“Is this your daughter, Rinat?” Hyam asked as he lifted the cloth from the girl’s face.
Rinat crumpled and fell into a heap on the ground before the bier. Loud wails came from her lips, and she rocked back and forth, her whole body swaying with the obvious signs of one who grieved. “No! No! No! Adonai Tzva’ot, why?” She gulped back a huge sob. “Lital! My Lital!”
Elkanah watched, helpless, as the women surrounded Lital’s mother. Soon the entire household erupted in the weeping and wailing one expected when a soul slipped into Sheol.
Oh Adonai, how can she bear this?
What if Hannah had worked at the tabernacle? Would something like this have happened to her? But no. They had no proof that anyone from Shiloh was responsible for Lital’s death.
But someone was responsible for her pregnancy, for Rinat had confirmed that her daughter was with child at the last feast. Why had she told no one else?
“I should have made her come home.” Rinat’s soft cry pierced his consciousness. “I should have insisted, no matter what the priests promised.”
Elkanah glanced at his father and Hyam. His father-in-law stepped closer to the circle of weeping women and knelt in front of Rinat. “What did the priests promise?” If anyone could find the truth, Hannah’s father was the man.
“They said they would care for her and her child, that she would be safer living among the Levites at Shiloh, and that their wives would look after her.” Rinat sniffed against a flood of tears. “That way she could still work and support me.”
Weeping followed the remark, and Hyam stood and walked toward the men. “We need to bury the body before the sun sets.” He glanced at the women.
Elkanah’s heart ached with the pain so evident in the widow’s gaze. To lose a child. Was anything worse for a woman already a widow? He shook his head, unwilling to even imagine it. Everyone died, but not like this. Something was very wrong.
Elkanah walked over and pulled Hannah aside. “Can you ask her if Lital told her the father’s name?” he whispered. Trying to ask a woman such a question made his knees quake. What a coward you are, Elkanah, that you would put such a thing on your wife. But he waited for her answer just the same.
Hannah nodded and moved closer to Rinat. She touched the older woman’s arm. “Did Lital tell you . . . that is, do you know who fathered her child? Perhaps if we know, we can find out what happened to the child.”
Elkanah leaned in, trying to hear the woman’s soft-spoken words.
Rinat met Hannah’s gaze and lifted her chin, a hint of defiance in her eyes. “My Lital . . . she was afraid when I saw her. She would only say that one of the priests had been with her.”
“Hophni and Phinehas?” Hannah asked.
“One of them, yes.” Rinat attempted to stand, and Galia and Adva helped hold her upright. They walked toward the bier. “We must bury her,” Rinat said, suddenly sounding stronger than Elkanah could have thought possible.
His brothers lifted the bier, and the small group made its way to the cave where Rinat had buried her husband only a few years earlier. Elkanah walked with Hannah behind the others.
“What does this mean?” Hannah whispered. “You said Hophni ruined one of your cousins not so long ago. Is any woman safe to serve at the tabernacle anymore?”
Elkanah stroked his beard, feeling as though he had aged ten years in the past few hours. “It sounds as though desecrating the sacrifices was not enough for the priests. But to defile the serving women too? How far has it gone? Was Lital the only one? And what happened to her child?” His voice dropped in pitch, though the sounds of weeping drowned out their conversation.
“Can you or one of our fathers find out? Rinat would be so comforted if she could raise Lital’s child.” Hannah’s look held such hope. “That is, assuming he or she lived.”
“I will talk to my father—and yours. If there was a living child, surely we can find it.”
“But there was no other body found with Lital. If the child died, they might have thrown it in the river.” He saw the shudder work through Hannah and put one arm around her in comfort.
“What I want to know is why they brought her body and dumped it in the woods. If you and Meira hadn’t happened to walk that direction, we might never have found her.” Elkanah stopped with the rest of the group at the cave’s entrance.
“Meira wanted to go a different direction. If we had gone home the way we had come, we would have missed her.” Hannah met his gaze. “Perhaps Adonai was directing our steps.”
He nodded. “Undoubtedly. But I don’t like what it all implies. Perhaps God is showing us that things are much worse than we thought. The problem is, what can we possibly do about it?”
“Can’t the Levites approach Eli?” she whispered, but his response was interrupted by his father’s words of condolence and the final goodbyes and prayers for Rinat as they laid her only child to rest.
Elkanah pondered Hannah’s question long after the group moved back to his father’s house and later dispersed to their homes. If only he could give her an answer that would satisfy and fix the mess that was their priesthood. But he had no answers, and he knew in his heart that no one but God could fix this.
8
Three Months Later
Meira sidled up beside Hannah as the whole town traveled to Shiloh for the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles. The crowd held a subdued tone, in part because the Day of Atonement was a solemn moment of confession and reflection. But Hannah also knew that the minds of the men of her Kohathite clan were on what to do about Israel’s corrupt priests. And every woman walked with a little less confidence along the dusty road, not feeling quite as safe as she once did.
“I wonder what they are discussing,” Meira whispered. She had been married nearly three months, but Amachai had joined the men who walked ahead, so she took the moment to talk to Hannah. The two young women glanced in the direction of their mothers, who were talking with Yafa. “I wonder why Rinat has not joined them.”
