Dancing with Jezebel: God's man in the court of Ahab

By J. Clarke McIntosh

Three of the most fascinating characters in Israel's history are contemporaries and opponents. There is Elijah, the fiery prophet of God; Ahab, the weak and unfaithful king, and Jezebel, the beautiful pagan queen who leads the northern kingdom of Israel into deeper apostasy and paganism.
Dancing with Jezebel is told through Obadiah, a righteous and God-fearing man in the court of Ahab. The Bible gives us little information about this man who both serves the king and befriends the prophet, but he is perfectly situated to tell what it would have been like to witness the manipulation of the king by the beautiful queen from Sidon.
In this book, Obadiah is the grandson of Dan, one of the counsellors sent to Rehoboam, the foolish son of Solomon whose arrogance led to the rupture of Israel and the formation of the Northern Kingdom that became Samaria. Obadiah's wife, Naomi, is from Judah, the cousin of King Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. Obadiah gives a brief account of the kings of the Northern Kingdom, the origin of Samaria, and the conflicts with Judah and the revival of faith in the southern neighbour.
This historical fiction is faithful to scripture concerning a forgotten era from Israel's history that speaks to issues of our day: the loss of historical faith, the rise of false religions, and the consequences of apostasy. There are fictional characters and narratives, but the actual history of Judah and Israel are faithfully recounted. It is a history we need to remember.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: May 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781528985208

J. Clarke McIntosh

J. Clarke McIntosh is a medical missionary in Sudan and South Sudan, where he has been for more than a decade. Though he has no formal theological training, he has been a student of the Bible since he became a Christian as an adolescent. The material for this and other of his books arose from his personal daily devotions. He says, “Being in Sudan has actually been a boon for my writing. I am convinced that the cultures and practices of Sudan are much closer to those of Biblical times than what we know in America. Also, when I am not in the hospital, I have few distractions, so I have more opportunity to write and edit my work.”

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Elisha

About The Author

The author is a medical missionary in Sudan where he has been for the last 10 years. Though he has no formal theological training, he has been a student of the Bible since adolescence. His writing aims at conveying God’s truth in an inviting format while upholding proper respect and devotion for the scriptures, seeking to place his readers in a position where they can experience what the protagonist(s) experienced as the Biblical narrative(s) evolved.

Dedication

To my children and grandchildren,

Oli, Constance and Thaddeus Smith,

Clarke, Kyung Mi and Jude McIntosh.

And to my father, Jack McIntosh, the best man I know and my best friend, and to his wife, Lark, my strongest supporter.

Copyright Information ©

J. Clarke McIntosh (2020)

The right of J. Clarke McIntosh to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528985192 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781528985208 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2020)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

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London

E14 5LQ

The New American Standard Bible (NASB) is the version I used as my reference. Quotations and dialogue found in this work may resemble the text from the NASB, but I always sought to use my own words.

Synopsis

Three of the most fascinating characters in Israel’s history are contemporaries and opponents. There is Elijah: the fiery prophet who strides up to the king of Israel and pronounces a killing drought, which will inflict his land because of his unfaithfulness. There is Ahab: the king who is caught in a tug-of-war between Elijah and his pagan wife. Though he is remembered as one of the most notorious pagan kings of Israel’s history, he is torn between doing what he knows is right and what will appease his demanding and manipulative wife. And then there is Jezebel: the beautiful pagan queen who leads the northern Kingdom of Israel into deeper apostasy and paganism. Dancing with Jezebel is told through Obadiah, a righteous and God-fearing man in the court of Ahab. The Bible gives us little information about this man who both serves the king and befriends the prophet. He is perfectly situated to give us a perspective of what it would have been like to witness the manipulation of the king by the beautiful queen from Sidon, the third largest city in Phoenicia. Get to experience the killing drought predicted by Elijah. Participate in the great contest between Elijah and the prophets of Baal and Ashereth on Mount Carmel, when God sent the fiery bolt that consumed the sacrifice and testified to the faithfulness of His prophet. Witness the tragic downfall of a king and his family. In this book, Obadiah is the grandson of Dan. Dan is one of the counsellors sent to Rehoboam, the foolish son of and successor to Solomon, whose arrogance led to the rupture of Israel and the formation of the Northern Kingdom, which later became Samaria. Obadiah’s wife, Naomi, is from Judah; she is the cousin of King Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. Obadiah gives a brief account of the Kings of the Northern Kingdom, the origin of Samaria, the conflicts with Judah and the revival of faith in the southern neighbour. The book is a historical fiction and is faithful to the Biblical narrative. It is a narrative from a forgotten era of Israelite history, but it speaks to issues of our day, such as the loss of historical faith, the rise in paganism and the consequences of apostasy. As a historical fiction, there are fictional characters and narratives, but the actual history of Judah and Israel are faithfully recounted. It is a history we need to remember.

