The Bronze Bow

Up here, in the clean sunlight, Daniel bar Jamin, orphan, runaway slave, had found something to live for.

“All the mighty ones,” he said, remembering Rosh’s very words. “Joshua, Gideon, David, all of them fought on the soil of Galilee. No one could stand against them. It will be so again.”

“Yes,” breathed Joel. “It will be so again. God will send us another David.”

“You mustn’t be afraid of him. He is our brother Daniel come home. When he milks you, you must be good and stand still. See how big and strong he is. He will take care of us and keep us safe.”

Suddenly he was afraid again. He looked away, trying to shut out the sight of her with her golden hair shining in the lamplight, trying to shut out the sound of that murmuring voice. Everything he cared about and worked for was threatened by that small helpless figure.

Why did I come here? he thought. Already he yearned to be away from this place. Hunger gnawed at him. Up on the mountain the men would be still sitting about the fire, their stomachs satisfied […] He wondered if Joktan had made sure that Samson had enough to eat. He wondered how long the man had waited at the top of the trail. Suddenly he flung himself on his face and buried his head in his arms and could have wept for homesickness.

“I say to you, the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe.”

Now! Daniel leaned forward. Tell us that the moment has come! Tell us what we are to do! Longing swelled unbearably in his throat.

But Jesus went on speaking quietly. A rippling murmur passed across the crowd. Others too waited for the word that was not spoken. What had the man meant?

Everywhere, the Jews went about their business, paying no attention. The boy who had lived for five years in the solitude of the mountain, nursing his hatred and keeping it ever fresh, could not credit his own eyes. How could these city people endure to be reminded on every hand of their own helplessness? More shameful still, he saw merchants joking with the soldiers. He could not understand. Where was their pride? Had they forgotten altogether? If Rosh were here he would open their eyes. Why did that Jesus do nothing?

Mark my words, boy. Israel has one great strength, mightier than all the power of Rome. It is the Law, given to Moses and our fathers. When the last Roman emperor has vanished from the earth, the Law will still endure. It is to the Law that our loyalty must be devoted. I wish Joel to understand this, and I must forbid him to see any old friends who will turn his mind to violence. I ask you to go now, at once. Go in peace, Daniel, with a prayer that you may see the truth before that rash tongue of yours betrays you.

“Did you ever think that Rosh—that he might be the leader we are waiting for?” […]

“I know he is,” said Daniel.

They sat silent, trembling at the immensity of the secret they shared.

“He’s like a lion!” Daniel said, his confidence mounting. “He has no fear at all. Up there in the cave, whatever he says, the men obey him without question. If there were more of us—if we could only get enough—Rosh would drive every cursed Roman back into the sea!”

“God is my strong refuge,
and has made my way safe.
He made my feet like hinds’ feet,
and set me secure on the heights.
He trains my hands for war,
so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.”

“It couldn't really be bronze,” said Daniel, puzzled. “The strongest man could not bend a bow of bronze.”

“No,” Thacia spoke. “I think it was really bronze. I think David meant a bow that a man couldn't bend—that when God strengthens us we can do something that seems impossible.”

For Daniel nothing could ever be the same. He had never admitted to himself that he was lonely here on the mountain. He had worshiped and feared Rosh. He had fought and eaten and slept side by side with the hard-eyed men who made up Rosh’s band. But the few days in Joel’s passageway had shown him a new world. He had found someone to talk to, someone who had shared his own thoughts, and who had instantly taken Daniel’s burden as his own.

The other mighty ones had lived and fought in distant ages. But Judas had lived in a time like his own, not two hundred years ago, when Israel was helpless, as it was now, under the foot of the heathen. Judas, with his heroic father and brothers, had dared to rise up and defy the oppressor, and for a time Israel had breathed the free again. […] This time—! There were young men everywhere who longed for such a chance again. Together, he and Joel would find them.

“Try to bear your suffering with patience, because you know that God has made a place for you in His Kingdom.”

The kingdom! Daniel looked about him. What good would it do to speak of a kingdom to these miserable wretches? What could it mean to them, when not one of them could lift a hand to fight for it? But he saw their faces, white, formless blots in the darkness, all lifted toward this man. He heard their harsh breathing all around him, stifled in their straining not to miss a word. They listened as though his words were food and they could never get enough.

Somewhere, Daniel had been taught in his childhood, there would be an answer in the scriptures, for Moses had handed down in the Law an answer for every situation a man could encounter in this life. […]

Suddenly words were echoing in his mind. “For each one of you is precious in His sight.” Not scripture, but the words of the carpenter. That was what had confused him. Rosh looked at a man and saw a thing to be used, like a tool or a weapon. Jesus looked and saw a child of God. Even the old miser with his moneybag?

He fumbled for the words, and they came, slowly, from the depths of his memory. “‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want; He maketh me to lie down in green Pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul’ […]”

Leah sank down beside him. Side by side, without speaking, the brother and sister sat and listened to the breathing of the old woman. Leah’s hand in his own was like the hand of a small child reaching out to him in trust and helplessness. It was a sign that even now the devils did not have complete dominion. Fear retreated into the shadowy corners.