“Maybe she still will.” Hannah had seen the widow talking to other townswomen earlier in their walk. “I wish they could have found Lital’s child for her. Perhaps the child died with her.” Hannah looked beyond Meira and caught the frown lines evident along her mother’s brow. “My mother worries that the same thing has happened to other serving women, but no one has been able to prove such accusations.”
“My mother-in-law speaks of it often as well. I think every Levite in town has decided no daughter of theirs will ever serve in that place again.” Meira glanced ahead to where the men walked. “Of course, as Amachai’s wife, I don’t have to be part of that anymore. And we are surely safe at the feasts with our men to protect us.”
Hannah nodded. “Yes, at least we are safe at the festivals.” Though even now she wondered. History told tales of virgins captured by Benjamites in a plot other tribes had devised to give wives and children to the devastated tribe, which had been almost lost to civil war. Had Shiloh ever been a truly safe place?
The thought brought the memory of her father’s soft words coming through the walls as she lay in her bed.
“It’s not safe there anymore, Adva. Hophni and Phinehas have gone too far. It wasn’t enough for them to defile the sacrifices, now they have to defile the women who serve Adonai Tzva’ot as well?”
Hannah shivered. She hated feeling this way—unsafe in her own land. And what if she ever ended up like Rinat? If something happened to Elkanah and their only child . . . The very thought of having no family to love and care for and to care for her when she was old was terrifying. One she considered too often for a young woman, as her mother often reminded her.
“You are eighteen, my Hannah. You are betrothed to a wonderful man. You have nothing to fear. God will take care of you, of all of us.”
But that was before Lital’s death—this horror that had stunned the town. Did God really care for them? He hadn’t protected her friend.
“Why didn’t God prot
ect Lital in this very place where He put His name?” Hannah looked at Meira, searching her friend’s face, longing for reassurance, comfort, something. “And why not let the child live and be found? Why should Rinat have to lose all?”
“What child?” Yafa’s daughter Peninnah and some of the younger girls crowded closer, unnoticed until now by Hannah and Meira. Hannah’s stomach tightened with that sick feeling she got when she’d said something she shouldn’t or spoken too loudly, allowing others to hear. The news of the child had been kept from most of the town, and here she was, frightening children.
“It is nothing,” Meira said quickly. “Hannah and I were just talking.”
“About that woman who died?” Peninnah’s dark eyes grew round. “My ima talks about her a lot. My abba says the girl deserved what she got.”
Hannah stared at the child, a girl too young to be listening to such talk. Too young to have such opinions.
“No one deserves to die,” Hannah said, looking from one child to another. “Now why don’t you all run off and play. We will be at Shiloh and have to set up camp, so enjoy the leisure while you have it.” She shooed them away, and silence fell between her and Meira.
“Peninnah’s parents shouldn’t talk like that in front of her,” Meira said at last.
“I’m sure if she really knew what happened, it would frighten her as much as it does us.” She shoved a small branch aside with her toe as they walked.
“Amachai and his brothers talk of it often. It’s even worse when my brothers join us.” Meira lifted her hands in a helpless gesture. “Honestly, it is growing difficult to listen to talk of the priests’ corruption and the evil spreading through the land. It is not as if they can do anything about it, though they have offered plenty of suggestions. No one dares go against the priests. If a foreign country were trying to invade us, we could join forces and oppose them, but we are corrupt from within our own tribes and leaders. How are we supposed to battle that?”
Hannah adjusted the scarf at her neck. “Men want to fix things,” she said after a lengthy pause. “And I think our Levite men have wanted to fix the priesthood for a long time, even if they don’t think they can.”
Meira sighed. “Let’s talk about something else. Like your wedding!”
Hannah laughed lightly. “It is coming so quickly! We will barely return from the festival and have only two months to finish everything.” She glanced in her mother’s direction and saw that Rinat had now joined them. Tears streamed down the widow’s cheeks, and Hannah felt a kick in her gut that she had talked of joyful things in the midst of the woman’s continuing sorrow. She motioned Meira to look their way.
“I wonder if anyone will talk of anything good at the feast,” Hannah whispered. “I feel guilty talking of happier things.”
“Well, my wedding came only days after Lital’s burial. We can’t help the sadness, but life does move on.” Meira touched Hannah’s shoulder. “You deserve some happiness too, you know.”
“I know. But it’s hard to think that way.” Hannah glanced ahead toward Shiloh. What had once brought joy now simply brought dread.
Later that evening after the camp had been set up and most people had settled, Elkanah walked with Hannah not far from her father’s tent.
“Only a few more months and we will not need to be near the watchful eye of your father,” Elkanah said, taking her hand. He lifted it to his lips and kissed the back of it. “I long for the day I can call you my wife in the fullest way.” His smile warmed her, and she returned it.
“I too long for that day, but with all that has happened, there is much sorrow in the camp.”
He nodded and glanced beyond her. “There is no denying that.”
A sigh lifted her chest. “In all honesty, Elkanah, I am having a hard time trusting God right now in the face of what has happened. I do not understand how the God I worship could allow a widow to be so bereft. Or why He allows the priests to act as they do without consequence.” She searched his face. “Do you know?”
