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building the great temple, but he took little notice of the workmen’s efforts. He was wrestling toward a decision. The worship of Baal had spread throughout Israel like the heat of the sirocco wind. The past year had seen altars built to Melkart and holy places built to Asherah all over the land.
    His problem was not moral. He had long since given up such bounds on his personal ambition. In fact, his nearness to holy things never had touched the emptiness of his soul, an emptiness he long ago had accepted simply as a part of life.
    Zebul’s nervousness was evident, if one could see him well in the shadow of the wall. He had a quirk of rubbing his knuckles against his ring. Leaning against the city wall, he weighed the course of Israel’s future and tried to consider the facts objectively. He could see two courses of action.
    The first course called for great personal sacrifice, but quite conceivably he could be well rewarded eventually. Should he cast his lot unequivocally with the Yahwists and intrigue against Jezebel? If Baalism were defeated, he would be in an enviable position in leadership, provided that he could outwit Jezebel, Meor-baal, and other intelligent minds of the opposition long enough to survive.
    The building being raised below him represented the other alternative. The temple walls rose imposingly to the sky. Strange irony , Zebul thought, that the Phoenicia that lent stonemasons to Solomon to build the magnificent Temple to Yahweh in Jerusalem should lend others now to build this temple to Baal .
    The Phoenicians indeed were brilliant in the use of stone. Straight level trenches had been cut into the sloping hillside to receive the foundation stones. Before the walls had begun to rise, the arrangement of stones resembled two long, parallel stairways joined by stone fences on each end. The entrance was at the south end, nearest the city wall. The main floor would extend level to the back of the temple. The hollow space beneath, created by the slope of the hill, was designed for priests’ quarters.
    Zebul often had come to watch the building’s progress, as roughly squared stones were hauled on donkey-drawn carts from a nearby limestone quarry to the workmen, who marked them with red chalkline, square, and plumbline to exactly the required size and texture. Already the stones had hardened to a glaring white. Two huge obelisk columns were being raised on either side of the entrance by a system of ropes. Once erected, they would join the fertility of the earth to the goddess of the heavens who gives so bountifully to men.
    Strange how the gods fight , Zebul thought. Each claims to give the same gifts to men—happiness and prosperity. Yahweh could learn something from Baal . He smiled at the thought. Why should men choose to live austere and holy lives to receive Yahweh’s blessings when they have the same promises from Baal, who demands only sacrifices and the consort of beautiful women?
    He paused and reflected, caressing his ring more rapidly. Funny how lust is so integral a part of religion. A religion often is rejected or accepted simply because of its view of sex. He chuckled. “Is truth then bound up in sex?” he asked himself aloud.
    Zebul had not forgotten his history learned from the chronicles of the kings. The Israelites never really had followed Yahweh faithfully for very long at a time. The baal gods of the brooks and valleys and hills and trees always had claimed their fancy. People, after all, follow the god of the time. Occasionally there is a certain temper, a certain indescribable mood that permeates the air, causing men to become conscious of their wrongdoings and ready to respond to the prophet’s challenge. At other times, though, the prophet’s effort influences only a few. Those few may keep the name of their god alive, barely, but the prophet’s sweeping influence must await that changing, undefined, and completely unpredicatable and independent mood. Zebul watched a dust