Because he hath heard the voice of my supplications.
The Lord is my strength and my shield,
In him hath my heart trusted,
And I am helped;
Therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth,
And with my song will I praise him.”
That was only the beginning: the beginning of that particular visit and of others which followed, and in between the songs were snatches of conversation in the speech of Israel. In her youth the invalid had been a resident of Tish-bi (or Tish-beh) in Gilead, the cattle country east of the Jordan, in whose fertile valleys grew the spicy herbs for medicine and perfume which had made her land famous all over the East.
In her village were the home and kinsfolk of Elijah, the prophet of Jehovah, whom she well remembered with his long, thick hair, his girdle of skins and his sheepskin mantle or cloak, and more than one tale did she tell of his prowess in strength, for, exposed to the raids of the fierce desert tribes as was Gilead on the east, every man must be a soldier at need. She told of the prophet’s earnestness and eloquence, his stormy moods of exaltation and despair, his wanderings, his sudden reappearances where least expected, his invectives against Baal by which he had roused the ire of the foreign Queen Jezebel, his miraculous escapes from personal danger and the staggering blow he finally gave Baal-worship on Mount Carmel.
Only through Miriam’s eyes, however, did she know Elijah’s successor, Elisha the Healer, the civilized man who dwelt in cities, who for the most part went about displaying the loving-kindness of Jehovah rather than his terrible might; whose task it was to build up as Elijah’s had been to destroy; who established the prophetic Guilds wherein the Law which had been so long forgotten was once more taught. And then Miriam and her new friend fell into more personal confidences, comparing notes as to their coming to Syria, their impressions, their longings, weeping and smiling together and parting only to visit again at the earliest opportunity.
Thus did Hope, nature’s most renowned and successful physician, undertake the cure of the little maid’s wounded heart as, far away, it was doing likewise for her mother, though Miriam knew it not.