Preface

The Bible is not only our final authority in faith and practice, but also a great source of historical narrative. There is no comparable history, from any tradition or society, from similar eras in the entire world—indeed; there are no real rivals to the Bible in that regard, though many modern historians are reluctant to give appropriate recognition to the Bible’s authority in historical questions. However, scripture does not read like a Dickens’ novel; not everything weaves together into a tight, neat tapestry with all the questions answered. There are lots of loose threads in the Bible. People come in and out of focus within the narrative, without introductions or farewells, just as they do in real life, because the stories are real. Those loose threads can be rich fodder for speculation—historical or Biblical fiction, if you will. We hear briefly of Obadiah, in 1 Kings 18. He serves in the court of Ahab, the evil King of Israel, but we are told that he feared the Lord greatly. When faced with the great prophet, Obadiah reminds Elijah of a time when he worked to thwart the evil plans of Jezebel, the despicable queen and wife of Ahab. Clearly, this Obadiah is not the same as the prophet who authored one of the books of the Bible, for the prophet lived hundreds of years later, but Obadiah’s position and role are intriguing. Why would Ahab, possibly the most evil king in Israel’s history, have a God-fearing man in his court? What would it have been like to be Obadiah, a man who greatly feared the Lord but worked for a king who came to personify paganism among the kings of Israel? What was Jezebel really like and how did she get to be the queen of Israel? Since the Bible is silent on these questions, we are free to speculate. Obadiah lived in an exciting time and was, at least, passingly acquainted with Elijah, the greatest prophet of God as far as miraculous occurrences are concerned. That period of Israel’s history is fascinating. I cannot really identify with Elijah; except, perhaps, during his uncharacteristic flight from Jezebel. However, I can come closer to identifying with Obadiah, having to show loyalty to a man with whom my faith puts me in conflict. Many of us have been in that position at times. Moreover, the juxtaposition of Obadiah with the evil king, the wicked queen and the great prophet provides the setting for a good story. I believe this was one of the great, but neglected, eras in Israel’s history. I attempt to tell that history as accurately as possible, but from the perspective of one living the Chinese curse—living in those interesting times. It was an era when God’s people, by and large, were faithless, but God refused to give up on them—much like modern times.

Glossary of Terms:

Bar: means ‘son of’, like Simon Bar-Jonah, when used in a name.

Levite: temple worker from the tribe of Levi, not a descendant of Aaron.

Priest: Jewish, religious leader. Descended from Aaron in the tribe of Levi.

Stadia: 1/8th of a mile.

Synagogue: Jewish place of worship. Used when there are more than ten families in a town.

Talent: 15 years’ wages.

The Great Sea: the Mediterranean (Middle of the Earth) Sea.

Time: a twelve-hour day; the first hour (6 am), the sixth hour (noon) and the twelfth hour (6 pm).

Torah: can represent either the first five books of the Old Testament or the entire Old Testament, sometimes called ‘the Law and the Prophets’.

Chapter 1

Obadiah Inherits a Position of Influence

Being counsellor to the king is both exciting and frustrating; an adventure to be envied and a curse not to wish upon my greatest foe. Having served, in that capacity, with four different kings, I speak with some authority. Through my position, I have had contact with some of the most colourful and influential people of my time. Those interactions form the basis of my story. My name is Obadiah Bar-Joseph, an Israelite from the tribe of Ephraim. To a large degree, my family history has shaped who I am and the life I have led. At all levels, my family has a tradition of overcoming difficulties, surviving against overwhelming odds, by trusting faithfully in God. Nowhere is that trust seen more clearly than in the patriarch of the Israelites: our father Abraham, one of the greatest men of all time. Abraham’s faith set him apart from his contemporaries. As a man of seventy-five, with a barren wife ten years his junior, Abraham left a position of wealth and security to follow the call of Jehovah; trusting the promise of God to make him a great nation and a blessing for all mankind even though he had no heir and the time for normal conception had already passed for his beloved Sarah. From Ur of the Chaldeans, he travelled to Canaan. Trusting in his God, who was so different from the idols that his neighbours and even many of the members of his family had worshipped, he encountered numerous adventures and trials in Canaan. Finally, twenty-five years later, decades after his wife Sarah had ceased the function of women, God gave them a son—Isaac, the child of promise.

Barrenness seemed prevalent in the original members of our family. Isaac was an old man when his prayers for his wife, Rebecca, were answered; she gave birth to fraternal twin boys. Jacob and Esau were rivals from the moment of conception and seemed to be at war in Rebecca’s womb. Indeed, Jacob grabbed the heel of his elder brother during birth, as if competing with Esau for first position. In the end, Jacob (or Israel), overcame the elder twin and continued the covenant that God made with Abraham. From Israel came the twelve patriarchs.

