by Lynn Austin
“I don’t know why. We can never fully understand the Almighty One—”
“Then why try? Why force Zechariah to study the Torah, and why go through all this effort to try to please Him, leaving our home and building a temple and sacrificing countless animals? Will He ever be satisfied? Why is He still punishing us, killing good people like Shoshanna?”
“Who are we to question the Almighty One?”
Dinah’s temper flared. “Will you still defend Him after all this?”
“I’m sorry, Dinah. What I meant to say was . . . I-I can’t answer your questions.”
“You’re supposed to be His priest. If you don’t know the answers, then who does?”
Dinah spent more and more of her time with Joel, slowly coaxing him to eat and to come out of his room and sit in the sunshine. They talked for hours, sharing memories of Shoshanna and their life in Babylon, airing their dissatisfaction with life in Jerusalem. Joel’s kindness and gentleness as they comforted each other made Dinah wonder what her life might have been like if she had married him instead of Iddo. Before long, she was spending all of her time with Joel, leaving home every morning, letting the other women do her daily work.
A month after his wife died, Joel finally seemed to find his way out of his grief. “Thank you for all your help,” he said when Dinah brought him his breakfast one morning. He had changed out of his torn robes and trimmed his dark hair and beard. “I needed you and—”
“We needed each other. We helped each other.”
“Yes, that’s true. That’s why I want you to be the first to know that I’ve made plans to go back to Babylon.” Dinah’s heart seemed to halt at his words, then speed up. “I have no reason to stay here anymore,” he continued. “So I’m going back to warn my children not to come. God demands too great a sacrifice. If He would take a good woman like Shoshanna, then why serve Him?”
“Are you going alone? How will you get there?”
“I’m not the only one who’s leaving. Several other families have decided to return, too. We’re all fed up with the hardship here, the constant danger. It was a huge mistake to come. The temple will never be rebuilt now.”
Dinah’s heart beat so rapidly she could barely speak. “When are you leaving?”
“I’ve learned that the governor of Trans-Euphrates periodically sends caravans with tax revenue to the Persian capital. If I go to Samaria, I can travel with them for a fee.”
Dinah flew into his arms, clinging to him, comfortable in his embrace after so many weeks, so many tears. “Take me with you, Joel! Please!”
“You aren’t serious.”
“Yes, I am! I never wanted to come to this godforsaken place to begin with. I never wanted to leave my family. I only came because I had to, because of Iddo. But after everything that’s happened, I don’t love him anymore. This is all his fault! I want to take my grandson back to Babylon before something terrible happens to him. I want to go home, Joel. Please take me with you. Please!”
He held her tightly and let her cry. “Of course, Dinah. Don’t cry . . . Of course you can come with me. It will be justice, in a sense. I lost my wife because of Iddo, and now he can see how it feels to lose his wife.”
Dinah wept with relief. She would start a new life with the man she should have married in the first place, back home with her children, her grandchildren. She and Joel were still holding each other when she heard footsteps. Dinah looked up.
Iddo stood in the doorway of Joel’s house.
Chapter
25
Iddo stared at his wife, his friend. Surely this wasn’t what it looked like. It couldn’t be.
“What are you doing in my house?” Joel shouted. He released Dinah and strode toward Iddo, his fists clenched. “Get out!”
Iddo couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. Dinah and Joel? Embracing?
He had come to talk to his friend, to ask his forgiveness. To tell him that Prince Sheshbazzar was determined to meet with the local leaders and get justice for Shoshanna’s death. Iddo came to urge Joel to go with them. He had never dreamed that he would find Dinah here alone with him, much less find her in Joel’s arms.
“Joel is going back to Babylon,” Dinah said. She walked forward to stand beside Joel, linking her arm through his. “I’m going with him.”
Her words struck Iddo like a blow. Dinah and Joel. Iddo couldn’t think, couldn’t imagine . . . He turned and stumbled away, unable to say a word.
