Act IV - The Prophets, Scene 4
Script by Bob Allen
For four voices
Scene 4
(READER
3 CROSS TO CENTER STAGE. READERS #1, #2
AND #4 SIT AND TURN THEIR BACKS TO THE AUDIENCE.)
1 2 4
3
VOICE THREE: Did I love her? More than anyone will ever know. From the first time I saw her on our wedding
day I loved her. She looked so small and
fragile, like a delicate clay decanter fashioned expressly for holding the
essence of perfume. An overwhelming urge
to protect her, to save her from all the hard knocks this world can deliver,
overcame me. I wanted to put my arms
around her, shelter her from harm and never let her go. Gomer!
Her name became sweet music to my ears.
Oh, I knew all along what God said she would do, but I kept thinking
that surely she would respond to my love.
When the children were born, first Jezreel and then Lo-ruhamah, I
trusted that becoming a mother would strengthen the bond between us. She would come to love me the way I loved
her. It was not to be. Lo-ammi was born in the spring and by summer
she was gone. Her infidelity was a
tremendous embarrassment, after all I was a prophet of God. Hosea, the prophet. Everyone knew about Gomer and Hosea, it was
the talk of the town. I struggled with
my conscience about even continuing to preach, and yet I knew—I had known from
the beginning--God could use even this tragedy to bring glory to Himself. At first she continued to stay in touch with
the children. I would beg them to remind
her of my love. I often sent food and
money covertly through channels that could not be traced back to me. She never suspected that I continued to
support her, that without me she would have quickly become totally
destitute. Instead, she gave the credit
to those she had chosen, those who had replaced me as her first love. I wrote letters, love letters, expressing in
the most intimate language the care with which I would nourish and cherish her
if only she would return. I declared my
eternal, unfailing devotion, and yet she continued in her unfaithfulness,
spurning my every advance. There were
many times during those years when I reflected on the thought that such love as
I had for Gomer could only have come from God Himself. She had done nothing to gain my love, nothing
to retain it, nothing to requite it. She
had done nothing—yet I loved her.
It was my
oldest son, Jezreel, who brought me word of the auction. Her house had been re-possessed, she was
deeply in debt and in order to pay her creditors the judge had declared that
she herself was to be sold into slavery.
There were no other bidders, after all, what was she worth? Still I paid full price: fifteen shekels of
silver, a homer and a half of barley.
Once again she was mine. Surely
now she would acknowledge my love.
Surely now her heart would return to me and she would accept me for my
love.
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