[Daniel] was almost at the point of tears. Yet in the same instant such a fierce resentment sprang up in him that he dared not look his friend in the face. […] Everyone—the doctor, Leah, the neighbors, and now Simon, took it for granted that he had come home to stay. […] What about his life on the mountain? What about Rosh and Samson, and the work that must be done in the cave? Wasn’t that more important than a few farmers who wanted their wheels mended? Everything he loved […] the irresponsible life, the excitement of the raids, rose up and fought off the shackles that Simon held out to him in kindness.

He lay filled with meat and wine, his old comrades stretched out beside him. It was all just as he had imagined it on those endless steaming nights in the town. Yet sleep did not come. He turned over, twisting his shoulders to fit a hump in the rocky ground. In these few weeks his body had forgotten the feel of pebbles. In the same way, his mind shifted uncomfortably, trying to find a resting place […].

All at once he thought of Leah’s little black goat. Would some child in the village be hungry because of tonight's feast?

Where did he himself belong?

The fire in Simon’s forge had almost gone out. He raked back the ashes, blew on the coals and coaxed it back to life. Then he opened the inner door to the house. Leah looked up at him, her blue eyes as lifeless as the fire. She had not combed her hair or bothered to get herself breakfast. With irritation he saw that the water jar was empty and that he would have to stand in line at the well with the snickering women. He bent and picked up the jar, and the bars of his cage slid into place around him.

“Do the people—crowd together and push each other?”

“It’s all you can do to stay on your two feet sometimes.”

She was silent so long that he thought she had stopped thinking about it. Then she asked, “Are there children, too? […] Jesus wouldn’t let them hurt the children, would he?”

“He won't even let them send the children away when they’re a nuisance. He insists on talking to them, and finding out their names, and listening to their foolishness. It makes some of the men furious—as though he thought children were important.”

“Daniel, what makes you and Joel so sure that Jesus means to make war?”

“He says that the kingdom is at hand. What else can he mean?”

“Did you ever think he might mean that the kingdom will come some other way? Without any fighting? […] You see, Jesus has made me see that we don’t need to wait for God to care for us. He does that now. […] If everyone understood that—every man and woman […] Suppose—the Romans too could understand?”

He stopped in the road and stared at her. “Romans? You think God loves the Romans?”

Thacia sighed. “That’s impossible, I suppose.”

With a snap of his finger he indicated the two packs. […]

Black anger rose in Daniel. He knew well enough the law that allowed a Roman to command that a Jew carry his burden for one mile. But the man didn’t live who could make him shoulder a Roman pack! He looked squarely at the soldier. Then he spat, deliberately. The blow across his mouth came instantly and staggeringly, but he did not lower his head. […]

There was a stifled gasp. Then Thacia very quietly stepped forward and lifted one of the packs.

“Haven’t you ever wondered,” he attempted, “what good it is for them to be healed, those people that Jesus cures? They’re happy at first. But what happens to them after that? What does a blind man think, when he has wanted for years to see, and then looks at his wife in rags and his children covered with sores? That lame man you saw—is he grateful now? Is it worth it to get on his feet and spend the rest of his life dragging burdens like a mule?”

Dismayed, Daniel climbed the mountain to take the warning to Rosh, only to have Rosh laugh in his face.

“They are afraid of their own shadows,” Rosh jeered. “What good are they but to raise food for men who will fight?”

“They are desperate,” Daniel urged. “You know they cannot carry arms themselves. They are going to appeal to the centurion for protection. They want him to send legionaries.”

“Let them come!” Rosh boasted. “Let them get a taste of the mountain. They will only break their teeth on it.”

Daniel’s control gave way. “You’d just use him and then let him go? Without even a try—?”

Rosh squinted up at him. “I’ve warned you before,” he said, his voice ugly. “There's a soft streak in you. Till you get rid of it you’re no good to the cause.”

The red mist of anger cleared suddenly from Daniel’s mind. He looked at the man who had been his leader. He saw the coarsened face with its tangle of dirty beard. He saw the hard mouth, the calculating little eyes. He saw a man he had never really looked at before.

In the darkness the same words echoed over and over. “They who live by the sword will perish by the sword.” […] Jesus had spoken them on a hot summer morning under a blue sky. Daniel had not questioned the words. To live by the sword was the best life he knew. To take the sword for his country’s freedom and to perish by it—what better could a man hope for? But something he had not reckoned on had happened. He had taken the sword, but Samson, instead, had perished by it, who had no freedom to gain, and Nathan, who had left behind a bride. Their deaths were on his head. And freedom was farther away than before.

“[Samson] did not give you vengeance. He gave you love. There is no greater love than that, that a man should lay down his life for his friend. Think, Daniel, can you repay such love with hate?”

“It’s too late to love Samson. He is probably dead.” Then, as Jesus waited, “Should I love the Romans who killed him?” he asked with bitterness.

Jesus smiled. “You think that is impossible, don’t you? Can’t you see, Daniel, it is hate that is the enemy? Not men. Hate does not die with killing. It only springs up a hundredfold. The only thing stronger than hate is love.”

Unable to endure that smile, Daniel bent his head. Suddenly, with a longing that was more than he could bear, he wanted to stop fighting against this man. He knew that he would give everything he possessed in life to follow Jesus.

Even his vow?

He tried to cling again to the words of David that had always strengthened him. He trains my hands for war—

But Jesus said that the Victory was God’s promise. He called men to make ready their hearts and minds instead.

Was it possible that only love could bend the bow of bronze?