He slowly shook his head. “You ask hard questions, my love. Who can truly know the mind of God? He tells us to pray, He commands our obedience, but His ways are not our ways. How can one created understand the One who made him?”
“And yet didn’t He make us so that we could know Him?” She played with a strand of her hair, then took a quick glance at the stars.
“Yes. That is, I believe that was His intent. But sin changed all of that, at least on our end, for now we cannot see Him as Adam and Eve once did.” He raked a hand along the back of his neck and looked heavenward as well. “We see the stars, but they are too far away for us to know what they look like. Are they as big as the sun? Or are they larger still? Why are they fixed in the same place? And if God created so many lights in the sky, what is man that He should care for us too?” He looked back at her. “I find myself struggling to understand Him as well, but I do not think He will abide evil forever. The priests will not get away with their actions any more than Aaron’s two sons did.”
“But God struck them down immediately. He didn’t allow their sin to continue to hurt His people.” She caught sight of the Bear and Orion and Pleiades and the constellations of the south. How big God was to create such things. Did He only concern Himself with the larger universe? Yet Israel’s history proved that was not true. He cared about individual people. “I wish I could know Him better.”
He stopped, turning to face her. “You are devoted to our God, Hannah. He may not reveal His ways to us now, but I daresay one day we will understand.” He tilted his head as though to get a better look at her.
“I cannot fathom His ways, but He is my hope. I cling to His laws, though sometimes they do not make sense to me.” She hesitated. “But I will admit to you, I fear Him. And I don’t always trust Him as we are commanded to do.” She released a deep breath.
“What causes your struggle, beloved?” He touched her cheek, traced a line along her jaw for a brief moment, then let his hand drop to his side.
She reached for his hand and squeezed. “Rinat’s loss. Loss of any kind. Why do some people live long lives with a houseful of loved ones while others are widowed or orphaned with no one to care for them? Why does God withhold good when it is in His power to give it?” She waved a hand over the area, encompassing the camp and the many people called by God to be His own. “This is my struggle, Elkanah. And my fear. I fear being like Rinat.”
His gaze softened, and a slight smile tipped the corners of his mouth. “Your struggles are those of each one of us, Hannah. Even I, as a Kohathite who spends time near the holiest of places, cannot even begin to say I know the ways of our God. But you will never need to fear being alone.” He leaned closer, his lips hovering over hers. And though they should have waited, he kissed her as the law allowed, and he didn’t raise his head until he’d left her breathless.
9
Three Months Later
Hannah awoke with a start, feeling strangely out of place. She rolled onto her side and bumped into Elkanah’s back. How long did it take a new bride to adjust to her surroundings?
Light filtered through the window in their small room, and the sound of footsteps could be heard outside the closed curtained door.
“Are you all right, my love?” Elkanah pulled her against his chest and kissed her forehead.
She shook her head and blinked several times.
“You’ve been waking with a start for weeks since our wedding. Is something wrong?” He stroked the side of her face, and she allowed herself to rest against him. But the sounds of the household waking and a child crying down the hallway caused her to sit up and pull the sheet to her neck.
She looked at the curtained door, then back at Elkanah. “I feel . . .” She paused. She had no right to complain at the room they’d been given in his father’s bursting house. Elkanah was not the firstborn—he did not have the rights of a double portion of anything, and since they’d agreed on only eight months to wed, his father had c
laimed there was no time to add another building to the circle of stone houses surrounding the courtyard. She was forced to share his small room that he alone had used all his life.
A child peeked around the curtain, one of Elkanah’s nephews. The boy was only three but was used to rousing his uncle and coming and going into the room as he pleased. Hannah stiffened when she saw him. The boy turned around and ran down the hall.
Elkanah pulled her back into his arms, leaning close to her ear. “This arrangement, it distresses you.”
She could not deny it. “If we had a door that latched . . .”
“I will see to it today,” he said. “And truly this room is too small for us. I will speak to my father again about expanding off the back of the house or in the small space left around the court. If only there was space left on the roof.”
The houses were clustered together with space for the animals in the outer court. Some of the families lived above them in rooms on the rooftops, but with so many brothers, all of the spaces were taken.
“We can make do with your room. If there is a door.” She smiled at him, wanting with everything in her to make him glad, grateful that he had married her. The wedding tent with its privacy and an entire week to be alone had been such bliss compared to this living with his family. But she did not say so.
He kissed her and rose quickly to dress for the day. She followed suit to help his mother and sisters-in-law prepare the morning meal. He stopped at the threshold and touched the flimsy curtain. “You have my word. By tonight this will be a door with a firm latch.”
“Thank you.” She kissed his cheek and hurried past him.
Sounds of the household now fully awake greeted her as she stepped into the area where the women prepared the food. She released an anxious breath and smiled. “Good morning,” she said, looking at her mother-in-law. Four of her six sisters-in-law were already at work grinding grain and stirring porridge over a fire. How she wished Meira was among them, but a bride joined her husband’s family, as she was now bound to Elkanah’s.
A Passionate Hope--Hannah's Story Page 5
