I can hear you muttering, "that's not very blog-worthy", but bear with me, I just wanted to set the scene for you.
Having been brought up in the Church, the daughter of a Baptist Minister, I thought that when it came to the Bible, there wasn't much I've not read. But God is clearly sooo much bigger than I am, because in a recent reading from the Bible reading plan, I heard about Elisha's first miracle after he had watched Elijah being taken into heaven. And I know I must have read it before, but this time, I actually HEARD it, if that makes sense.
2 Kings 2: 19-22 (NLT): One day the leaders of the town of Jericho visited Elisha. “We have a problem, my lord,” they told him. “This town is located in pleasant surroundings, as you can see. But the water is bad, and the land is unproductive.” Elisha said, “Bring me a new bowl with salt in it.” So they brought it to him. Then he went out to the spring that supplied the town with water and threw the salt into it. And he said, “This is what the Lord says: I have purified this water. It will no longer cause death or infertility.” And the water has remained pure ever since, just as Elisha said.
Did you miss it too?
When Elisha throws salt into the spring which supplies the town's water, he tells them, “This is what the Lord says: I have purified this water. It will no longer cause death or infertility.” I was so surprised by this, that I actually exclaimed aloud (Hubby HAD been asleep), "INFERTILITY"??!
As soon as I could, I wanted to check how the Hebrew Scriptures puts it, whether it meant infertility of women or whether it was talking about the unfruitfulness of the land itself.
The Orthodox Jewish Bible says,
And he went forth unto the motza hamayim (spring of water), and cast the melach (salt) in there, and said, Thus saith Hashem, I have healed these mayim (waters); there shall not be from there any more mavet or meshakkalet (unfruitfulness, barrenness)
While The Complete Jewish Bible writes it as,
He went out to the source of the water, threw salt into it and said, “This is what Adonai says: ‘I have healed this water; it will no longer cause death or miscarrying.’”
The Complete Jewish Bible certainly offers the strong suggestion that somehow the waters were not only bad for the land, but for the people who drank from the Spring too. There are instances in Scripture where God causes women to be infertile as a result of sin, such as when Abraham tells Sarah to lie about who she is, and God caused the women of Egypt to be infertile while she lived with Pharaoh (Genesis 20:18). She was a woman of the promise! But I don't think there is an actual situation like this where the water supply is causing a problem with infertility.
I have explored the influence of food on the body (see for example, Taking Control or Removing the Yeast) in past blogs, and will probably continue to do so, because I do think there is a correlation between what we put into our bodies and the affect it has on our health - and fertility is a health issue!
But this story has made me think, "Maybe I need to go and live in Jordan"!!! OK, perhaps it hasn't, but I wonder if there is anything I need to understand about the basics of things like the chemicals which are pumped into our water supplies and how this is affecting me. Do I need to get some special salt and put it in each glass before I drink it??!!
OK - I'm being overly-flippant here, I know I am... But what if...
I'm now about to leave my spot in Starbucks and pay a visit to Holland & Barrett!!
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