Anyone Can Tell a Bible Story (eBook)

Sweet and gentle. Wise and kind. Kitchens rich with the smell of fresh-baked treats. That’s what grannies are like!

But Athalia was not your typical granny.

She was cruel and ambitious, deceitful and sly. And she had never baked a biscuit in her life! Evil plots were her speciality, and she cooked one up the moment she heard that her son, the king, was dead.

She gathered her guards around her. She whispered the recipe in their ears. And even though they were used to violence and to war, they could not hide the horror in their eyes.

“Yes, I know they’re my grandsons,” Athalia sneered. “But I want you to kill them, so that I, and I alone, will inherit the throne!”

Athalia was not your typical granny. And she hadn’t been much of a mother either. So perhaps that is why her daughter, Jehosheba, was not surprised when she peeped into the hallway and saw soldiers marching, swords drawn, towards the nursery door.

Jehosheba had a choice. She could rush to the nursery and throw herself in front of her little nephews – and be killed along with them, more likely than not. Or she could creep back into the room from which she’d come, and try to save the king’s youngest son – the baby she’d been playing with when she’d heard the soldiers pass.

The cries from the nursery answered her question. She was already too late, and she cursed the palace guards for their speed and efficiency. Speed was what she needed, as well, for she could hear the guards’ voices coming her way.

“Did we get them all?”

“We’d better get them all?”

“The queen will have our heads if we’ve missed one.”

And so they burst into each room, one by one, down the long palace hall, and Jehosheba had time – barely enough time – to wrap her hand round the baby’s mouth and duck into a cupboard.

“Don’t cry,” she prayed, as the soldiers grunted and shuffled around the room. “Please don’t cry.”

“No one here,” someone said at last. But Jehosheba stayed in that cupboard, as still as a statue, long after they had left the room. Then she wrapped up the baby in an old blanket and bundled him off to her home in the temple precincts.

Athalia stared sternly at her soldiers.

“So you killed them? Every last one?” she asked.

“Every last one,” they grunted back. And Athalia’s stare turned into an evil grin.

“Then tell me about it,” she ordered. “And don’t leave out one tiny detail.”

When the guards had finished their story, Athalia sent them out of the room, and then she tossed back her head and cackled.

“At last. At last! AT LAST! Queen of Judah. Mother of the nation. That has a nice ring to it. And my parents… my parents would be so proud!”

Across the temple precincts, Jehosheba’s husband, Jehoiada, however, had a very different reaction.

“Well, what did you expect?” he fumed, when Jehosheba told him about the murder of their nephews. “With a father like Ahab and a mother like Jezebel… well, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!”

“But I’m HER daughter!” Jehosheba protested. “You don’t mean to say…”

“No. NO!” Jehoiada assured his wife, as he wrapped his arms around her. “I didn’t mean that at all. You are a wonderful mother – a good woman who knows the One True God. And because of your love and courage little Joash, here, is still alive.”

“The true ruler of Judah,” Jehosheba added. “If only the people knew. You’re the high priest. Perhaps you could tell them…”

“Even if they knew, they would do nothing,” Jehoiada sighed. “Athalia is much too powerful, and they are still entranced by the false gods she worships. No, we must wait – wait until they have seen through her evil ways. And then, and only then, dare we show this little fellow to them. Meanwhile, we shall hide him here, in the high priest’s quarters, in the temple of the One True God. For this is the last place your wicked mother will want to visit.”

One year passed. And while little Joash learned to crawl and then to walk, his evil grandmother was busy murdering anyone who dared to take a step against her.

Two years passed. And as Joash spoke his first words and toddled around the temple, Athalia sang the praises of the false god Baal and offered him the blood of human sacrifice.

Three years, four years, five years passed. And as Joash grew into a little boy, the people of Judah grew tired of Athalia’s evil ways.

Six years passed, then seven. And when Joash was finally old enough to understand who he was, Jehoiada decided that the time had come to tell the nation, as well.

“We must be very careful,” he explained to his wife. “The palace guards are finally on our side, but your mother still has some support among the people. We mustn’t show our hand too soon.”

“So how will you do it?” Jehosheba asked.

“On the sabbath, it is the usual custom for two thirds of the palace guard to stay at the temple while the others return to the palace to protect the queen. Tomorrow, however, the bodyguards will leave as expected, but they will not go to the palace. Instead they will return to the temple by another route and help to protect young Joash, should anything happen.”

“Ah!” Jehosheba smiled. “So Joash will be surrounded by the entire palace guard – while my mother will be left with no soldiers to do her bidding!”

“Exactly!” Jehoiada grinned back.

When the sabbath came, the people gathered in the temple, as usual,...