Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Bronze Bow, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love vs. Vengeance
Trust, Dependence, and Friendship
Leadership: Power vs. Service
Earthly Hopes vs. Heavenly Values
Summary
Analysis
It’s springtime again in Galilee, but Daniel remains inside his shop, working and quietly nursing his rage. He longs to seek out more Zealots and form a new band of fighters, but he is bound to provide for Leah.
Daniel is back where he started when he first returned to Ketzah. He’s even worse off, because he has no leader. He has only his gnawing anger for companionship.
Themes
One day, Leah’s beloved little goat dies. Within a couple of days, Daniel realizes that Leah has fallen into a fever. She lies on her mat, her mind wandering, occasionally crying out in terror. The physician cannot do anything for her. Daniel just sits by Leah’s bed, thinking that everyone he has cared about has ended up leaving him. When Leah dies, he will be free. But he realizes that there’s nothing to fill that freedom with—just more hatred.
Daniel despairs as Leah begins to succumb to illness. On one hand, Leah’s death is an answer to his selfish desire for freedom instead of dependence. Yet he realizes he won’t actually be gaining anything. He effectively has nothing to live for. Spiritually, he is as sick as she is physically.
Themes
Finally, it occurs to Daniel to send Joktan to Thacia with the message that Leah is dying. While he’s waiting, he sees the Roman soldier Marcus outside his door. Marcus seems to embody all of Daniel’s hatred and rage, but he can’t bring himself to hurt Marcus while Leah is still alive. When Marcus asks how Leah is doing, Daniel just spits on the ground.
Daniel is still filled with vengeance toward Marcus. His presence reminds him that Leah’s decline is partly Daniel’s own fault, and he’s a convenient scapegoat for all of Daniel’s feelings of anger and helplessness in his life.
Themes
Every day, Marcus stands across the street and watches Daniel’s house. One day, he forces Daniel to stop. He says he understands Daniel’s hate. His own people were conquered by Rome—he is German. But everyone in his tribe is a fighter, and he is no different. Tomorrow he is being transferred. He knows there’s no hope that he could ever marry Leah. He just wants to see her before he goes. But Daniel says he would rather have Leah die than let a Roman soldier through the door. Eventually, Marcus squares his shoulders and walks away.
Marcus forces Daniel to listen. He wants Daniel to hear who he is as a person—not a faceless Roman. In fact, he’s from a conquered people himself. But he doesn’t see this as defining his life. Being a soldier is just one part of it, and Leah is another important part. But Daniel is unable to heed his plea. Humanizing Marcus is still beyond him.
Themes
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That afternoon, Leah lies still, barely breathing. Daniel falls asleep at one point, and when he wakes up, he sees Jesus standing in the doorway. Thacia is with him. Jesus goes to Leah’s side. Thacia whispers that she has been with Joel in Jerusalem, and Joktan just found them this morning. Daniel is overwhelmed by Jesus’s arrival. He longs to talk to Jesus and explain everything. But Jesus sits silently at Leah’s side for a long time. Finally, he looks up and meets Daniel’s eyes. In an instant, Daniel knows that Jesus understands everything—Leah, Daniel’s rejection of him, everything. But as Jesus looks into Daniel’s eyes, he suddenly smiles.
When Daniel’s hope is gone, Jesus appears. He comes for Leah, but it quickly becomes clear that he has also come to heal Daniel. He performs this healing just as miraculously, too—silently understanding what’s in Daniel’s heart, forgiving his rejection of Jesus and his hatred for others, and setting him free.
Themes
Daniel can’t bear Jesus’s smile. He feels an overwhelming desire to stop fighting. He’ll give anything to follow Jesus. He thinks of his vow. Jesus had told Daniel that victory means trusting in God’s promise, preparing their hearts and minds. Suddenly Daniel wonders if love is what is able to bend the bronze bow. He realizes he can’t know for sure. But he remembers Simon’s words—he has to make a choice without knowing. And he believes that simply knowing Jesus will be enough. Suddenly, Daniel’s weight disappears, and a strong peace fills him.
Daniel’s desire to give up and surrender to Jesus is that intangible thing he and Thacia speculated about earlier. The only prerequisite for Jesus’s healing, in other words, is to recognize one’s need of it and to want it. This doesn’t include full understanding—Daniel is still baffled by Jesus. But Daniel chooses to trust that Jesus is the leader he’s been seeking—the one who can “bend the bronze bow.”
Themes
After a while, Daniel feels Thacia taking his hand. She tells him to look at Leah. As Daniel watches, Leah’s eyes slowly blink open. She says, “Jesus?” When Jesus smiles at her, Leah knows everything is all right. He tells her not to be afraid. Daniel falls to his knees, sobbing as he never has since childhood. When he collects himself, Jesus has gone.
Leah recognizes Jesus instantly. It’s obvious that she, too, desired his healing and receives it fully. Daniel is overcome by Jesus’s mercy toward his sister and himself.
Themes
When Daniel looks at Thacia, he sees the love in her eyes and realizes that he’s finally free to give her his own. They silently make a new vow to each other. Then Daniel hurries out the door to thank Jesus. But when he reaches the street, all he sees is the Roman soldier. He struggles for words, and finally tells Marcus that Leah’s fever is gone; she will be well. He looks away in shock when Marcus sobs—a Roman crying! He knows Leah will want to say goodbye to the soldier. Glimpsing the flash of Jesus’s robe farther down the street, Daniel turns back to Marcus and asks, “Will you come in to our house?”
Now that Daniel has been set free from his vow for vengeance, he realizes there is room in his life for another vow. But that’s not all. He realizes that the hatred in his heart must give way to love, and this requires choices on his part; it’s not automatic. The first and hardest is to forgive and welcome Marcus—to see him as a human being. The story comes full circle as Daniel, once motivated entirely by hatred of the Romans, now receives a Roman into his house. Thanks to Jesus, Daniel is discovering that love does indeed “bend the bronze bow.”
Themes
