The Secret Book of Kings: A Novel

by Yochi Brandes

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  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

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  The Secret Book of Kings is lovingly dedicated to

  my many Bible teachers

  who taught me to read the Bible

  to love the Bible

  and to carry it with me everywhere I go.

  Acknowledgments

  When I was eight years old, I learned in school that the ancient nation of Israel had split into two rival kingdoms—the great Kingdom of Israel of the ten tribes, and the smaller Kingdom of Judah of the tribe of Judah. Only then, for the first time in my life, did I realize that we, the Jews, are all descendants of the Kingdom of Judah, while the people of the Kingdom of Israel became assimilated and are no more. This realization saddened me greatly. Throughout all the years of my childhood, I yearned for a miracle that would return the Ten Lost Tribes to the Land of Israel. I so wanted them to live in the State of Israel together with us, the people of the Kingdom of Judah.

  Nearly forty years had to pass before my love for the people of the Kingdom of Israel turned into a book. The idea occurred to me in the wake of an essay I published on the Biblical princess Michal. The excited reactions to my essay made me realize that most people are unaware that hiding within the pages of the Bible are several storytelling traditions claiming that David methodically and purposefully annihilated the House of Saul. I decided to write a novel about Michal that would describe her life from the unfamiliar point of view of the scribes of the House of Saul, and not from the familiar point of view of the scribes of the House of David. But even at the beginning of my research, I realized that a historical novel about the destruction of the House of Saul at the hands of David could not make do with a single protagonist, as had the other novels I had written up to that point. Rather, the novel would have to be written from the perspectives of two main characters—Michal daughter of Saul, whose passionate love for David brought terrible calamities upon her and upon her family; and also Jeroboam son of Nebat, who avenged her two generations later by persuading the ten tribes to split off from the kingdom of the House of David and establish a separate kingdom for themselves under his leadership.

  The Secret Book of Kings was published in 2008, and I was overjoyed when it quickly became one of the best-selling novels ever in Israel. Since then, I have been asked again and again when it would finally be translated into other languages, but I wondered whether a Biblical novel written in Hebrew would be successful outside Israel.

  That was what I asked Daniel Libenson, the founder of the Institute for the Next Jewish Future in the United States, when he visited me about two years ago and asked my permission to search for an American publisher for an English edition of The Secret Book of Kings. Daniel confidently declared that the book would succeed in English-speaking countries precisely because I was an Israeli writer, and one with a rather unique background at that. While many readers of English are generally familiar with the major stories and characters of the Bible, he said, most are not intimately familiar with the details of those stories, and even fewer are likely to have noticed the secret stories of the scribes of the House of Saul. Only a person like me, who has studied Judaism through both the traditional approach and the academic approach, and who reads the Bible in the original, could draw out its hidden stories and weave them into a subversive novel like this one.

  I don’t need to tell you the rest. The fact that you are holding the English edition of The Secret Book of Kings in your hands says it all. Thank you, Daniel Libenson, for initiating the connection with St. Martin’s Press, and thank you so very much for your exceptional editing, which has made The Secret Book of Kings read as though it were originally written in English. You labored for two full months, day after day, from morning until night. Even the passing of your mother, of blessed memory, didn’t stop you from completing the difficult and important task that you took upon yourself and that only you could have accomplished.

  Thank you, Anya Lichtenstein, for reading The Secret Book of Kings in Hebrew and recommending with faith and confidence that your company publish it. And thank you, leaders and managers of St. Martin’s Press, for accepting her enthusiastic recommendation. How pleased I feel that my book has found a home in your outstanding publishing house.

  Thank you, Yardenne Greenspan, for translating the book with complete fidelity to the source and giving it life in English.

  And thank you, Silissa Kenney and Sylvan Creekmore. When Anya took a new position outside the press, I was very concerned. But when I began working with you, I realized right away that I had no cause for concern. You have ushered the book through every stage of its editing and production with unending dedication and with attentive and sensitive understanding.

  Thank you, Yuval Horowitz, my dedicated agent from Kneller Artists Agency, who has been helping me for many years in all my activities and creative endeavors. You believed that The Secret Book of Kings would be published by a major American publishing house, and you persisted in your faith despite all the delays.

  Special thanks to you, Ofer, my husband and my love. You contribute to my creativity with your wide-ranging talents at every stage of the research, the writing, and the editing, but this time your help was greater and more significant than ever. You went over Daniel’s excellent editing and checked every quote, every verse, every sentence, every word, and every letter. Your meticulous thoroughness and your broad knowledge of the Bible gave The Secret Book of Kings what I should have given it had I known English.… Thanks to you, I am certain of the quality of the book that I present here to my new readers in English.

  Yochi Brandes

  Israel 2016

  The Soldier

  One

  Mother took me to the lepers’ cave for the first time on the fifteenth day of the eighth month. I remember the date because of the Festival of Rain, which turned me into the most famous boy in Zeredah. The story spread quickly throughout the entire land of Ephraim. Everyone wanted to hear about the little boy who had managed to fool the king’s soldiers and save his townspeople.

