The Book of God: The Bible as a Novel

by Wangerin Jr. , Walter

  For his own part, Joachim had invited a goodly number of guests both to witness the betrothal and to enjoy a feast afterward. Mary was his only daughter. Mary, in fact, was his only child. He had no sons. The man Joseph, then, almost as old as Joachim himself, was about to become his son. There was merit in the day. There was reason for celebration.

  So people arranged themselves in the little yard before the house of Joachim and his wife Anne. The guests stood on either side, their backs to the walls, forming a pretty colonnade. The dark-haired Mary took a position just inside the doorway, smiling like a white rose. Her mother stood beside her, dropping her eyes and drawing a linen scarf up to the bridge of her nose. Anne strove for the proper expressions of modesty. Not Mary. She had looked forward to this day. Eagerness burned in her eyes, and her white teeth flashed gladness like the sunlight.

  Joachim and Joseph faced one another, the father before the door of his house, the suitor just inside the gate.

  Joachim now, in a gesture of rigid formality, threw back his bald head, thrust out his bottom lip, and spoke in Hebrew, saying, “For the mohar agreed upon, you shall now be my son-in-law.” Again he said, “Joseph son of Jacob, you shall now be my son-in-law.”

  Then Joseph spoke. Actually, Joseph bellowed. He opened his mouth and, oblivious of the energy with which he pronounced the formula, roared: “I came to thy house…for thee to give me thy daughter…Mary…to wife! She is my wife and I am her husband from this day and forever!”

  Suddenly Mary lent music to the day. She burst into laughter. Anne turned and tugged her daughter’s robe, but there was no stopping the girl now. A hundred emotions played in Mary’s face, her eyes shining bright, all filled with loving, her laugh announcing that her husband was an ox, her deep grin adding: But what a handsome ox, don’t you think?

  This was infectious. Guests began to giggle and hide their mouths behind their hands. But they couldn’t contain the joy that Mary caused. Soon the yard of Joachim the father-in-law was a rolling, bubbling stew of jubilation. People wept with laughter. Every time someone would slow down and stop, he had only to glance at Mary’s blooming countenance and off he went again, laughing till his poor sides ached.

  Joseph, however, had not yet completed the steps of his betrothal. With great solemnity he walked through the commotion toward Joachim, holding out before him the precious parchment. Joachim lifted his hands to receive it. Then, when Joseph was relieved of this last thing—the parchment and the duty, both—he heaved a sigh and went into the house to stand by Mary, gazing outward at the guests. His hands hung like dead weights at his thighs; his shoulders stooped because of their great size in a small room; his beard absolutely concealed the mouth and any expression. Joseph might have been suffering some distress at the hilarity that had overtaken the day of his betrothal—except for this, that when Mary turned and touched his shoulder and drew a gauzy public veil across her face, the man’s ears flamed a furious red and he was reduced to blowing his nose over and over again.

  WHEN JOACHIM HAD read all that was written on the document which Joseph had given to him on the day of Mary’s betrothal, he returned it to his son-in-law with pride and with gratitude. He never saw it again. Neither did he ever forget the names he found in sequence there, for they defined the sort of grandchild he would one day have:

  A Book of Begettings

  ABRAHAM WAS the father of Isaac. Isaac was the father of Jacob.

  Jacob was the father of Judah and of his eleven brothers.

  Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, whose courage preserved herself and her sons when she had been rejected by arrogant men.

  Perez went with his father Judah and all the sons of Jacob into Egypt, where Joseph was vizier to Pharaoh. There he became the father of Hezron.

  In Egypt Hezron was the father of Aram.

  Aram was the father of Amminadab.

  Amminadab was the father of Nahshon.

  Nahshon lived when Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt through the sea to the Mountain of God, Sinai. In the wilderness he became the father of Salmon.

  Salmon was the father of Boaz by Rahab, who had been a prostitute; but she trusted God and she saved the lives of the men who had come to spy in her city, Jericho. Her own life, then, was spared when Joshua fought that city and Israel entered the Promised Land.

