a clean novel, sprinkled with romance and a strong message that challenges her faith. She spends her working hours with books—either editing others’ manuscripts or writing her own. Her passion is traveling to the settings of her books and sampling the food. She loves the Netherlands, and she’s still learning Dutch, although she doesn’t need to since everyone speaks perfect English. A recent widow, Sherri lives in Orlando with her lazy dog, Lily. She shares recipes, tidbits of the book’s locations, and pix in her newsletter. Subscribe at http://eepurl.com/gZ-mv9

What Hides behind the Walls

If the Nazis stole your house, wouldn’t you be justified in stealing it back now that the war is over?

When Tamar Feldman admits to her husband, Daniel, and mentor, Neelie Visser, that she broke into her former home, they scold her for taking such a risk. Tamar is tired of being careful. She’s tired of living in the present, as if the past doesn’t matter. But the painting of the violin girl in her former bedroom draws her back again and again. She finally steals the painting to return it to its former owner. Now maybe this small act of justice will help her start to heal What Tamar doesn’t realize is the past isn’t finished with her yet; in fact, it’s as close as the walls in her house and even follows her to Paris.

https://amzn.to/3fxHAHo

 

Researching in the Ruins + Giveaway

Dana McNeely

While the internet is a wonderful research tool, books are often more dependable. This was driven home to me recently because my computer has been in the repair shop for more than a week, and I'm typing this on a loaner laptop. I was grateful to an "old ruin" of a book, paper and ink rather than the "cloud," for providing me research material for this blog post.

One of my favorite old reference books is PALESTINE AND THE BIBLE by Samuel Schor, born in Jerusalem around 1860. My falling-apart copy is faded and worn, the nineteenth edition published in 1931, so the book itself is a piece of history. Having the appearance of a homemade book, it is a true soft cover, made of tan paper only slightly thicker than its pages, folded back to reinforce the edges. Perhaps it resembles the first pamphlets from which it originated.

In its introduction, Schor wrote "God's Word is an Eastern Book. It was written in the East, by Easterns, and for Easterns." He went on to say his little book was intended to help Western readers understand Eastern expressions as they studied the Bible. He often included Bible verses to illustrate his descriptions of life and customs in Jerusalem. In 1891, he started what he called the "Palestine Exhibitions." His book developed over the time he lectured and wrote pamphlets for the Exhibitions.

I consider PALESTINE AND THE BIBLE an early precursor to "Everyday Life in Bible Times" books. The book is out of print and I believe copies are rare, so in this post I'd like to share with you a few tidbits of Schor's unique insights.

EASTERN PLOUGHS AND YOKES

• Primitive ploughs were made of wood, had a handle, and were light enough to be carried by a man. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. (Luke 9:62)
• The plough is fastened to the neck of oxen with a yoke and the oxen pass under it.  But the nations that bring their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him, those will I let remain still in their own land, saith the Lord. (Jeremiah 27:11a)
• The weight of the yoke makes the poor animals stoop, hence the force of the allusion that when God brought Israel out of Egypt and broke their yoke of bondage, He said "I made you go upright." I AM the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright. (Leviticus 26:13)
• Partly for protection and partly because of the size of their fields, farmers would often plow together, each with his own team of oxen, creating long, straight plow lines across the field. Thus Elisha was engaged when he was called by Elijah. So he departed thence, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth: and Elijah passed by him, and cast his mantle upon him. (1 Kings 19:19)

Schor's descriptions of Old Jerusalem painted a backdrop for much of my book RAIN, particularly a scene where Aban, a young former acolyte of Ba'al, observes the prophet Elijah call his successor, Elisha. Part of that scene from RAIN follows:

Antique plow with iron tip as used by prosperous farmers during Israel's Iron Age

IT ALL COMES OUT IN THE WASH

History teaches us when we walk through the looking glass of time, we see faces much like our own.

It is the details of everyday life that differ. The type of house the family lived in – three bedrooms, two bath or one-room mudbrick with a courtyard housing a goat. The kind of music – streaming service or lyre. The kind of food – chips and dip or lentil stew and flatbread.

