Commentary: The little girl at Keilah

Not far from St. Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mt. Sinai there is a small oasis where the ancient city of Keilah was located according to 1 Samuel 23. David, along with six hundred of his men, fled from there after being warned by the Lord that Saul “was plotting evil against him.” Our caravan across the Sinai Desert pulled to the side of the road at Keilah on our recent tour of Egypt.

As with all our stops on the Sinai, we were suddenly surrounded by Bedouin boys selling trinkets. On this stop, however, there was a young girl moving quietly among the tourists of our caravan.

Alongside the road in front of me she spread a dirty blanket on which she emptied a ragged bag of trinkets.

She pointed at the trinkets and pointed at me.

I shook my head. (I didn’t need any more trinkets.)

I opened my hand and held out a dollar bill, pointing at my camera lens and then at her.

She took my dollar and shyly smiled her approval.

Click.

She left me pondering.

In many parts of the Middle East, women are remarkably invisible. Up to this point on our trip we were approached only by very noisy Bedouin boys selling their wares.

Why was this young girl here? Was she off-limits? Would her presence here be unacceptible to the traditions of her world? What ancient code would demand that she be invisible?

I wondered.

Glad we could get together.