  Boaz was the father of Obed by Ruth, a Moabite who loved her mother-in-law so much that she left the land of her birth in order to dwell with Naomi in Israel.

  Obed was the father of Jesse.

  Jesse was the father of David, king of Israel.

  Thus the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations.

  David was the father of Solomon by Bathsheba, with whom the king had lain in sin but whom the Lord elevated to become herself the mother of a king.

  Solomon was the father of Rehoboam the king of Judah when the rest of Israel had torn itself away from him.

  Rehoboam was the father of Abijah.

  Abijah was the father of Asa.

  Asa, who reigned long and well, was the father of Jehoshaphat.

  Jehoshaphat was the father of Joram.

  Joram was the father of Uzziah.

  Uzziah was the father of Jotham.

  Jotham was the father of Ahaz.

  Ahaz reigned when Isaiah was a prophet. He did not heed the prophet’s word. He was the father of Hezekiah.

  Hezekiah, whom Isaiah loved and to whom the Lord showed mercy, was the father of Manasseh.

  Manasseh was the father of Amon.

  Amon was the father of Josiah.

  Josiah was a good and faithful king. He discovered the Book of the Law and commanded the whole kingdom of Judah to obey it. He was the father of Jehoiakim and his brothers at the time of the Babylonian Exile.

  Thus the generations from David to the Babylonian Exile were also fourteen—all of them named by the names of kings in Israel and Judah. This second list of begettings is royal.

  After the Babylonian Exile, Jehoiakim was the father of Shealtiel.

  Shealtiel was the father of Zerubbabel, under whom the second temple in Jerusalem was built.

  Zerubbabel was the father of Abiud.

  Abiud, who lived in Jerusalem when the walls were built again under Nehemiah, was the father of Eliakim.

  Eliakim was the father of Azor.

  Azor lived when Alexander the Greek marched past Jerusalem, making the whole world his empire. Azor was the father of Zadok.

  Zadok was the father of Achim.

  Achim was the father of Eliud.

  Eliud lived when Judas Maccabeus and his brothers revolted against the foreign rulers of Judea. Eliud rejoiced in their victories, for Judea became an independent land again and the temple was cleansed and dedicated unto the Lord, the God of Israel. Eliud was the father of Eleazar.

  Eleazar was the father of Matthan.

  Matthan moved from the regions of Jerusalem north to Galilee after it had been added to the territories ruled by the kings of Judea, the high priests of Jerusalem. He settled in the village of Nazareth and there became the father of Jacob.

  Jacob was my father.

  He told me of the Roman general who fought and killed twelve thousand Jews in order to seize the Holy temple in Jerusalem. He told me, too, of Julius Caesar, who defeated Pompey and raised to power Antipater, the father of King Herod.

  I am Joseph.

  Upon the evidence herewith recorded,

  let it be recognized by those who honor lineage

  that my son shall be

  a son of David,

  a son of Abraham,

  a good and godly heritage.

  VI

  AFTER FIFTY YEARS of marriage, she comes to believe that she knows her old husband fairly well. She thinks of him often but unconsciously, exactly as she thinks of her familiar little sitting stool where, on long afternoons, she sits her body down and dozes off. (When she naps she holds a bronze spoon in her hand, allowing her arm to
hang at her side. Her head droops and droops, and when that spoon slips from her fingers and strikes the floor-stones, she wakes with a start. Enough of sleeping! Back to work.) The husband of fifty years, undemonstrative but trustworthy, obedient to the laws of God and kind to his wrinkled old wife—he has become the blessed furniture of her existence, as much her home as any house might be. After fifty years even the smallest variations in his habits are immediately apparent.

  ZECHARIAH RETURNED TOO EARLY from Jerusalem and from the duties of his weekly course at the temple. He was too early by a day and a half. He never traveled on the Sabbath. He always walked home on Monday. He walked home in daylight.