His heart felt like a dead thing inside him, a stone that grew heavier and heavier as he hurried away. He didn’t know what to do, where to go, but he found himself trudging uphill toward the temple, then climbing the stairs to the top. One of his fellow priests spotted him and walked over. “You’re not on duty today, are you Iddo?”
He shook his head. “I . . . I need to pray. Excuse me . . .” He couldn’t find release with tears. Shock and rage had stranded him in an arid wilderness where his mouth, his tongue, his tears, had turned to dry sand. He hadn’t wept as a child, either, even after all the horror he had witnessed. And he couldn’t cry now. The deadness that he’d felt inside as a boy had crept through him again, overwhelming him, turning him to stone. Don’t think. Don’t feel. Don’t remember. Once again, the people he loved were lost to him.
He skirted around the worship area and the altar, passing the abandoned crane and construction site until he reached the north side of the mount and the ruins of Solomon’s temple. He sank down on a sun-warmed block of stone and hunched forward in grief, covering his face with his hands.
Dinah had told him months ago that she was merely going through the motions as his wife with no love in her heart, but he hadn’t wanted to believe her. Now he’d seen the truth for himself. She didn’t love him. She loved someone else. But what should he do about it? His heart and mind were so shattered by what he’d seen that he could barely think—he didn’t want to think. But he would force himself to sit here and talk to the Almighty One until he came up with a solution.
If he refused to divorce Dinah, if he forced her to stay, she would hate him even more than she already did. Iddo would have to let her go. Back to Babylon. With Joel.
The realization doubled him over with grief. How could he live without Dinah? He loved her. Even now, even after what he’d just seen, even though jealous rage threatened to consume him, Iddo loved her.
But what should he do? Iddo’s mind whirled in turmoil. The law clearly said that Dinah and Joel should both be stoned to death for committing adultery. And when he remembered seeing them in each other’s arms, his rage screamed at him to do it. To condemn them both to a violent, painful death. As a priest, Iddo not only taught the Law, but was required to set an example in keeping it. Yet he couldn’t kill Dinah. He couldn’t inflict that horrible punishment on the woman he loved.
His fellow priests would tell him that God’s justice must be served. She must be punished for breaking her marriage covenant, just as justice demanded that the person who had murdered Shoshanna must die. But Iddo had witnessed too many deaths, seen too much evidence of God’s punishment in his lifetime. He couldn’t bear any more.
Maybe Dinah was right. Maybe the Almighty One was cruel and unfeeling. Why else would He command such a law? Why else would His people suffer so much trouble? Where was the God of miracles who had parted the Red Sea and destroyed their enemies during the first exodus? Iddo had come to Jerusalem to be a priest, to serve God. He had wanted to undo the mistakes of his forefathers and rebuild the temple, teach the laws of the Torah. Instead, his sacrifice had cost him his children and now his wife. Why would God snatch his family away from him a second time?
The sun felt merciless as it beat down on Iddo’s head. It would only grow hotter here among the shadeless ruins as the day progressed. What do you want me to do, God? He posed the question to the unfeeling skies, to a cold and distant God, never expecting an answer. But Iddo heard His reply, as clearly as if God had spoken the words to him face-to-face.
> Forgive her.
Was his mind playing tricks on him? Forgive her? Even after she committed adultery? How could he forgive her? Wasn’t he required to uphold the Law? And what about God’s justice?
He thought back to the day when he first realized that Dinah’s love for him was slowly dying. She had asked him whether he served the Almighty One from love or from fear. “You believe we have to follow all the rules, do everything exactly right, or He’ll punish our smallest misstep.” And her words had helped Iddo understand that God wanted his love, wanted a relationship with him, not mere obedience to the law.
Iddo stood, too agitated to remain seated, and paced the small area among the ruins. The huge blocks hemmed him in, frustrating him, and he felt like kicking them. But that would be wrong. These were the building stones of the Almighty One’s temple.