Bathing is an everyday occurrence to moderns, not so much, the ancients. Over time, innovations such as canals, pumps, and piped water to homes have changed how humans are able to wash themselves and their clothes.

One interesting point. In Old Testament times, it was a man’s job to wash the dishes. Or at least to dry them.  

2 Kings 21:13 ~ And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab: and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down.

        

WASHING AND BATHING

Ahem. Back to washing in ancient times. Because I write biblical novels, I’m interested in many aspects of everyday life in biblical times. People washed themselves and their clothes for hygienic and ritual cleansing, using rivers and springs when they were available, lavers, jugs, and basins when they were not.

For example, Pharaoh’s daughter was bathing by the river when she discovered Moses (Exodus 2:5). King Ahab’s blood was washed from his chariot “near the pool where the prostitutes bathed" (1 Kings 22:38). Elisha told the leper Naaman to wash in the Jordan River seven times to be healed (2 Kings 5:10).

SOAP AND PERFUME

Sometimes soap is mentioned. “No amount of soap or lye can make you clean. I still see the stain of your guilt.”  (Jeremiah 2:22). According to Easton’s Bible Dictionary, the Hebrew word borith, often translated soap, refers to a cleansing agent made from ashes of wood or plants, particularly salsola kali (salt wort), abundant on the shores of the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean.

Hyssop, Hebrew ezov, is also mentioned in regard to cleansing, “Purge me with ezov and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow" (Psalm 51:7). Identified with Syrian Hyssop, the plant is popular as a spice or tea, with a pleasing fragrance.

Naomi encouraged Ruth to bathe and perfume herself before presenting herself to Boaz at the threshing floor. (Ruth 3:3).

FOOT WASHING

When full-body bathing was not possible, washing the hands, face, and feet could be accomplished with water, jug, and basin. Most people wore only sandals and their feet became dirty on the unpaved roads. It was customary for a person to wash his feet before entering his home. In a wealthy person’s home, a servant met guests at the door to perform this service.

Many are familiar with the story of Jesus acting as the servant and washing the feet of his disciples. This occurred during the Passover, when spring rains would have been falling and the streets of Jerusalem especially muddy. In this instance, Jesus humbly portrayed both physical and spiritual cleansing.

Geologists have uncovered many interesting artifacts related to washing in ancient times.

• A tenth-century BC tub in the sacred precinct at Tel Dan.
• Terra-cotta bathtubs from Philistine sites at Ashdod and Ekron.
• An 8th-century BC figurine of a woman bathing in a shallow tub from Achzib.
• Pottery basins for foot-washing at Samaria, Megiddo, and Lachish.

For further reading: 

Insights Into Bible Times and Customs, G. Christian Weiss

Daily Life in Biblical Times, Oded Borowski

Dictionary of Daily Life in Biblical & Post-Biblical Antiquity, Yamauchi & Wilson

Plants of the Bible, Michael Zohary

RAIN ~ Whispers in the Wind Book 1

Aban yearns to join the priesthood of Ba'al, unlock the power of the rain god, and hear the deity's voice. But first, he must survive a perilous initiation ceremony. 

When the mysterious prophet Elijah interrupts the rites, overturns the idol, and curses the land with drought, Aban must choose a side in Yahweh's war against the Ba'als - and it may cost him his life.

Book 2, working title WHIRLWIND, coming February 2023.

Dana McNeely dreamed of living in a world teeming with adventure, danger, and romance, but she had a problem—she also needed a lot of peace and quiet. She learned to visit that dream world by stepping into a book.

Inspired by the Bible stories of Elijah, Dana wondered about the widow of Zarephath and her son. Who were they? What was their life, before? How did the boy change after he died, saw the other world—and came back?

Those questions led to Dana writing RAIN, in which she built her dream world of adventure, danger, and romance. Peace and quiet, however, have remained elusive.

No stranger to drought, Dana lives in an Arizona oasis with her hubby the constant gardener, two good dogs, an antisocial cat, and migrating butterflies.

Learn more about Dana and her books at her website: DanaMcNeely.com