  But long before the sun rose on the Sabbath, in the chilly autumn dark, Elizabeth was awakened by hammering, the ringing sound of metal upon a harder metal. She lit a candle and went out to Zechariah’s shop. There he was, his solemn face glowing orange in the light of the forge, bent to his anvil, his forearms furrowed with muscles tense to the labor, a hammer and a tongs. He struck the red-hot tip of a spike, sending out a shower of sparks.

  He was working. On the Sabbath! To her knowledge, her husband had never walked long nor worked on the Sabbath before.

  Suddenly he looked up and saw her standing in the night. He gazed at her. His eyes were black pools, hidden in shadow—but she felt his wakeful attention upon herself, upon her bodily self. This, too, was new in the old man. Elizabeth became conscious of the lightness of her robe, of her great flat feet on the cool earth, the long braid in her hair, and the tender flesh at her throat. It was a curious thing: while they were standing thus, Elizabeth blushed.

  Zechariah didn’t say a word.

  He laid his tos down, closed the forge upon its coals and its orange light, stepped out of the darkness, took her hand, and gently led her back to their tiny courtyard. There he put his finger to his lips and nodded, asking silence, perhaps, or patience or understanding.

  But she had no understanding. Elizabeth didn’t know what was happening to them. She found that she could not draw a steady breath. She was panting.

  Her old husband crouched at the cistern and brought up a jar filled with water. Again, without a word of explanation, he beckoned his wife to follow and carried the water into the house, to their sleeping room where the blankets on her pallet were disarranged from sleeping. She felt an urge to straighten them. She set her candle in a sconce, knelt down and spread out her hands to grab the hem—but in the same instant Zechariah lightly knelt beside her.

  “Shhh,” he said, gazing into her eyes. “Shhh.”

  The old man’s rough face was so filled with wonder that he seemed suddenly a shining being, and shivers ran all down her body. Elizabeth had not been so conscious of his presence before, the dear man’s nearness.

  He poured water into a basin. He moistened a good clean cloth and then, kneeling before her, he began to wash her face.

  Slowly, with no haste, he washed himself as well.

  He slipped her robe from her shoulders and washed her neck, her arms, and then her bosom.

  Ah, she was old! Her ribs were like slats in her sides. She was wrinkled, and her breasts lay as flat as empty sleeves. But Zechariah stroked her old body with such slow wonder, with such sweet, elastic generosity, that the woman could not help but gaze back into his eyes and smile as though she were lovely after all and willing to make a gift of it.

  So then the old man blew out the candle. He gathered Elizabeth’s braid to one side, lowered her shoulders and her beautiful head down to the pallet. He kissed her, and, marvelously, he came into her.

  Elizabeth wept.

  Zechariah said nothing at all, neither in the dark of the early morning nor in the light of the following day.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Mary

  I

  THE HOUSES OF NAZARETH were built on the steep sides of a hill that faced east and southeast. They received a morning sunlight. The soil, too, was good for growing vines and vegetables. The weather was kind because of the hill’s protection, and the rainfall was generous. But there was only one spring of water for the entire village, so Nazareth always remained small. Those who lived there knew one another very well.

  Six months after her betrothal to Joseph, in the spring of the year when the rains had passed and the ground was green, Mary sought a little privacy by climbing the slopes above the village. On the crown of the hill she found a chalky-white path and took it, wandering first westward, then south. She removed the veil which she as a woman betrothed was required to wear in public. She released her hair from its hood. She allowed the wind of high places to bathe her face, to raise her hair like a long black wing, to blow through her loosened clothing. Suddenly she came to a sheer rocky drop on the southern ridge. She stopped and stared into the great green plain of Esdraelon, then she burst into tears.

  Mary sat down and gave herself over to sobbing, taking huge whooping breaths and shaking her shoulders. It felt very good to cry, though she hadn’t a notion why she should be crying—except, perhaps, that she was alone. She had not been truly alone since the betrothal, when every citizen in Nazareth declared her a woman and began to watch her as if she were a girl again.

