What Did It Matter?

    It was noon and the sun was burning high over her head. The sleeping boy tied to her back was listless and moaning. What did it matter? Neither of them had slept well in the heat of these last many days and long sweltering nights. What did it matter? Neither of them had much of an appetite either – but there was little in the way of food in any case. A handful of flour, a bit of oil. Enough for dinner. One last meal, and then to die. What did it matter?

    Her husband, a Phoenician merchant sailor, had drowned at sea a few weeks before the boy was born. Now his wife and son would die of thirst and drought. Was that irony? She didn’t know so she gathered sticks to use as fuel for a cookfire. One last meal and then we die.

    The priests of Melqart, tutelary god of the Phoenicians, had honored her husband’s death as a service to the Lord, protector of the world and ruler of the dark realms beneath. They promised that Melqart would remember his name and would bless his memory. But what of it? They had little when he was alive. They had less now. What did it matter?

    She saw the prophet as she was gathering sticks. She leaned over carefully so as not to disturb the boy. His sleep was restless enough. She saw the prophet coming over the hill as she stood up with an armload of twigs and branches. She recognized him as a prophet immediately. His mantle gave him away – though she didn’t recognize the bead-work patters in the coarse camel hair. ‘Must be a foreign prophet,’ she thought.

    And that thought was confirmed when he spoke. His accent. “Bring me some water, if you will, kind mother.”

    “Mother!” she scoffed. “I’m gathering wood for a cookfire,” she said, “to prepare a meal for myself and the boy, but what does it matter?” She sighed. “Yes. I can bring you a bowl of water.”

    “Food,” the prophet beamed. “Heartily, I could eat if you’d have some to share.”

    She stared at him and his strange prophetic garments. “Who are you, prophet?” she asked.

    “Elijah is my name and Yah is my God,” he answered. It sounded funny when he said it like that. His accent. But she didn’t have reserves of energy enough to laugh.

    She sighed. “I don’t have meat or fish. I don’t have beans or lentils. I don’t even have baked bread to offer you, prophet. All I have is a handful of flour and a bit of oil. I was just about to fry it up for the boy and I to eat before we die.”

    The prophet took her hands between his own and held them into the air as he spoke:

    “The jar of meal shall not be spent,
    nor the oil be found wanting
    not till the day that Yah relents
    and sends the rain upon the earth,”

    “All we have is yours, prophet,” she said again and shook her head. She turned and carried the armload of wood into the house. There she laid the boy on his pallet in the corner of the room and soothed his head. “Quiet, boy. Rest.”

    She stacked the wood into the fire pit and lit it. Then, as the stone set over the fire warmed, she mixed the last handful of flour with the little oil that remained and formed a small ball of dough. When the stone was hot, she put the dough ball on it and rolled it flat. It sizzled as it cooked to a deep golden color. She flipped it to cook the other side. “One last meal, and then to die,” she huffed. “What does it matter who eats it?”

    The boy moaned as she handed the cake to the prophet. “Eat,” she told him. “I must tend to the boy.” As she turned away from the prophet and back to the boy she saw that the bowl that had held the last remaining handful of flour was full again. And the jug of oil, full to the top. She looked back to the prophet who was contentedly munching the fry-bread.

    He smiled and offered a piece of the bread to her. “For the boy. To eat,” he said.

1 Kings 17:7-16