Signs and Wonders

by Bernard Evslin

The waters parted. Elisha crossed over on the river bottom between the taut walls of water. The young men who waited on the other side bowed low to him and said: “The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha.”

  Jonah

  Jonah was a prophet in Israel. A squat, balding man, he was passionately honest and very stubborn. The word of the Lord came to him: “Arise. Go to Ninevah, that great city, and cry out its sins. The people there are very wicked, and if they do not repent in forty days they will be destroyed. Go to Ninevah. Speak my word.”

  Jonah was discontented. “Nobody heeds me in my own land,” he said to himself. “What can I expect in Ninevah? I shall rant and rave and preach myself blue in the face, promising disaster and urging repentance, and no one will listen. They will mock me and revile me and assault me with sticks and stones, and pursue their evil ways in perfect disregard of my warnings.”

  He pondered a while longer, then said to himself: “Also, I do not view the destruction of Ninevah as an unmixed disaster. The Assyrians are a fierce and warlike people. One day they will descend upon us like wolves in a sheepfold. No! I do not like this errand. God must find another prophet. I will flee this place.”

  And Jonah went down to the seaport in Joppa. Since Ninevah lay to the northeast, he looked for a ship heading southwest. He found one leaving for Tarshish. He paid his fare and boarded the ship, and tried to sail out of the Lord’s presence.

  But the Lord had prepared a rough voyage for Jonah. He sent a great wind, and the sea boiled up in fierce waves. The ship buffeted back and forth. Its sails were torn into rags; its masts snapped. It was driven onto its side and could barely right itself. And the crew was afraid. Every man cried out to his god. They were from many places and believed in many gods. And each man prayed to his own for safety in the tempest.

  They threw the cargo overboard to lighten the ship. All were terrified but Jonah, who was in his hammock asleep. The captain went below and found him sleeping. He grasped his shoulder and shook him awake, crying, “What do you mean, O sleeper? Arise! Call upon your god like everybody else. For if some god does not call off this wind, we are finished.”

  The wind grew stronger, and now the ship was about to sink. The captain said: “There is someone here the gods pursue. They will drown all of us for the sake of this one loathed fellow. Let us draw lots to find out who has brought this evil upon us.”

  The captain tore paper until there was a piece for everyone aboard. On one of the pieces of paper he put a dot. He folded the papers and cast them into a hat. Then each man drew. And Jonah drew the fatal dot. He was not surprised. The captain said: “Tell us, I pray, who are you? What is your occupation? Where do you come from?”

  Jonah said: “I am a Hebrew. I worship the one God, God Almighty, who has made the sea and the dry land. And I fear Him, and flee His face.”

  Terror mounted in the crew when they heard these words. The captain shuddered. “Why do you flee?” he whispered to Jonah. “Have you aroused his anger?”

  “I have disobeyed Him,” said Jonah. “He sent me on an errand to Ninevah, and I embarked for Tarshish. His wrath be upon me.”

  “His wrath is upon all of us,” said the captain. “What shall we do? Another few minutes of this wind and we must all drown.”

  “Get me off your ship,” said Jonah. “Cast me into the sea. I alone will drown and the wind will fall.”

  But the captain was a kindly man and the crew were good-hearted men. They tried to row the ship toward shore, for they did not wish to cast Jonah into the sea. But the wind blew harder and harder. The ship foundered and began to take on water. The captain cried, “We beseech you, O Lord, let us not perish for this man’s misdeed. Neither do we wish to kill him.”

  The wind blew harder. Jonah said: “Cast me into the sea! Cast me overboard or you all perish!”

  “Do so,” said the captain. The men seized Jonah and threw him overboard. But the Lord did not wish Jonah to drown; He had other plans. He had prepared a great fish for Jonah. The fish was waiting. It was longer than the ship. A monster fish, it was called a leviathan then. Today we would call it a whale. Jonah never hit the water. The whale took him like a trout taking a fly, and swallowed him up.

