The Book of God: The Bible as a Novel

by Wangerin Jr. , Walter

  “You are Ezra the son of Seraiah?”

  “I am,” the tall priest says, pausing.

  “Ezra, skilled in the law of Moses which the Lord God of Israel gave to him?”

  When Ezra stops, so does the line of camels behind. “And who are you?” he says.

  “Nehemiah, governor of Judah, the servant of Artaxerxes.” Nehemiah puts forward his hand. “I’m the one who prayed that you would come. Welcome.”

  Slowly Ezra takes the smaller man’s hand, his eyes resting on Nehemiah’s splendid robes.

  “I have a duty to discharge,” the priest says. “Where is the temple?”

  So Nehemiah leads the unhurried priest and twelve camels through Jerusalem up the temple Mount. There Ezra delivers all the treasure he has brought from Babylon by order of Artaxerxes. He weighs it and records the weights: Six hundred and fifty talents of silver, silver vessels worth a hundred talents, a hundred talents of gold, twenty bowls of gold worth a thousand darics, and two vessels of fine bright bronze as precious as gold.

  As the days pass, Ezra oversees a sacrifice. It takes a month. Nehemiah could have done it in a week, but he is not a priest. Ezra attends to every particular with equanimity, then reviews what he has done: he keeps an accounting. So the Jews who came with him from exile offer to God twelve bulls, ninety-six rams, seventy-seven lambs—and as a sin offering, twelve he-goats.

  But if Nehemiah cannot offer sacrifices, yet he can command people.

  When Ezra’s sacrificing has been completed, the governor of Judah sends out a decree that all the citizens of his province must gather in Jerusalem on the first day of the seventh month of the year: men and women, all who are old enough to hear with understanding.

  At the same time he orders workmen to construct a platform of new timber in the square before the Water Gate, a pulpit high enough for thousands to see a single individual standing there. And then Nehemiah meets Ezra in a private room and speaks with passion: “You must read the Book of the Law to this people,” he says. He can’t control the urgency in his voice. He glares into the pouchy eyes of the priest. “Read it word for word. Read it clearly—and explain it, so that the people understand it. They have forgotten Egypt and the wilderness and Mount Sinai and the words of God which Moses wrote in the law. Ezra, priest, scribe: they have forgotten covenant!”

  III

  IT IS DAWN, the first day of the seventh month—a heavy, quiet dawn, though crowds of people have gathered in Jerusalem. No one is speaking.

  In the square before the Water Gate, a great congregation sits on the ground facing a high, spare platform built of newly hewn wood.

  Nehemiah is on the platform. He has commanded the sitting and the silence. He will wait and not grow impatient. He will present the people with a calm aspect.

  But soon enough he sees Ezra the priest coming down from the old palace mount, carrying scrolls in his two arms.

  While Ezra moves forward through the multitude, Nehemiah descends and goes to meet him. Hands rise around the tall priest. A woman reaches and touches one of the scrolls, then snatches her hand back and covers her mouth. An old man rises, lightly kisses the book, then sits again. And Nehemiah, when he comes face-to-face with Ezra, cannot help himself. He drops to his knees. He, too, kisses the Book of the Law, and he begins to weep. He withdraws. He will watch and listen from a distance, hiding his face and his emotion.

  Ezra is followed by twelve important people of Judah. When he ascends the platform, six stand to his right and six to his left, but he is much the tallest, a gaunt chalky figure in the center slowly sweeping his gaze over all the people.

  Now he unrolls the book to its beginning. Suddenly, the people rustle and begin to rise. Ezra pauses until the entire square is standing, then he lifts his arms and chants, “Deliver us, O God of our salvation! Save us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name, and glory in your praise.” To the people directly, now, the priest calls in slow measured tones: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting!”

  The people answer, “Amen!” To Nehemiah it is like the sighing of wind in cedar trees: the people lift their hands and murmur, “Amen.” Then they bow their heads and worship the Lord. Ezra watches and waits.

  When the whole congregation is seated on the ground again and the square is quiet, Ezra turns his eyes to the words in front of him and begins to read.

  “In the beginning,” he intones the holy words. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

  “Ahhh,” Nehemiah sighs to himself: the words.

  Ezra reads with slow articulation. He finds a rhythm in the language and slowly, slowly rocks his body to the reading:

  In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

  The earth was without form. Everywhere was emptiness; everything was darkness. But the Lord sent forth his spirit as a storm on the terrible deep.

  And God said, “Let there be light.”

  And light shined in the emptiness, and God saw that the light was good. He divided the light from the darkness. The light he called “Day.” The darkness he called “Night.” And when the evening and the morning had passed, that was the first day.

  And God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters to divide the wild water above from the waters below.”

  And it was so. God called the firmament “Heaven,” and that was the end of the second day.