  It began with the first rainfall, which brought crowds of revelers out into the streets and scuttled our plan to sneak out of Zeredah at dawn, before people wake up. Mother didn’t want anyone to see us in the wagon together for fear that if they realized I was going with her to the cave, they would try to scare me with horror stories about healthy people who only glimpsed the lepers from afar and instantly lost their hair and nails, holes gaping in the middle of their faces where their noses used to be. Mother is the only person in Zeredah who isn’t afraid of lepers. Every month, when the moon is full, she heads to the cave with food and medicines for them, and she speaks with them intimately, the way one speaks with friends. She believes that the God of Israel loves the lepers and favors those who help them. And indeed, our house is truly blessed. Many other families in Zeredah barely survive under the weight of the taxes. Their little children must go out to work
in the fields and vineyards, while I get to stay home with my tutors, who teach me arithmetic, reading, writing, and even Egyptian. My parents will also hire tutors for my sister, Elisheba, when she grows up, even though she’s a girl.

  * * *

  I sat on the wagon and tried to hide my trembling hands under my knees. I’d been begging Father a long time before he agreed to let me join Mother at the cave. That’s the way wishes are. You pine for them and look forward, but when they finally do come true, you’d rather be somewhere else.

  Suddenly, it started to rain. Mother hesitated. She didn’t want to delay, but the rain grew harder, and we were drenched from head to toe. There was no choice but to go back home and install the wagon cover. It was still early, and we thought we’d be able to get everything done quickly and be on our way again before anyone noticed us, but before we even knew what was happening, we were surrounded.

  Mother dropped the reins and gripped my shoulder.

  I peeked out of the wagon and saw dozens of people skipping and dancing in the rain. They were raising their hands to the sky and calling out, “Happy holiday! Happy holiday!”

  Crowds always make me uneasy. Our house is at the edge of town, concealed by a dense thicket, and I am used to having only my sister and parents for company. I grabbed Mother’s leg and buried my head in her lap. Her fingers gripped my shoulder harder.

  Hazy figures began mounting the wagon from behind. I could hear their words but couldn’t decipher their meaning.

  “The first rainfall waited for the day of our festival.”

  “It’s an omen for a blessed winter for Ephraim.”

  “It’s an omen for a blessed winter for all of Israel.”

  I don’t know why, but this meaningless chatter filled me with terror. I burst into tears. All the air left my lungs. I felt like I was suffocating.

  All of a sudden, I heard Mother laughing. I looked at her, stunned. Her face was beaming.

  “Happy holiday, Shelomoam.” She stood up and held out her hands. “Come, let’s join the festivities. The lepers’ cave isn’t going anywhere.”

  * * *

  Father stepped outside with Elisheba, whom Mother took into her arms, jumping around with her to the sounds of the drums and the harps. Elisheba caught raindrops in her little fingers and licked them voraciously. Father tried to persuade me to return home with him. I generally obey him, but these festivities were interesting, so I told him angrily that this time I wasn’t willing to miss out.

  Mother took my side, reminding him that the king’s soldiers had already been to Zeredah that month and there was no chance they would come back again. He finally agreed, on the condition that I stayed by his side at all times. But I ventured off on purpose, mixing in with a group of children. I thought I’d gotten away from him when I felt his strong hands seize my waist and raise me up onto his shoulders.

  I felt strong and confident, a head taller than anyone else. The children watched me from below, barely able to contain their envy. I waved at them as if I were the king. No child in Zeredah has a father as young as mine. Some kids’ fathers are practically old men, older than even Grandfather, who is so old that sometimes when Father comes to see him, he doesn’t remember who Father is. Mother says that’s what happens when an elderly man decides to take a second or third wife—he has children the same age as his grandchildren or even his great-grandchildren, and instead of him caring for them, they have to care for him. Six months ago I went out to the fields with my family for the Festival of Harvest, and someone told Father he looked like my older brother. I thought it was funny, but he didn’t. His eyes were panicked. As if the king’s soldiers would care how old he was when he had me!

  * * *

  I recalled the strange things the people on the wagon had said and wanted to ask Father why we didn’t celebrate like this last year or the year before, why it was that this year the first rainfall signified a blessed winter in Ephraim and possibly all of Israel. But I knew he didn’t like it when I asked about our tribe’s special customs, so I decided I’d ask Mother on the way to the cave. Then I realized that we might not make it out that day, for the celebrations would probably go on until the evening. I saw women bringing out wine and food and spreading green cloths over long tables. Green is also the color of the dancing girls. They raise the hems of their green dresses up above their ankles and twist like snakes in front of the boys, who stop dancing and watch.