  It was very dark in the whale’s belly. Jonah saw only an occasional flash of daylight far up the long tunnel of the whale’s throat, when it opened its mouth to swallow something else. Jonah was as brave as he was stubborn. He did not despair. He sat down in the darkness of the whale’s belly, and said: “O God, I cry to you out of the belly of hell and you hear my voice. For I was in the deep, in the midst of the sea, in the midst of the tempest, and the waters hungered for me. The depths called to me to drown. But you have delivered me out of the deep and you have put me into this safe place. Thank you, O Lord, for your mercy—which takes strange forms.”

  And the Lord found Jonah’s prayers bittersweet. They were stubborn and contentious, but they were knotted with the man’s own peculiar conscience, and in them was a questioning, a struggle for light. God directed the whale toward the shores of Assyria. The great fish turned northeast and swam to the shore that the Lord had intended as Jonah’s destination. The whale stood offshore and sounded. It leaped out of the water, and, at the highest point of its leap, vomited Jonah out. Jonah flew through the air and landed on the shore of Assyria, unhurt. There were people who saw this and ran to spread the report of a miracle, of a great fish breaching and vomiting out a man, who landed unharmed. A man with a bald head and an angry face and a long, white beard.

  As Jonah sat on the shore and looked about, the voice of the Lord came again: “Arise. Go to Ninevah, that great city, and preach what I have told you.”

  Jonah journeyed inland and came to Ninevah. It was then the greatest city in the world. Sixty miles around were its walls and twenty miles across. It teemed with people. There was a clamor in the streets, and great wealth, and great poverty. The king was arrogant beyond belief, and his princes worse. The king’s huntmaster trained his young lionhounds on prisoners who had been released from their dungeons and forced to run across the plain. The dogs pursued; those whom they caught they were permitted to devour. And every day twenty slaves died of exposure, fetching snow from the mountaintop for the king’s sherbet.

  Ninevah was a mighty pageant night and day; the city never slept. It burned like a furnace, this fat city, and wallowed in sin. Men and women coupled like dogs in the street, and on the rooftops, and wherever they happened to meet. There were unlikely combinations, also. Men and men, women and women, man and cow, woman and bull. All the things that were forbidden they did with great zest.

  “Unclean!” bellowed Jonah. “Filth! Abomination!”

  A crowd gathered to hear him. No man had ever spoken like this in Ninevah. “Abomination!” he roared. “You are the worst sinners on the face of the earth! The Lord has prepared a flaming death for you, even as befell Sodom and Gomorrah. Yea, Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities of the plain. The Lord was displeased with them and loosed a fiery rain upon them, a storm of fire, until they were utterly consumed. Every man, woman, child, house, barn, animal—all, all consumed. And Sodom and Gomorrah were innocent little villages compared to Ninevah. Cease! Cease! You have but forty days, then Ninevah will be destroyed.”

  A great shriek of rage went up from the crowd. They surged forward, ready to tear Jonah to pieces. But the king was there. And he cried, “Stop! Touch not the hem of this man’s robe. He is the man vomited out by the whale. He is the man of that wet miracle. He has come on God’s errand and speaks God’s word. We must heed what he says or be destroyed.”

  The king thereupon proclaimed a penance in Ninevah. He forbade pleasures of the flesh. Men and women were to cease their fornications, to put aside all carnal appetite, whatever its form. And by royal decree a fast was proclaimed. The king put on sackcloth and covered his head with ashes, and all the people did likewise. A proclamation went forth to every part of Assyria, to every village and farm in the broad reaches of that land. It re
ad: “Let not man or beast taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water. Let each man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily unto God. Let everyone turn from his evil way.”

  Jonah said to the king: “This is not sufficient. You must not only cease your gluttony and your fornications, but you must turn your hand from violence. You must recall your raiding parties and take no more slaves. And the slaves you have must be treated without cruelty. You must not work them to death or lash them to death or treat them like beasts. Let this, also, be proclaimed.”

  The king did as Jonah said. The people fasted and abstained from sin. And God saw their works and repented of the evil that He had designed against them, and withheld His wrath.