  God said, “Let the waters under heaven flow down to the places I appoint for them that the dry ground might appear.” So the waters ran in streams and rivers to the ocean. The waters obeyed their boundaries, and God called the dry land “Earth“ and the greatest gathering of waters “the sea,” and he said, “It is good.”

  Then he said, “Let the earth put forth green growing things, plants with seed and trees with fruit so that each kind can reproduce in the time to come.” And it was so, and it was good—and that was the third day of the world.

  God said, “Now let there be two lamps in the firmament to distinguish day from night. They shall measure the times by their shining, the years, the seasons, and the days.” So God set two lamps in heaven—the greater to rule the day, the lesser to rule the night—and some stars. And he saw that it was good.

  Evening and morning were the fourth day.

  God said, “Let the waters swarm with living things!” God also said, “Let birds fly as high as the heavens!”—and in this manner he created the great sea monsters and the fish and every winged bird according to its kind. And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply: fill the waters in the seas, and the lands and the branches and the bright air of the heavens!”

  That was the fifth day.

  And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures, cattle and crawling things and the untamed beasts.” And it was so, each creature fashioned according to its kind, and God saw that it was good.

  “But now,” said the Lord God, “now let me make a race in my own image, after my likeness—”

  So the Lord God made of red clay a human form, and into its nostrils he breathed the breath of life—and the clay came alive. It rose up on two legs and walked.

  That same day the Lord planted a garden in the east, in Eden. He filled it with trees both pleasant to look at and good to eat. In the middle of the garden he placed the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Then he brought the human to the garden and said, “Behold, I give you plants and animals, fish and fowl, green things, breathing things—everything. Govern it all. In my name, take care of it all.

  “And you may eat of every tree in Eden except the one in the middle. You must never eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil—for in the day that you do, you shall surely die.”

  But when he had placed this single figure in the wide, fruitful garden, God did not say, “It is good.” He considered the solitary man and said, “It is not good for anyone to be alone. I will make a helper fit fo
r him.”

  So God brought him animals, to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each creature, that was its name. But among these there was not found a helper perfectly fit for him.

  So God laid the man down on a green hillock and caused a deep sleep to fall upon him; and while he slept the Lord took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh, and of that rib God formed a woman.

  Then he woke the man and showed him the woman he had made.

  The man laughed in delight and cried: “At last! Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh!” Then, gently, he approached this second person and said, “Were you taken from man? Then you shall be called woman.”

  So the man and the woman lived in Eden, naked but not ashamed. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold: it was very good.

  This was the end of the sixth day.

  And when he had finished all his work, the heavens and the earth and the host of them, the Lord God rested. He rested on the seventh day, and he blessed that day thereby forever. Every seventh day is holy and devoted unto God.

  EZRA THE PRIEST stops reading. He lifts his heavy eyes and looks to the side, seeing nothing. So elegant the words he has just read—so elemental, embracing the whole world—yet to Nehemiah it seems that the priest is bearing a burden greater than any his camels have ever borne.

  How cavernous are the minds of the scribes of God! How much they carry in memory!

  Suddenly Nehemiah realizes that Ezra need not read the words in order to know them. The Book of Moses lives whole within him. He sees all the words and all the laws in a single glance, as from a high mountain. And though the congregation is receiving the story sentence by sentence, for Ezra the priest every sentence contains the entire story from beginning to end.

  Yet, he reads. He reads because he loves the words themselves, and to read each is to honor it.

  Ezra turns to the scroll again, draws a slow breath, and continues:

  Now, the serpent was more cunning than any other creature that the Lord God had made.

  He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

  The woman said, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”

  But the serpent said, “You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened. You will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

  When, therefore, the woman considered the tree and saw that it was lovely to look at and good for food and able to make one wise, she plucked its fruit and ate. Next, she gave some to her husband, and he ate.

  Immediately their eyes were opened: they saw that they were naked, and they rushed to cover themselves with aprons of fig leaves.

  At dusk the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden, and they hid themselves. The Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

  The man said, “I heard the sound of your coming, and I was afraid because I am naked, so I hid myself.”

  The Lord said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?”

  The man said, “The woman whom you gave to me—she offered me the fruit and I ate.”

  Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What have you done?”

  The woman said, “No, but the serpent charmed me, and I ate.”

  So then, in the darkness of the night arriving, the Lord God announced to his creatures the consequences of their sins. To the serpent he said: “Hereafter you shall crawl on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life. Your seed shall be at war with the seed of the woman—and though you may strike his heel, he shall crush your head.”

  To the woman the Lord said: “The bearing of children shall cause you difficulty and a heavy pain. Yet you shall hunger after a husband, and he shall rule over you.”