He remembered where he was—in Jerusalem. He was here with thousands of other Jews because the Almighty One had forgiven him and offered him a second chance. No one could keep all 613 of the Torah’s laws perfectly. No one. Especially Iddo. He had tried and tried, and yet measured against the plumb line of the Torah, he always fell short. That’s why he bowed before God every year on Yom Kippur and confessed his sins. That’s why the priests offered sacrifices twice a day. Iddo didn’t deserve God’s mercy and grace, but He offered it to Iddo just the same. What did God want him to do in return? Offer more sheep? More calves and lambs and grain offerings?
Forgive her.
Iddo sank down again. He remained seated on the broken limestone building block all afternoon, wiping the sweat from his face and neck, as the sun pressed down on him. He couldn’t move, trapped between law and grace, afraid to take a step and make a mistake. How could the Almighty One give two conflicting commands?
As the sun finally began to sink in the west, Iddo heard the distant sound of music. The evening sacrifice. Was it that late already? He should leave. Zechariah must be waiting for him. They had to attend the sacrifice and pray together. But Iddo couldn’t move.
He recognized the words of the psalm that the Levite choir was singing: “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good . . .” And the crowd of worshipers echoed the refrain, “His love endures forever.” In verse after verse, God’s wonders and miracles were retold and the refrain repeated, pounding into Iddo’s heart like a hammer chiseling stone: His love endures forever . . . His love endures forever . . . His love endures forever . . . God hadn’t left them in their sins in Babylon, separated from Him. They were here in Jerusalem because of His grace—with a job to do, a temple to rebuild.
At last the music stopped. And once more, in the silence that followed, Iddo heard God speak.
Forgive her.
Forgive Dinah.
When he was certain that the evening sacrifice had ended, he stood again, needing to walk, needing to escape the cramped confines of the temple’s ruins. But he couldn’t go home. He didn’t want to go home. He made his way across the temple mount, down the stairs, down the hill to the house of assembly. He would search the Scriptures for answers.
Every evening the priests brought the sacred scrolls out of the treasury so any man who wanted to could study them for a few hours. Iddo wasn’t the only one in the study hall. Jeshua the high priest already had several of the Torah scrolls unrolled in front of him, bending over them, reading them. Iddo randomly picked up one of the remaining scrolls and sat down to unroll it, not even sure he would be able to concentrate on it.
“The word of the Lord that came to Hosea son of Beeri . . .”
Iddo closed his eyes. He didn’t want to read the book of Hosea’s prophecies. He already knew the story of how God had told the prophet to marry a prostitute and then, after she was unfaithful to him, to take her back and love her again. God’s message through Hosea was that God would take Israel back, even though His people had betrayed Him with idols. And here they were, back in Jerusalem.
Forgive her.
Iddo remained in the house of assembly all night, long after the other men left and the priests returned the scrolls to the treasury. He didn’t need to read the other scrolls to know that they would all tell him the same thing. God’s love was the theme of the psalms that he and his fellow musicians sang every day: “He does not treat us as our sins deserve . . . For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him . . . You, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness . . . His love endures forever.”
Was God’s law more important than His love? Did Iddo want justice for his shattered marriage or did he want Dinah’s love?
He wanted her love. He still loved her and always would, in spite of everything. In understanding his own heart, Iddo began to understand God’s heart. And he knew what he needed to do.
At dawn, Iddo finally went home. Dinah was awake, as he knew she would be, kindling a fire to prepare breakfast. She looked frightened when she looked up and saw him, as if she expected to be dragged before the chief priest and stoned to death. Her fear broke his heart. Iddo wished she could see how much he loved her, even in his anger. How much God loved her. But how could she believe in God’s love when all Iddo had ever emphasized was His Law?
“Come with me, please,” he said, gesturing to her. “You don’t need to be afraid.”
He saw Dinah’s hands shaking as she set down the handful of kindling. Iddo led her the short distance to Joel’s house. He was awake as well, and when he saw Iddo he shouted loudly enough to wake the entire neighborhood. “How dare you come back here? Get out of my house!”
