J: The Woman Who Wrote the Bible

by Mary Burns

  “As the Lord lives, who has rescued me from all my troubles! There was a man who brought me word that Saul was dead, thinking it good news. But he was killed in Ziklag, and that was his reward! And here, you blackguards have killed an innocent man on his bed in his own house! How shall I now take vengeance on you for the blood you have shed?” And he gave a sign to the young warriors in the room, who sprang forward and dragged the two officers of Ishbosheth out of the room and killed them. They cut off their hands and feet and hung them up beside the pool in Hebron. The head of Ishbosheth was taken up gently, and buried in Abner’s tomb at Machpelah.

  Later that night, my maid whispered to me that she heard the other maids talking about how Michal was triumphantly proclaiming to anyone who would listen that she had foretold the death of her brother, clear proof that she, too, was a prophet and should be honored above them all. I was disgusted with her arrogance and presumption, and told my maid I didn’t want to hear any more about it.

  * * *

  After a time, the elders of all the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron and begged him to be their king because the Lord had anointed him through the prophet Samuel so many years before.

  With the long-awaited promise about to be fulfilled, my father suddenly (it seemed) decided to begin his reign in a new royal city, free from the memory of Saul’s tragic rule and Ishbosheth's pathetic end in Mahanaim. He led his army to conquer the Jebusites who held an ancient stronghold they called Jebus, or Jerusalem. I thought it seemed an inauspicious way to begin his kingship, but apparently my father's counsel from the Lord on this matter was encouraging. He besieged the town, broke through their defenses, put the Jebusites to the sword, and took their women, their goods and their homes. And so we eventually left Hebron, and took up our abode in Jerusalem, now to be called the City of David.

  The City of David

  Chapter 19

  “The king said to the prophet Nathan, ‘Look, I am living

  in a house of cedar while the ark of God dwells in a tent.’”

  2 Samuel 7:2

  That first year in Jerusalem, two things occurred: I lost my virginity, and I learned how to kill a man with a single word.

  The two were not unrelated.

  I had a cousin named Uzzah about four years older than I, a younger son of my uncle Oman, the peacemaker. Uzzah was anything but that, always causing trouble, a wild boy with fiery eyes and swift ways who seemed to know things about people, secret things they wanted to keep secret, which gave him power that he used sparingly but without pity. Indeed, his very name spoke his character: it means both power and goat, that uncanny beast with eyes unlike any other animal, yellow with black horizontal slits, and a ravenous, omnivorous appetite.

  Many times throughout my childhood I would see him watching, always watching, from behind chairs or curtains, standing on the sidelines at feast days and games. At first he seemed to be sickly—he did not thrive as a child—but as a young man he strengthened and grew tall; some might say handsome. Underneath his accomplished charming ways, a dark anger simmered. Our paths did not often cross, and I was glad of it.

  In the strange way that things happen to puzzle and confound us, Uzzah had become chief administrator in the household of David when we were in Hebron, looking after the stores of goods and the treasury; he had risen to greater prominence since our arrival in Jerusalem. I occasionally saw him with Nathan and other of the young priests, walking in the courtyard and discussing the finer points of prayer and sacrifice, rituals and rules—and how they could all be turned to account to enlarge the treasury. Uzzah was the chief instigator of these discussions, and the most eager to find ways to make people pay for prayers or healing cures, and of course, to fine them for breaking rules and gaining pardon.

  So many rules! It seemed to me that the more “civilized” we became as a people—the farther away from the caves, as my imagination put it to me—the more petty and shackled we became. There had been a simple realness to living on the earth, under the stars, marking the passage of time only by sun and moon, lambing time and shearing time, the seasons of rain and wind, of calm, of heat, though there were privations and harsh conditions at times.

  Life in a town, in a king’s great house, was comfortable, complex, and rich in knowledge of the larger world, but I often struggled to reconcile my yearning for a country life of natural freedom with the bejeweled constraints of a city. Uzzah’s greed, masked with seeming piety, seemed like a foul weed growing in a courtyard of flowers and herbs. Not that greed only existed in cities, but here there was so much more to be greedy about! I turned from him in disgust and tried to think no more about him.

