In The Bronze Bow, the people of Galilee are both enthralled and puzzled by Jesus. For centuries, the Jewish people have longed for a leader who will rise up against their oppressors—most recently the Romans. When Jesus begins preaching in the synagogues, offering hope to the poor, and healing the sick, many hope that he is the long-expected messiah who will deliver them from Roman bondage. But the more Daniel and his friends hear of Jesus’s message, the more Jesus disappoints their hopes. Jesus rejects violence as the means to freedom, and he even seems to prize a different kind of freedom altogether: spiritual freedom, rather than physical freedom. Over time, Daniel and others who are drawn to Jesus begin to see that he preaches a heavenly kingdom, not an earthly one. By tracing Daniel’s and others’ changing views of Jesus, the book suggests that the hope Jesus offers is ultimately rooted in heavenly realities and not in the earthly ones that people typically value.
Daniel and his fellow Galileans hope that Jesus will be a revolutionary leader who will rise up against the Romans, but Jesus undercuts these hopes. Fighting with Rosh’s rebels, Daniel expects an uprising rivaling ancient biblical battles. He tells his friend Joel, “Joshua, Gideon, David, all of them fought on the soil of Galilee. […] It will be so again.” Joel agrees, “‘God will send us another David.’ His eyes glistened, as though he too could see the shadow of a vast army moving on the distant plain.” Both boys believe that Israel’s deliverance will resemble past episodes of deliverance in Jewish history.
Similarly, when Jesus speaks in the village synagogue, Daniel and others look for a revolutionary who will lead them in resisting Roman oppression. Jesus tells the congregants, “‘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! […] But Jesus went on speaking quietly. […] Others too waited for the word that was not spoken.” In contrast to the people’s eager expectations, Jesus is quiet and restrained, not fiery, and he calls them to faith, not revolution.
The more Daniel and his friends get to know Jesus, however, the more they suspect that the hope he offers won’t align with their expectations. It becomes apparent while they’re doing a job for Rosh. The task requires them to carry out a deceptive plot. Feeling troubled about these measures, Thacia suggests that Jesus wouldn’t agree with them that ends justify means. Daniel argues that Jesus surely understands that in war, lies are sometimes a necessary weapon. Thacia replies, “Daniel, what makes you and Joel so sure that Jesus means to make war?” When Daniel reminds her that Jesus claims that God’s kingdom is near, Thacia continues, “Did you ever think he might mean that the kingdom will come some other way? Without any fighting?” Daniel suspects that Thacia might be right, but he can’t yet fathom what it means to wait for a heavenly kingdom instead of fighting for an earthly one.
Indeed, Jesus’s views of healing and freedom point to heavenly realities, not worldly ones. Even physical healing does not primarily have to do with what the world sees as valuable. Discussing Jesus’s healing ministry, Daniel muses to Thacia, “Haven’t you ever wondered […] what good it is for them to be healed, those people that Jesus cures? […] 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?” In other words, Daniel wonders if these miraculous cures really do much good for poor people whose lives don’t seem worthwhile to begin with. In turn, Thacia wonders if this is why many of those who flock to Jesus for healing don’t end up choosing to be cured by him. Their discussion suggests that when Jesus chooses to heal someone, he sees a heart that’s hungering for something even deeper than physical healing.
According to Simon, Jesus “says that the only chains that matter are fear and hate, because they chain our souls. If we do not hate anyone and do not fear anyone, then we are free.” Appalled by this notion of freedom, Daniel retorts that “you know what [the Romans] could do to you! How could you possibly not be afraid?” “I don’t say I am not afraid,” said Simon. “But Jesus is not.” By choosing to follow Jesus, Simon chooses a kind of freedom that transcends mere physical safety. Even though this “freedom” looks absurd to those who don’t embrace it, that doesn’t make it less real to those who believe in Jesus.
Throughout the book, the contrast between fighting versus waiting, and earthly solutions versus heavenly hope, reveals the novel’s belief that Jesus’s teachings weren’t primarily oriented toward fixing the present world, but toward the promise of a better one. At the end of the book, Jesus relieves Leah’s illness, but this healing is overshadowed by her joy in meeting the Messiah. Seeing this, even a hardened rebel like Daniel accepts that Jesus’s heavenly kingdom is better than an earthly one. After a lifetime of fighting for earthly hopes, Daniel shifts his loyalty to eternal ones.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Earthly Hopes vs. Heavenly Values ThemeTracker
Earthly Hopes vs. Heavenly Values Quotes in 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.”
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.”
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.
“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?”
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?