  Word came to Jonah of the Lord’s mercy, and Jonah was very angry. He spoke to God, saying, “Lord, did I not tell you all this was useless? That is why I fled to Tarshish. For I knew that either my words would be ignored, or that you in your great mercy would spare the city. Yes, for a few bolts of sackcloth and a few buckets of ashes and a few weeks’ show of virtue you have spared the wickedest city on the earth. And you have spared a people fierce and warlike, who will surely march south one day against Israel and Judah and vanquish your chosen people. And for this you have spared the Assyrians and the wicked city of Ninevah. Therefore, I pray you, since I do not understand you and am unworthy to be your prophet, I beseech you take my life. It is better for me to die than live.”

  The Lord spoke: “Is it well for you to be so angry?”

  Jonah went out of the city and sat near its east wall. He built a little hut for himself and sat in its shade to see what would happen to Ninevah, how long virtue would be enforced, how long until chastity became intolerable. But when the sun shifted, the hut did not shade Jonah. The sun of Assyria is savage in midsummer, and Jonah grew faint.

  God prepared a gourd and made it sprout on a vine—a large, plump gourd, which cast a shade that fell upon Jonah all day long until the sun sank. And Jonah welcomed the gourd and its cool shade.

  But in the gourd that God had prepared for Jonah He had also planted a worm. The worm ate the heart of the gourd, and the gourd perished. When the sun arose the next morning God sent an east wind, the hottest wind, the wind that blights. There was no shade and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah. And the ill wind blew, and Jonah swooned. He sank to earth and spoke to God: “It is better for me to die than live,” he said.

  God said: “Is it well for you to be so angry about the gourd?”

  “It is,” said Jonah. “I am angry, and I will be angry until I die.”

  The Lord said: “You have pity on the gourd for which you did not labor. You did not plant the gourd, nor did you make it grow. It came up in a night and it perished in a night. Yet you grieve because it is gone. Then what of me? What of your God? Should I not spare Ninevah, this great city, a city so full of people? Should I not pity them who cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand? Should I not pity their dumb cattle?” Jonah heard these words and repented in his heart, and sat silent. But God can read hearts, and read Jonah’s. And He spared him, and kept him as a prophet. And He sent him back to Israel, where Jonah, doomed to wisdom, preached again.

  THE HEROINES

  ESTHER

  AHASUERUS, KING OF Persia, was the mightiest ruler in all the world. He had swallowed up his neighbors, and sent his armies against Egypt and the land of the Philistines, and Israel and Judah and Syria. He had overthrown those great cities, Ninevah and Babylon. His fleets dominated the Middle Sea, and he held its islands subject. Now his empire stretched from India to Ethiopia. His palace was in the beautiful terraced city of Susa, and Vashti was his queen.

  Now, when the Persian armies had overrun Israel and Judah, they had taken out many captives. But Ahasuerus was a subtle man. He had studied the reigns of kings of ages past, and knew how other empires had risen and fallen. And he did not enslave the children of Israel, for he knew what had happened to Egypt’s Pharaoh, and knew of the strange disasters that had struck other conquerors who had attempted to enslave the Israelites. Therefore, Ahasuerus did not treat the Jews as he did his other captive peoples, but allowed them to dwell in peace in the cities of Persia. They engaged in trade, and were scholars, and maintained their own customs among strangers, worshipping their own God, refusing to defile themselves or to eat unclean food. Since they were very quick at languages, and keen merchants; since every one of their children was taught to read and write and was trained in habits of industry, they prospered in Persia. They dwelt in every city of the land. Their prosperity caused them to be disliked in many quarters. Still, they were protected by the king’s edict, and suffered no harm.

  There was a man named Mordecai, who dwelt in Susa, where the king’s palace was. He was employed by the court, and, being a master at numbers, served the revenue officer. He was in his middle age, severe, suspicious, very stubborn, with an inquisitive eye and a caustic tongue. He also had a loving heart. He had taken into his house his uncle’s orphaned daughter, Hadassah, and raised her as his own daughter. And Hadassah loved him as though he were her own father. For, although she was extremely beautiful, he cherished her more for her wit than for her beauty. He loved above all things to spend long hours in discourse with her. He told her the ancient tales of her people, and searched the stark events for their hidden meanings. She hung on his words and was entranced by the old tales, and questioned him closely about how this happened, and that, and why they happened the way they did.