  To the man he said: “Because you disobeyed my word, the very earth is cursed. It shall trouble your labor with thorns and thistles. All the days of your life you shall eat bread in toil and sweat—and in the end you shall return to the clay from which you came. Dust you are: to dust you shall return.”

  Then the Lord drove the man and the woman out of Eden. At the east side of the garden he set cherubim with flaming swords turned every way, flashing like lightning to guard the gate.

  THE MAN WAS NAMED ADAM, after the earth. The woman was called Eve, because she was the mother of all living.

  Outside Eden, Adam lay with Eve, and she conceived and bore a son. She named the child Cain. Soon she bore another son and named him Abel.

  When Cain grew up, he became a farmer.

  Abel became a shepherd.

  In time the brothers brought sacrifices to the Lord, each according to his labor. Cain burned a smoky grain; Abel offered a sheep. And though the Lord had regard for Abel’s sacrifice, for Cain’s he did not.

  Seeing that, Cain grew angry. His face fell into the lines of rage.

  The Lord said, “Cain, why are you angry? Do well now, and it will be accepted; but if you do not, sin will be lying in wait at your door. Cain, you must master the sin!”

  Nevertheless, in the months that followed, Cain kept eying his brother—and finally he said to him, “Let’s go out to the fields together.”

  They went, and while they were there, Cain rose up and killed his brother Abel.

  Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?”

  He said, “How should I know? Am I my brother’s keeper?”

  And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. Therefore, Cain, the ground shall be shut against you forever. It shall no longer yield its fruit for you; but you shall be a fugitive wherever you wander on the earth.”

  Cain cried out, “O God, the punishment is too much for me! Because you’ve driven me from the soil and from your face, anyone might slay me now!”

  But the Lord said, “Not so! If anyone slays Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.”

  And the Lord put a mark on Cain lest any who came upon him should kill him. And then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

  EZRA THE PRIEST pauses and looks down on the people who fill the square. The longer he looks at them, the more they cannot return his gaze. They drop their eyes.

  “If,” says Ezra slowly, “if by resting on the seventh day the Creator blessed that day and hallowed it as a Sabbath forever, then how can you profane the day?”

  No one answers him. “I have seen you treading wine presses on the Sabbath,” Ezra says. “I have seen you bringing in heaps of grain and loading them on asses on the Sabbath—you sell wine, grapes, and figs on the Sabbath. Why do you do this evil thing?”

  Silence. Judah is silent. Jerusalem is borne down by the priest’s words—no longer a story, but a very personal sermon.

  “I have just read to you the first covenant which God made with the parents of every people of the earth—the covenant which they broke by disobeying his one command. What happened at the breaking of the covenant? Life became difficult. Work became hard. The people who sinned against God also learned to sin against each other.

  “The hand of a man shed the blood of his brother.

  “In the ages that followed, the descendants of Adam and Eve developed new ways of living.” Ezra is not reading now. He is teaching. His pouchy eyes are not judging; they are pursuing an important point. “Some people built cities. Some farmed. Some lived in tents and wandered through the wilderness with flocks and herds. People learned the arts and music. They forged instruments in copper and bronze.

  “A few individuals still called on the name of the Lord. Enoch walked so closely with God that when he had lived his full number of years, God took him and he was not.

  “But Enoch was unusual. Wickedness entered the world
when that covenant was broken. The ground itself was cursed. People grew cunning in killing. A man named Lamech was so proud of his murders that he sang songs about them, and others learned his songs and sang them too.

  “Pride prevailed in the world.

  “People stole from the heavenly places powers that did not belong to them.

  “In those ancient days the meditation of every human heart was evil only, evil continually, so evil that the Lord God was grieved that ever he had made the race, and he said, ‘I will blot out those whom I have created from the face of the ground, people and beasts and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.’

  Again, the silence in the square before the Water Gate is a heavy one. Nehemiah had prayed for this. He was not sorry that the priest was troubling the hearts of the people—but he was sorry for his flesh, sorry to be a person at all. But then Ezra says in a softer voice, “Yet the Lord God determined to make a second covenant—to start again. Listen, Judah. Jerusalem, listen.”

  Now the priest bends his eyes down to the book before him and reads:

  In those days one man found favor with the Lord. Noah had walked blamelessly with God for six hundred years. To Noah the Lord said: “I am going to destroy all flesh because the earth is sick with violence.

  “But you, Noah: Build an ark. Make it of gopher wood four hundred and fifty feet long, seventy-five feet wide and forty-five feet high. Set a door in its side, and cover it with pitch. For I will establish my covenant with you.”

  Noah did what the Lord commanded. On dry land he built an ark with three levels and a roof and a door.

  Then the Lord said, “Noah, go into the ark, you and your wife and your sons with their wives, too. Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal and a pair of every unclean kind, the male and its mate. Take food so that they all might live and continue on the earth in spite of what I shall do.