  The valley beneath her feet was lovely, patchy green and yellow, divided into the plots of the farmers, the wheat and barley just springing up.

  Oh, she felt so sad. Yes, and at the same time happy. Excited. Not content, really. Scared.

  Mary bowed her head, buried her face in her arms, and wept.

  Suddenly a hand seized her shoulder in a very strong grip. In the same instant thunder crashed at her ear. She jumped and would have tumbled from the cliff, but for the hand that held her.

  The thunder said, “Hail!”

  Mary opened her eyes, terrified. There was no one there. No one there, no person, no hand at all—but a dazzling pillar of light, its base upon the rocky hill, its pinnacle endless in the heavens.

  The light said, “Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you.”

  Mary gaped, withdrawing from the radiance by pushing backward on the earth.

  The light said, “Don’t be afraid, Mary.”

  The light said Mary. It called her by name! She paused. She leaned forward and peered into the illumination as though it were glass and had depth, and then it seemed to her that she saw a human figure, magnificent in size, smooth in proportion, a face attentive and looking back at her. The face said, Mary.

  Oh, my Lord! It is your angel!

  The angel said, “Mary, you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

  He will be great;

  he will be called the Son of the Most High;

  to him will the Lord God give

  the throne of his father David,

  and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever!”

  Mary, altogether unconscious of herself, Mary on her hands and knees, gazing upward into the primal light, her body casting no shadow whatever though her face was warmed by the light—Mary said, “Ah, sir, no, sir. I think this cannot be, because I am a virgin. I have never known a man.”

  But the angel said,

  The Holy Spirit will come upon you,

  and the power of the Most High will overshadow you;

  therefore the child to be born will be called holy,

  the Son of God!

  There seemed, then, a dimming of light, as though the heavenly pillar were resolving itself into white cloud.

  Yet the angel was still speaking: “Mary, go see for yourself that nothing will be impossible with God. Visit your kinswoman Elizabeth, who is very old. She, too, has conceived a son. This is the sixth month with her who was called barren.”

  Mary whispered, “I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it happen to me according to your word.”

  So then there was no angel at all, but a cloud blowing out over the plain of Esdraelon, spreading, changing shape, seeming an eagle with two wings flying, casting a shadow
wide enough to cover the fields of yellow and green.

  II

  JOACHIM’S HOUSE WAS very old. Five generations old, at least. In order to change the beams, Joseph had to remove the entire roof. He cleared its topsoil first, upon which a spring grass had been allowed to grow, for the root-mat gave strength and the grass a protection. Then he broke the rolled, sunbaked clay that covered a very old lathing, thin slats supported by the beams themselves. The beams had suffered two fires over the generations. The damage had been hidden by a ceiling of clay plaster; but it was now his father-in-law’s notion to build a little room on the roof, and Joseph had recognized that the present structure would not sustain the continual combined walking and weight of Joachim and Anne, two bodies beloved of God, to be sure, but very round.

  During the winter rainy season—just after the ceremonies of betrothal—Joseph had paid attention to the door-work, the window lattices, and the interior preparations. He scored the ceiling plaster and scraped it down. Now that the rains had ended, he began on the roof.

  Daily he saw Mary. Always upon arrival, he grinned and pulled his beard and flapped a hand in her direction. It used to be that he felt like a fool in her presence, lumbering and wordless, while she could so quickly utter light laughter and sentences of brave, whip-cracking intelligence. But now she wore a veil and seemed demure! That eased him, though it was only a seeming. Mary giggled often under the veil, her dark brows rising with sweet expression, like the wings of sparrows.

  No, the real difference between Joseph’s bashfulness and his comfort was that he had settled into the trust of the betrothal and found it consoling. Joseph was forty years old, given rather more to stabilities than to passions. And he was working again. His days had purpose and a schedule. And he himself had grown confident of Mary’s love. The woman, so young and smart and beautiful, would be constant.