  Soon after we arrived and were settled, I was attending as usual one of my father’s council meetings. His older brothers were looking their age; indeed, Eliab the eldest had died just before we set out for Jerusalem, which delayed our coming some weeks, and Abinadab was slowly recovering from a severe wound and could not walk. I looked around at the worn faces, lined with the weariness of warriors whose memories are never quieted, even as they sit in the peace of their own hearths, resting in the hearts of their families. So much bloodshed, so many lives lost!

  And yet, I reflected with some grimness, this is all done for the greater glory of the Lord. Again I doubted and questioned deep inside, what kind of god wants us to suffer so much, in His name and to do His will? Is He so much like a man of earth, with passions and anger, filled with hatred and the lust for vengeance? If so, must He not also be compassionate and loving? I thought of Joab and Abishai, and the fate of young Asahel, and it struck me that men bring these trials and sorrows on themselves—and often because they will not listen to God. Our word for “obey” and “listen” are one and the same—obedience to God’s commandments is listening to His words. How important a task was before me, I thought, to write down the words of God so they could be read and listened to forever! But there would always be people, like Joab, who would turn a deaf ear to the Lord.

  The only thing I was grateful to Joab for was that after his fall from grace, my father did not press me to marry, though my mother often tried to talk me into taking that step. We had just argued about it this morning, in her room.

  “You are seventeen years old,” she said, her lips a thin line of annoyance. “Almost eighteen! Why, I was married and running a household two whole years before that age.” She stopped, hands on hips as we stood facing each other across the room. “I don’t understand what your father can possibly hope to gain by turning you into an old maid whom no man would ever want! Your good looks aren’t going to last forever!”

  I tried to assail her on grounds I thought she must sympathize with. “Mother, you have the Sight,” I started to say, but she interrupted with a wave of her hand.

  “Had the Sight,” she corrected. “When I was young—and a precious lot of good it ever did me,” she said, her tone edged in bitterness.

  “It helped you win my father,” I said softly.

  That checked her, but only for a moment. “The Sight had nothing to do with that, and after I settled down with you and Amnon to take care of, that was the end of it.”

  “But mother,” I insisted, going up to her and putting my arms around her. She resisted at first but I held on until she relaxed and hugged me back. “My gift is different, you know that, it’s more than the Sight, it’s God Himself speaking through me.” I whispered it to her, so as not to sound proud and overbearing, but she pulled back to look me in the eye. I kept on.

  “If I marry and have children, I might lose that gift,” I said, and paused. “And I don’t want to lose it.” I was sure my mother knew nothing about my having learned to read and write, but I felt I could trust her with my true feelings about my gift of prophesying.

  “Well, well,” she said grudgingly. “It’s no use talking about it anyway, as your father won’t listen to me if I bring up your marrying anyone.” A sudden thought seemed to occur to her, and she said bluntly, “What about
Nathan? Would you marry him? The two of you can be prophets together!”

  At first I thought she was making a joke, but that was not my mother’s nature. She was serious, and she could see she had caught me off guard.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said, and in my confusion, I left her room swiftly, but not before I saw a small, hopeful smile on her face.

  * * *

  A clatter of cups falling from a side table in the council room woke me from my musings. Involuntarily, I shook my head and saw I had caught Nathan’s sympathetic eye from the other side of the council table. He raised one brow slightly, as if to say, what kind of wondering are you lost in now? I smiled faintly at him, and shook my head again. My smile faded when I saw Uzzah join Nathan, glance at me and whisper something in his ear, and take a seat next to him. This was the first time I’d seen him at an inner council meeting. Nathan said something in reply, but his face gave no hint of what may have been said. I didn’t like the idea of them talking about me, and I told myself I would ask Nathan about it later.

