During the ninth century b.c., King Joram of Israel joined forces with King Jehoshaphat of Judah and the king of Edom to crush a Moabite rebellion. King Mesha of Moab had previously supplied Israel with a massive tribute of 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams. When the Moabites severed this economic artery, the three kings mobilized their armies through the brutal wilderness of Edom. After seven days of marching, their supply lines evaporated. The wadis of the desert lay entirely dry. There was no water for the vast coalition of soldiers or the thousands of pack animals. Desperation settled over the royal camp like fine sand. They summoned the prophet Elisha, who demanded a minstrel to play before the spirit of the Lord would come upon him. Following the music, Elisha commanded the exhausted armies to dig trenches throughout the dry valley.
The allied kings viewed the crushing drought as a divine trap, yet Elisha saw the empty riverbeds as vessels waiting to be filled. The instruction to dig ditches required immense physical labor from severely dehydrated men. They had to carve into the sunbaked earth without any atmospheric promise of relief. The text explicitly notes that they would see neither wind nor rain, yet the valley would soon flood with water.
Water eventually surged from the direction of Edom at the exact time of the morning sacrifice. The sudden current pooled in the newly carved trenches. When the morning sun struck the surface of these pools, the Moabites standing on the opposite ridges mistook the red reflection for blood. They assumed the fragile alliance of the three kings had shattered and that the rival armies had slaughtered one another. This optical illusion triggered a rash Moabite charge into the valley, leading to their catastrophic defeat.
The ensuing campaign flowed into a devastating brutality that stained the entire landscape. The Israelites ruined the arable Moabite land by throwing stones onto every good field, stopping up vital springs, and felling valuable timber. King Mesha of Moab found himself backed into the fortress of Kir Hareseth. In a horrific act of desperation, he offered his oldest son as a burnt sacrifice upon the city wall. A profound and sickening horror halted the Israelite advance. The overwhelming tide of their victory stagnates against the stark reality of human depravity, prompting the allied armies to withdraw in dread and return to their own land.
Grace often pools in the trenches we carve during our deepest droughts. We are left to consider what forces remain unseen just beneath the dry surface of our own desolate landscapes.