For a moment, Iddo’s resolve weakened when he remembered what he had seen yesterday. He was the one who should be shouting in anger, condemning Joel and Dinah for adultery. Iddo’s face grew warm as rage boiled through him again. But God’s command to him had been clear. Forgive her.
“Just give me a moment to speak, Joel. Then I’ll go.” Iddo turned to Dinah first, who cowered behind him. “When you return to our community in Babylon with Joel, you will be shunned and labeled a sotah. Our children will be put in a difficult place if they receive you back while you’re still married to me. And so I want you to know that I’m offering you a divorce. You and Joel can marry—”
“Whoa!” Joel said, holding up both hands. “I never said I wanted to marry Dinah. My wife just died! You think I would replace Shoshanna?”
Dinah moved from behind Iddo and slowly walked toward Joel. “But . . . but you said you would take me back to Babylon with you.”
“And I will. But not as my wife! Look, I needed comfort and you offered it. And deep inside, I also wanted to get even with Iddo. Until the day I die, I’ll always blame him for Shoshanna’s death.”
“You used me?” Dinah asked, her voice hushed with disbelief.
“We used each other. Admit it, Dinah. You were as angry with Iddo as I was.”
She stared up at Joel as if too stunned to speak, then turned and fled, brushing past Iddo as she ran out of the courtyard. He longed to run after her, but he didn’t know if he should, if she would want him to.
“Get out of my house,” Joel said again. “And don’t ever come back!”
Iddo followed Dinah home and found her in their room, curled in grief, sobbing. He waved away the other women when they came to comfort her and closed the door. He knelt beside Dinah, asking God what he should do.
Forgive her.
He needed to forgive Dinah and take her back the same way God had forgiven His people after their unfaithfulness to Him. He needed to show his love to her. And that meant not only giving up his right to condemn her, but giving her what she longed for the most. Iddo would take her back to Babylon himself. He would prove his love by leaving Jerusalem a second time. That meant giving up his work as a priest, never worshiping in the temple, or having a part in rebuilding it. Did he love Dinah that much?
Yes.
A single tear slid down his face and into his beard. This was what God wanted him to
do. Iddo waited until Dinah’s sobbing tapered off, praying for the right words to say.
“I know you don’t love me anymore, Dinah. But I’ve never stopped loving you. If you want to go back to Babylon, you don’t need Joel to take you. I’ll take you there myself.”
She looked up at him after a moment, her beautiful face ravaged by sorrow. “Why, Iddo? Why would you do that for me?”
“Because I’ve made too many mistakes. You were right, I was too hard on our sons, and I want to make things right with them and with you. . . . And because it’s what the Almighty One did, forgiving our people even after we went after other gods. I understand His love now, how deep and wide and everlasting it is. If He binds us tightly with laws and rules, it’s for the same reason that we hold our children tightly in our grasp, to keep them from hurting themselves or being hurt. But God also gives us the freedom to leave His embrace and go our own way. He won’t force His love on us, and I won’t force mine on you. I’ll take you back to Babylon, not so you’ll forgive me, but so you’ll forgive God. So you’ll understand the truth about His grace.”
“You would do that? After I turned away from you?”
“Yes.” Another tear slipped down Iddo’s cheek. He wiped it away.
Dinah stared at him as if waiting for him to say more. But he had spoken from his heart and said everything that he knew to say. He stood.
“I’ll find out when the next caravan is leaving.”
Chapter
26
The knowledge that she was finally going home to her family should have cheered Dinah, but it didn’t. She sat by the hearth late in the afternoon, chopping garlic and leeks for their dinner and wondering how she had messed up so badly. How had she failed to see that what she felt for Joel was one-sided? He didn’t love her. Their emotional attachment was bound by their grief for Shoshanna. He had used her to hurt Iddo, to get even with him. And she had done the same.