  My father strode into the room then and motioned for us to remain seated as he took his place. This was a smaller, more intimate meeting, with just family and the main priests, Abiathar and Nathan. I had little to do with Abiathar, though I knew Nathan revered him as a wise mentor. He was a man of about forty-five at that time, of middling height and size, with a round face and eyes of no discernible color—the kind of person you would pass in the street and not even notice. But I learned in time how deceptive were his mild ways and bland looks—he was not a man to be taken lightly.

  From the excitement on my father’s face, he had something more than usually important to say. I found myself hoping it had nothing to do with war. His first words assured me otherwise.

  “My brothers, my friends,” he said, “The Lord has given us a great gift of peace in this city, and for all Israel, at least for a time,” he amended with a rueful look, then brightened. “I think the time has come to bring the Ark of the Crossing Over, the Ark of the Testament, here to Jerusalem.”

  “Praise the Lord, and you, great king, for doing this for your people!” Abiathar spoke immediately, a surge of emotion rising from his heart to redden his neck and face. Echoes of praise and thanks resounded through the room, and David beamed upon us all.

  As for me, my heart sank at the words, and I did not know why. I looked at Nathan, but he was smiling cheerfully, listening to something Abiathar was saying, and seemed undisturbed by any presentiment such as I was feeling. Inside me, all felt hollow and dark.

  “And what is more,” my father spoke again, quieting everyone down, “I believe now is the time to build a great temple for our God, in which to place the Ark in splendor and dignity, to reside among us in the utmost honor.” He raised his hand to point to the high roof of the council chamber. “Am I, His servant, to live in a grand palace, while He resides in a tent made of goatskin? It shall not be, not any longer than it takes us to build a temple of cedar and oak, with marble floors and gilded doorways! He shall have the finest damask silk to cloak His shekinah, His glory here on earth, and priests to light incense and offer sacrifices on behalf of the people.”

  Here he smiled graciously upon Abiathar and Nathan, and now I saw that Nathan, too, seemed to hesitate in his rejoicing, a troubled look on his face, a fleeting shadow that came and went in the blink of an eye. He looked at me then, and a message passed between us. Later, in private, we would have much to talk about.

  “There is an architect, a builder of great renown, who is coming to Jerusalem from the East, to help us design our temple for the Lord.” David looked happily around the room, and spied Uzzah next to Nathan. “Ah, yes, Uzzah, welcome to our council! Just the man I need to oversee the gathering of materials and keep an eye on the treasury—but we shall stint for nothing to build a glorious House of God. For once, I know you will be thinking, for once David will open the purse strings and spare no expense.”

  Everyone laughed at this modesty of my father’s, whose very being was generosity itself. Uzzah bowed his head in a gesture of humility, and his smooth voice rose above the babble in the room. “My lord King, I shall do my very best in such a service.”

  My father nodded approvingly, and the men discussed at some length the location for the temple, the materials to be used, the proper time for building. I sat silently, watching and listening as usual, my heart weighed down with a nameless dread.

  “But the Ark, the Ark of the Testament,” said Oman in an eventual lull in the talk, his voice full of concern. All turned to him. “Do we actually know that it still abides where King Saul placed it for safe-keeping so many years ago, after the Philistines brought it back because its presence killed their people? And how shall it be conveyed here? You know the stories, when Saul had it moved, strange stories about the deaths of the pole-bearers, and the withering of the ground where it passed!” All eyes turned to David, who frowned.

  “Oman, my brother, it is true what you say,” David responded slowly. “There were . . . strange happenings, even death. But I believe this was because Saul did not take the Ark back to Shiloh, where it had been for ten generations, and the Lord’s favor had already ceased to be with him.” There was a fearful silence in the room.

  “We know where it is,” Abiathar spoke up. “We know it is secure.” He and David exchanged a long look, then David nodded. “As for the danger of incurring the Lord’s wrath,” Abiathar continued, and he placed a hand on Nathan’s arm, “we will consult through Urim and Thummin, to see if we can discern the will of the Lord in this matter.” Everyone, relieved, nodded in agreement, and the meeting broke up. I rose hastily from my seat and caught Nathan’s sleeve as he passed by.

