Can the Bible equip us to face economic and political crises in our day? It can. The Psalms, the varied histories of the kings of Israel and Judah, and the Gospels, taken together, are a strong knot tying us to God. And they won't yield, however great the strain of circumstances. For example, Psalm 46 thunders: "The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge" (verses 6 and 7). The New English Bible renders the beginning and ending of the text: "Nations are in tumult, kingdoms hurled down; ... The Lord of Hosts is with us, the God of Jacob our high stronghold." These words describe the solubility of all that is earthly and insist on the impermeable reality of God. This reality "is our refuge" or "stronghold"—both words pointing to the Hebrew misgab, meaning a lofty or inaccessible place.
One of the most striking examples of the safe place provided by God, divine Love, is the narrative in Second Kings chapters 11-14 (retold in Second Chronicles 22 and 23) about the boy-prince Joash (alternately called Jehoash). According to one Bible dictionary his name means "Jehovah is strong." Born at the end of the ninth century BC in an era of competing national, economic, and religious interests, Joash is still an infant when his father, King Ahaziah of Judah, dies. In the ensuing period without a ruler, King Ahaziah's mother, Athaliah, "destroyed all the seed royal" (II Kings 11:1)—in other words, all competitors for power, including her own children and grandchildren. Or so she thought. Athaliah was the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, and, like her mother, Athaliah was a bold devotee of the Phoenician god Baal. Her dead son, King Ahaziah, had followed the idolatrous policies of his family.
During what must have been a period of uncertainty and chaos in Jerusalem, the infant heir, King Ahaziah's son Joash, is snatched out of harm's way and sheltered in an improbable, but altogether fitting, place. Jehosheba, the dead king's sister, steals the baby and his nurse away to safety. She conceals them in the temple, a refuge that symbolizes and embodies God's covenant with his people. The sympathetic Jehoiada, Jehosheba's husband, is high priest there, and for the next six years he protects the young prince.
