Seven years after her marriage, Athaliah planned to take her next travel to Samaria. She had been longing impatiently to meet again her brother and mother. Her kids would remain with two caretakers, and with their woman teacher, who was a tough God Believer. She had been chosen by the grandfather- king Jehoshafat - for that job. Athaliah could do nothing against that. She would herself tell the kids, that The God of Judea was inmportant. But in Samaria, where she had been raised, there was another God, named Baal. He had a wife, Ashera. So, the kids may be bewildered, yes. But this world, they should know- is quite an embarrasing riddle. There are no precise answers to numerous questions about men, nature, earth and sky… She had not yet preached to them in that style exactly. She postponed that to a later date.
For the time being she told her children about her voyage. In that opportunity she tried to know how much they had advanced in their learning and understanding of quite simple things they may see or hear about. She thought it would be important for them ‘not to be too influenced by their main source of knowledge,’ She used to mock frequently about their ‘narrow minded’ woman teacher, so she had said.
First Ataliah inquired her little kids, if they knew that she had gotten a family ‘far away’. She wanted to know what it had meant for them, as her children.
“D’you know, Ahazia?” she said to her son, “that I’m going to travel to Israel, to a town named Samaria? I have there a brother, who is the king.”
“My gran’pa is also a king.’ Smiled the boy, ‘So, two men with crowns?” Athaliah nodded, and explained that those kings were ruling two different places.
“D’you know what would a king do?” she asked her son.
“Yes. Wear a fine golden crown, and speak to many people in the markerplace, or at the towns’ Gate.”
“Has you papa told you, that he would be a king one day?” asked Athaliah.
“Yes,” said Ahazia, “but till his papa is not dead – like a sheep, prone on the field- he won’t get the crown from him.”
“Is that indeed what your papa has told you?” she asked, “had he use these words exactly?” The kid nodded, and his bigger sister added: “And I will not agree to become a king’s wife. I see old queen Deborah.”
“Why?” asked Athaliah.
“She has worn out face, and she stinks.”
“Not nice to think like that!” Athaliah rebuked her daughter, but then embraced her, “But if you won’t marry a king - who would you like to marry, Yehosheva? Maybe a prince, like your papa now?”
The girl shook her head: No.
“My teacher Ruth was telling me,” she said, “that I would fall in love with a priest. Or even a prophet. They are fit to be loved, she said. Because God loves them, and guides thier way. God is good and merciful: He gives us the air to breath, and the water to drink. He bestrow us the flowers with a good smell. Even the sweet cakes come out from his blessing.”
“Very nice indeed,” laughed Athaliah. She asked her son - if one day he would like to wear the golden crown.
“Yes,” he said, “But father said he would be the next king, and he should wear it. I have a little crown, that he had brought me. It’s enough for me now, he said…”
“Very nice of him,” said Athaliah. She remembered that her parents had talked to her in a similar way. She was satisfied with her children’s ‘common wisdom’.
Two security guards, from the king’s horseriders’ troop, were said to escort Athaliah in her renewed annual voyage. However, a week before the ride started - everything had become mixed up. A delegate arrived from Jezebel, telling Athaliah to stay at home. Large troops of Hazael, the Aramean king, had invaded northern Israel, and penetrated deeply into the country. They were approaching Samaria, and began to besiege it. Refugees arrived from Samaria’s neighboring villages to Jerusalem. They told about people falling dead from the famine. King Joram and his mother Jezebel, they complained, could not supply any food to the population. The Bible (Old Testament, Kings 6)tells us about that:
“There was a great famine…until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a Kaab (some weight ) of dove’s dung was sold for five shekels. And as the king of Israel- Joram- was passing by at the wall (to inspect it) a woman cried out to him: ‘Help me, O’ King!’ And he said:‘If the Lord doesn’t help you- from where shall I help you? From the threshing floor- or from the wine press?’ (All had been already been blown up in conflagrations that the enemy had set in the city). Then the king said to her: ‘What is the matter with you?’ – and the woman answered: ‘A woman said to me: ‘Instead that both of us will starve -give your son, that we may both eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow…”
The prophets complained, that all these atrocities and horrors had been the result of God’s punishment for Jezebel’s inducement to spread the Idol’s worship in the kingdom. The Baal worshippers – on the other hand- accused God beleivers, that they had caused Aram’s disaster: They treacherously told Aram’s troops secrets about the high-ways and water sources of the country. By that they had helped the the invadors to conquer Israeli land so promptly and easily.
Athaliah became very worried. She had requested her husband Jehoram to send some troops to help her brother Joram, and Jehoram did that. After a few months, Hazael(the Bible said it had been Ben Hadad)king of Aram removed his army from Samaria’s ramparts. The Northern Israeli kingdom could breath again the air of freedom. On the following summer Athaliah planned already to take her voyage to the north. But soon she discovered, that her brother’s kingdom was as dangerous for a travel as in the previous year:
There came mutual accusations – about who had caused the present Aramean attacks to succeed, as they had re-arrived Samaria’s wall, and began to besiege it. As usual, the prophets incited the people against the Idols’ believers. Jezebel accused her son for not doing enough to catch the prophets’ leader. Now Elisha.was their sole leader, as Elija had been taken by God, so testified his disciple Elisha. With the bald headed prophets there were some flower priests and ‘sons of Prophets’, mainly striding around in towns and villages. They were inciting also Army Officers and simple footmen to get rid of Ahab’s family.
“The prophet continually enflame the population against us,” Jezebel complained in a letter to Athaliah, “and against the Idols’ worshippers, who had became now the majority of the population. The late prophet Elija had already warned his pupils, that God’s believers survivers had become only seven thousands.”