In the Shadow of Jezebel by Mesu Andrews Read Free Book Online

sacrifices. As other worshipers filed out, Jehoiada walked against the flow toward the sectioning tables behind the brazen altar. Since fewer priests had reported for duty, he helped section the daily offerings—sacrificing the prescribed portion on the pyre and separating the priests’ portion for their meals. The day passed in a blur of torment, his mind consumed with the wickedness of the royal house.
    When evening came, he was more than a little surprised when the king reappeared with all four royal princes. The four Baal priests stood defiantly at the King’s Gate, halted by the Temple guards, who refused them entry. Boasting their white priestly garb, bare feet, and shaved heads, they didn’t come with a sin sacrifice, as their abba had earlier this morning. Instead, they stood aloof, protected by the Carites at the threshold of Yahweh’s Temple while King Jehoram again stood on the upper porch to watch Amariah’s sacrifice. Their unrepentant presence was an affront to Yahweh, His Temple, and His servants.
    Jehoiada claimed a dark corner of the inner court, brooding, watching the evening sacrifice from afar. How could God forgive a king who had sinned so grievously? What if Amariah’s prediction came true—which, of course, it never would—and Jehoiada became Judah’s high priest? On the Day of Atonement, he would be expected to act as intercessor for all of Judah, transferring the sins of the nation to a single, sacrificial animal—a scapegoat. Could he, in good conscience, ever ask Yahweh to forgive people as utterly unworthy as Jehoram—and even his sons?
    Another reason I can never be high priest.
    The evening service ended, and Jehoiada lingered in the shadows, watching the king rejoin his sons and file out of the main gate with the straggling worshipers. When faithful Eleazar locked the last Temple gate, Jehoiada wandered over to one of the ten bronze lavers and washed the blood from the day’s slaughters from his arms. He would help refill the ten basins with fresh water before helping Amariah remove his priestly garments tonight. His old friend knew him too well and would sense the unrest in his soul. The less time they spent alone, the better. Jehoiada needed a quiet evening, a good night’s sleep, and a new day. Hopefully, a day unmarred by so many unanswerable questions.

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    2 C HRONICLES 15:16
    King Asa also deposed his grandmother Maakah from her position as queen mother, because she had made a repulsive image for the worship of Asherah.
    S heba was still shaking from the evil she’d glimpsed in Ima Thaliah’s eyes at Gideon’s Pool of Trembling. The imminent reunion with Gevirah Jizebaal had awakened a darkness in Ima that surpassed her typical discipline. After their so-called bath, Ima returned to the demanding yet loving woman Sheba knew her to be—with one exception. She insisted they both wear heavy cosmetics, painting their eyelids with thick malachite, lining them with kohl, and using red ochre mixed with fat to redden their lips and cheeks.
    “We must look like Phoenician royalty to meet Phoenician royalty,” she said, which Sheba thought odd, since they were meeting the king and Gevirah of Israel —not Phoenicia.
    Trumpet blasts from Jezreel’s city walls announced their arrival shortly before sunset—a little later than Abba predicted, but he couldn’t have foreseen Gideon’s Pool. Sheba kept the curtains of her sedan open, eager to absorb every detail of Jizebaal’s spring palace. She noticed a balcony with direct access to the eastern city wall. Strange. It didn’t seem safe for that chamber’soccupant to sleep so near a wall. Gawking, she craned her neck as her camel passed under the gates but quickly righted herself when she glimpsed kohl-rimmed eyes staring back.
    Their procession halted outside a spectacular, pink-hued structure much like the palaces built by the Phoenician King Hiram for David and Solomon. Jezreel’s royal residence was smaller, of course, but