The wife of Jacob’s heart was Rachel; she, too, was barren for years, until God opened her womb and gave Israel his favourite son, Joseph. Thus, barrenness and other trials had to be overcome by our family, right from our genesis, although no one in our family faced more formidable obstacles than Joseph, who became the father of Ephraim, the patriarch of our tribe. Israel favoured Joseph because he opened the womb of his beloved wife; but Jacob’s favouritism for Rachel’s son elicited jealousy and hatred from Joseph’s brothers. Finding Joseph alone and far from home on an errand from their father, his brothers conspired against Joseph. They contemplated killing him but instead, sold him into slavery through a band of Midianite traders passing by. As the traders carried Joseph to Egypt—where a series of tests and challenges awaited him—his brothers led their father to believe he had been slain by a wild beast.

Despite his numerous trials, Joseph trusted Jehovah throughout his life. He overcame the degradations of slavery, until he rose to the position of overseer in his master’s house. However, just as conditions appeared to be improving, he was jailed, unjustly, through false accusations by the master’s wife. Despite yet another shocking setback, Joseph continued to look towards God with confidence. While in prison, Joseph was enabled by God to interpret the dream of the Pharaoh, the King of Egypt, and save the entire region from starvation. God warned the pharaoh, in a dream, of a forthcoming famine. Because he was able to interpret the pharaoh’s dream, Joseph was elevated from prisoner to become second in command in all of Egypt. The pharaoh’s dream predicted seven years of bountiful harvests, followed by a great famine that affected the entire region including Jacob and his remaining family. Joseph made recommendations and then took steps that enabled the government to store food during plentiful times; thus, saving Egypt and our family during the great famine. Jacob and his sons were invited to move to Egypt because of Joseph’s position in the Egyptian government.

Because of Joseph’s faithfulness, he received double portion of the heritage of Israel. Both of his sons are considered patriarchs of Israel, equal to Jacob’s other sons. Our father Ephraim, though Joseph’s second-born, was chosen over Manasseh to be the greater. This happened when their grandfather, Jacob, crossed his arms and placed his right hand on our father’s head. Throughout our history, Ephraim was greater than Manasseh and all the tribes of Israel, with the exception of Judah. Joshua, an Ephraimite, led Israel into the Promised Land after the death of Moses. By God’s grace and power, Joshua defeated all the nations occupying Canaan. There were pockets of resistance left in the lands that were given as our inheritance. We were the second tribe (following Judah) to step forward and claim our land; it was one of the most difficult terrains and home to some of the fiercest warriors. From the time of Joshua onward, Ephraim has competed with Judah for the distinction of being the most powerful tribe of Israel. Admittedly, more times than not, Judah has emerged to a superior position. Despite Judah’s dominance, I am proud to be an Israelite and an Ephraimite.

My immediate family also has a rich heritage. My grandfather, Dan, was a member of the council of men who were chosen to approach King Rehoboam Bar-Solomon before his coronation. Solomon had just died and our council came to affirm our loyalty to the grandson of King David. They had also been instructed by the elders to seek relief from the taxes that King Solomon and the tribe of Judah had imposed on all of Israel. Unfortunately, because of the intransigence of Rehoboam towards that council with respect to the taxes, the nation of Israel divided; the Northern Kingdom abandoned Judah and the descendants of David.

To his dying day, my grandfather mourned the hardness of Rehoboam that led to the rupture of the nation of Israel. Many times, he repeated for me the story that was the grief of his life. There were ten of us. One from each of the tribes other than Judah, Benjamin, and of course, Levi. We were sent to reason with Rehoboam Bar-Solomon. Each man attending the council, at Shechem, went expecting to anoint Rehoboam as king; allowing him to succeed his father on the throne of David. But of equal importance was the negotiated reduction of taxes. Each of us had been instructed, by the elders of his tribe, to press for relief from the burdensome taxes that Solomon had imposed on us. We were to withhold our fealty until the king relented. The ten of us counselled together before meeting with the king. We all professed a desire to continue with Judah and serve the descendant of David, though I suspected at the time that Jeroboam, the representative from the tribe of Manasseh, harboured secret sedition. Only later did we realise that his intention was to break with Judah and declare himself potentate of a new realm. Though the rest of us were loyal to David, and therefore his heir, none of us were willing to give in on the issue of taxes because of the adamant instructions from our elders. By that stage, in the retelling of the story, Grandfather was always worked up, but he continued with a flushed face and slightly increased volume of speech. Slamming his hand on the table and spewing spittle as he proceeded, he said, "Had he been wise like his father, Rehoboam would’ve listened to the council, given way on this matter, reconciled the differences that had arisen. Had he done so we’d have sworn our allegiance to him, as we did to his father and grandfather, the greatest kings of Israel. Israel would’ve continued to be a great kingdom. But Rehoboam listened to the counsel of fools, boasting that he would tax us far more than his father had done. ‘My little finger will be