  “Nathan,” I said, and he stopped to hear me, bent his head so I might speak low. “There is something wrong here; I feel it, though I do not know what it is.” His mild brown eyes reflected the worry in my own.

  “Yes,” he said after a long moment. “I feel it, too.”

  “Could I—might I join you in Urim and Thummin?” I asked, my heart thumping. I don’t know where I found the audacity to ask, and my fear in doing so was justified by his reaction.

  “What are you saying? No woman has ever—no, I do not think it can be done!”

  “I will ask my father,” I said, gripping his arm harder as he tried to walk away. “I will ask him!” I didn’t realize my voice had carried, and I saw my father turn his eyes toward us. A look at our faces, our stiff postures as we stood together, alerted him.

  “What will you ask me, daughter?” he said mildly, looking from my face to Nathan’s. Nearly everyone had left the room by then, except Abiathar who hovered near the door that led to my father’s private prayer room, where Urim and Thummin was conducted. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Uzzah, too, taking his time leaving the room, pretending to help a servant pick something up from the floor, but his eyes were on us all the time.

  “Father,” I said, faltering a little; then I looked up at him. The vitality of his face, his eyes so warm and dancing, reminded me whose daughter I was, and how I had vowed within myself to always tell him nothing but the truth. “I have a premonition of something dreadful to come from what you propose, about the Ark and the Temple, and I wish to be part of Urim and Thummin, so that I may know better what it is the Lord wishes me to do, as His servant also, in the achievement of this great event.”

  “Something dreadful?” my father repeated, coming closer. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know; I cannot tell,” I said. “At this moment, it is only a feeling.”

  “My lord, this is not for women’s feelings to be interfering in this matter,” Abiathar spoke up, walking back to us from the doorway. He didn’t even look at me, but I felt his anger and disdain. “It is not done, for women to participate in the perfection of the stones!” My father was looking at me thoughtfully. Then he spoke not to Abiathar, but to Nathan, without taking his eyes from mine.

 
“And what do you think, young prophet?” As focused as I was on my father and the bold request I was making, I was hurt to hear him address Nathan this way; I was so unwilling at that moment to share my status with anyone, even Nathan. I stood very still, and hours seemed to pass before Nathan answered.

  “The Lord has favored Janaia with vision,” he said at last. “I believe her gift is equal to mine.”

  I heard Abiathar’s quick intake of breath, but my father forestalled his speech with a raised hand. “Simply because men have said ‘it is to be so or not so’ does not mean the Lord agrees with that.” He smiled at me and put his hand on my shoulder. “You may, this once at least, be with us for Urim and Thummin, and we will see if the Lord has anything to say about it.”

  Abiathar opened his mouth to protest and my father turned to him with impatience. “I say it is to be so, Abiathar. Will you oppose me?” The eyes that had been so bright and blue a moment before were black and sparking with gold fire; before his gaze, Abiathar bowed and said no more.

  We four turned to enter the antechamber to the prayer room, where we would wash our hands and anoint ourselves with oil, and I looked back for a moment to see Uzzah standing in the arch of the far doorway, watching us.

  * * *

  In the antechamber, David took off his tunic and donned a stiff robe with gold and silver threads in it, then turned to allow Abiathar to place a heavy, golden breastplate over his head, letting it lie flat against the king’s chest. Embedded in the breast-plate were twelve jewels and precious stones (for the Twelve Tribes), each one a different color, but they were dull and lacked sparkle, as if they shunned the light. They were arranged in four rows, three jewels in each row. In the center were engraved four letters, but I could not make them out in the dim light.

  Nathan, meanwhile, had entered the prayer room, which was behind a curtain of red-colored silk, and had lighted four oil lamps. When he came back through the curtain, which divided in the center into two parts, he went to a side table where there were three small scraps of linen and writing instruments, and he motioned to Abiathar and me to come to the table.