  Father also stops bouncing around with me in the rain and turns to look at them. I can’t blame him. If I were his age, I would also watch the pretty girls. But it angers me to see Mother notice him looking and glumly join the women setting the table. I know that she worries Father might take another wife who would threaten her position in the family, the way Grandfather did, taking no fewer than four wives, each one younger than the one before. With each new decade in his life, he took a new wife to rekindle his youth, neglecting his previous wives, turning them bitter. Father once told me, in a rare moment of candor, that he would never forgive his father for the way he’d wronged his mother, which was the only reason she had died brokenhearted and young.

  Father keeps promising Mother that he will never bring home a rival wife. He only watches the young girls from afar, but he goes to bed with Mother every night. “You are my Rebecca,” he told her just a week ago, having returned from the wedding of an old miller who had taken a third wife.

  “Mother’s name is Bilhah, not Rebecca,” I corrected him.

  Father laughed and said he meant that Mother would be his only wife forever, just like Rebecca of old. “A son mustn’t always follow in his father’s footsteps, just as Isaac didn’t follow in the footsteps of Abraham. Abraham had three wives—Sarah, Hagar, and Keturah—while Isaac remained faithful to the love of his youth.”

  I lingered over Father’s words and finally told him that, in that case, I would have to follow in Grandfather’s footsteps, just as Jacob followed in Abraham’s, by taking several women.

  Father went quiet. I could tell I had surprised him. But Mother answered instantly, without even pausing to think, that the case of Jacob proves that sometimes a son ought to follow in his father’s footsteps rather than his grandfather’s. “Had Jacob done as Isaac did and spent his entire life only with his beloved Rachel, his sons wouldn’t have hated each other, and all of us—the three tribes of Rachel—would have lived peacefully together in the land of our fathers.” She paused and then whispered, “And the king would have been one of our own, a son of Rachel, just like Joseph, the father of Ephraim, the great ruler of Egypt, or like Joshua the Conqueror, Deborah the Judge, or Samuel the Priest—all children of Ephraim. Or perhaps our king would have been a son of Benjamin, like Ehud the Hero and S—”

  Mother couldn’t finish because Father slapped her back hard. She looked at him, shocked. He had never raised a hand to her before. She hissed angrily that the king’s soldiers weren’t in Zeredah that day and that she was allowed to express her longing for the mighty leaders of the line of Rachel.

  Father walked to the window, pale-faced, and looked outside in all directions. Then he told me to go out and play in the thicket. I preferred to stay home and talk some more about our ancestors, but his tone and expression told me I’d best not argue.

  * * *

  The rain dances lasted for hours, and we only paused to eat around noon. I was impressed with the tables heaped with delicacies that the women had prepared for us without prior notice. Just last night the sky had been copper, and the earth had been iron, and no one could have foreseen the coming of the first rainfall. I pounced on the food, stuffing myself. Father signaled for me to mind my manners, but I pretended not to notice. I tasted everything. My favorites were the crispy honey pastry and the raisin and fig cake.

  Though I was busy eating, I didn’t take my eyes off my sister. I could see that Mother was busy serving and that Father was in the middle of a conversation, and neither of them noticed her on her tiptoes, trying to reach th
e sweet oat porridge. I pulled the pit out of a ripe date and put the fruit in her mouth, but she spat it out disgustedly and demanded porridge.

  Suddenly I felt the table jiggling and the ground shaking beneath us. Mother and Father had told me that the earth was angry at human beings for conquering and enslaving it. Most days it submitted, granting us its fruits, but once every generation or two it fought back and destroyed our homes. It must have been especially angry this day over our festivities celebrating the first rainfall. Instead of thanking the earth for its yield, we were giving thanks to the sky. The earth was trying to knock us down to our knees so that we would have to crawl, bent and submissive, and beg for its mercy.

  I fell to the ground and laid my head in the moist dirt. I was sure that everyone else was doing as I had done, but the silence had a strange tinge to it. I looked up and saw them all standing, frozen, their eyes fixed on a point behind me. I didn’t dare get up and went on lying in the mud until I could feel that the tables were no longer shaking.

  Only then did I see them. It was the biggest group of soldiers I had ever witnessed in my life. No wonder the hooves of their horses had made the tables shake. There were at least a hundred soldiers out there.

  I wondered why they had sent so many. Ever since the Rebellion of the Temples, we have all been paying our taxes without resistance. Mother told me that the rebellion had started after the king took the throne and announced a new tax to fund the construction of a great temple in Jerusalem, the most fabulous edifice in all the world. The Judeans had been eager for a new temple that could attract visitors from every land and make their capital an important, central destination. But the other tribes resented it, asking why they should be forced to invest their money in a Judean temple and not their own. In spite of their rage, the taxes were nonetheless paid in full. No one wanted trouble with the authorities. But the Decree of the Temples shattered that peace. At first, people refused to believe that the king would order the destruction of their temples and the dismissal of their priests. How is it possible to live without temples? How can we pray to God? Make requests of Him? Offer sacrifices?