  So beautiful was Hadassah that the young men of Susa prowled like tomcats around Mordecai’s house. But he never allowed them to approach the girl.

  It was Mordecai’s habit to tell her the gossip of the court when he came home after the day’s work. Upon this day, he was bursting with news. The king was in a terrible rage, for Vashti, his queen, had refused his summons to appear at a feast, and had kept to her own chambers. Now, it was said, the king was thinking of putting her aside as wife, and stripping her of royal honors.

  This is what had happened. There had been a feast at the palace that had lasted seven days and seven nights. On the seventh night, when all the men were boasting about the beauty of the women they had known, the king had said: “Princes, captains, and nobles, you are men of valor, and have known fair women. But fairest of them all is my wife, Vashti.” Then he had said to a servant: “Go fetch the queen. Tell her to come here and show her matchless face before my guests.”

  The messenger hurried to Vashti, who struck him across the face, crying, “They have caroused for seven days and seven nights. They are sodden with drink and of bestial appetite. Am I summoned now to show myself before this vile mob? Am I queen or dancing girl?”

  She struck the messenger again and drove him from the room. He returned to the king and told him how his message had been received. Ahasuerus, who was never befuddled no matter how much he drank, simply said: “It is well. She shall be neither dancing girl nor queen.”

  The next day, the king called his council together to prepare an edict of divorcement. That evening, Mordecai went home and said: “It is done. He has cast her off as wife. She is queen no more, and will no longer live in the palace.”

  Now it was proclaimed throughout the land that the most beautiful young virgins would be selected from every city and province, and be taken to the palace to be trained for the king’s pleasure. This was customary; it took place every few years. What was unusual was the further announcement that the king was seeking not only concubines, but a bride—that she who most pleased him would become queen in Vashti’s place.

  Mordecai knew that Hadassah would be taken to the harem, for no one had seen a girl so beautiful. He spoke to her privately: “Hearken to me, my cousin, my daughter, most beloved of daughters. As surely as night follows day, this edict means that you will soon find yourself in the royal harem. You will be near the king, the source of power. Now, where power abides, men conspire. That palace is a web of plot and counterplot. You must d
o this: Put aside the name Hadassah. Take up your Persian name of Esther, and allow yourself to be thought of as Persian. Do not reveal that you are of Judah.”

  “Why not?” she cried. “It is a proud thing to be a daughter of Judah! Who would be heathen who could be Hebrew?”

  “Listen to me. A faction has formed in the court that hates the Jews and seeks to rouse the king against them. Allow yourself to be regarded as an orphan girl, ignorant of her roots.”

  “You are very wise, cousin,” said the girl. “And I shall accept your counsel, as I have always. But tell me, beloved kinsman, am I to be separated from you totally now, never to see you, never to speak with you?”

  “For the first six months you will be kept in seclusion in the women’s quarters in the palace. That is the custom. But I will not lose sight of you for a day. Each day, at a certain hour, I will stand at the gates of the palace near the women’s court. Perhaps I shall glimpse you; perhaps we shall be able to exchange a glance.”

  They embraced each other and wept. The next day, Hadassah, who now called herself Esther, was taken to the women’s court in the palace. There she dwelt with the other maidens, undergoing the rites of purification, according to the royal law of the Medes and the Persians. The maidens were bathed in sweet waters and anointed with oil of myrrh and other precious scents. They were trained to play the lute and sing and dance, and their ways were polished so that they would be fit for a king’s chamber.

  Each day, as he had promised, Mordecai went to the palace and stood at the gate near the women’s court. Sometimes he glimpsed Esther, sometimes he was glimpsed by her.

  At the end of a year, the maidens were summoned to the king, one by one. Some he rejected on sight. Others he took to his chambers for the night. But not one of them did he call back a second time. Finally, Esther was summoned. When the king saw her, he smiled and beckoned her near. He rose to meet her, and took her hand, and said: “Truly are you named. For you burn like a star in the summer sky.”