Lynn Austin. The Strength of His Hand. Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 2005.
The Strength of His Hand is the third novel in Lynn Austin’s Chronicles of the Kings
series. The first three books of the series focus on the righteous
biblical King Hezekiah, who ruled Judah during the eighth century
B.C.E. The last two books are about Hezekiah’s son and successor, the
wicked King Manasseh. See here and here for my blog posts about the first two books of the series.
The Strength of His Hand focuses on Hezekiah’s divorce from
his wife Hephzibah, his illness and miraculous recovery, and his
response to the Assyrian threat. After many years, Hezekiah’s wife,
Hephzibah, has not given Hezekiah an heir, and so she placates the pagan
goddess Asherah. When Hezekiah catches her doing this, he becomes
outraged and manages to burn himself severely. Hezekiah puts away his
wife, Hephzibah, and she is left alone in a room, rejected by her
family, her friends, and the nation. Eventually, Hezekiah recovers, and
he has to deal with the threat of the Assyrians. The Babylonians visit
Hezekiah and encourage him to join an alliance of countries against
Assyria. Hezekiah’s right-hand adviser, Shebna, still an atheist, is
enthusiastic about this, whereas Hezekiah’s more devout adviser,
Eliakim, is not. What’s more, the prophet Isaiah believes that Hezekiah
has become too proud and publicly reprimands Hezekiah for trusting an
alliance instead of God. This greatly disturbs Hezekiah, for has he not
tried his best to obey God and to set the nation on the right track?
In the course of the book, the Assyrians find a spokesman who fears
neither gods nor men, the anti-Assyrian alliance collapses, and
multitudes of Assyrians are threatening the city of Jerusalem. What
will happen? On a sweet note, Hezekiah and Hephzibah reconcile, and
Hephzibah has a son, Manasseh.
Here are some thoughts about the book.
1. The book’s presentation of Shebna interests me. In the past
three books, Austin has depicted Shebna as an atheist. While she does
not portray Shebna as a villain, she obviously does believe that
Shebna’s atheism is wrongheaded, which is not surprising, considering
she is an evangelical Christian. Shebna is fairly loyal to Hezekiah,
committed to his job, and intelligent, and he desires the well-being of
Judah. Yet, Shebna is a person with flaws: he is unhappy; he is not
particularly compassionate to Israelite refugees in Judah or Israelites
in debt; he has lived with the same concubine for many years and has
even had sons with her, yet he has never married her; he lives to please
himself, since he does not believe in a God for him to please; he is
arrogant and frequently clashes with Eliakim; and his encouragement that
Hezekiah join an anti-Assyrian alliance ends in disaster, to his
humiliation. I am pleased that Lynn Austin includes an atheist
character, one whose problem with religion is not any suffering that he
has experienced that leads him to question the existence of a beneficent
God, but simply a lack of belief. Whether one embraces Austin’s
depiction of this atheist, regards it as an unfair caricature, or falls
somewhere in between these two extremes, Shebna’s presence in the book
does invite questions. The biggest question, in my opinion, is that of
practicality. Granted, Shebna turned out to be wrong in advising
Hezekiah to join the anti-Assyrian alliance, for the alliance fell
apart. But was it wrong for Hezekiah to have been practical? Yes, our
plans can fall apart, and in that case we may feel an urge to call on
God. But is God against our planning?
2. The book effectively captures some of the complexities of
biblical interpretation and the attempts to apply the Bible to one’s
life. Hezekiah’s wife was not having children, and the question facing
him was whether he should marry another woman. Hezekiah’s policy was to
be married to Hephzibah alone and to trust in God to provide him with
an heir, since God promised that the seed of David would always sit on
the throne of Israel. But things were a bit more complex than that. As
Hephzibah notes, yes, God promised David’s descendants would rule, but
that does not necessarily mean that Hephzibah would have a son.
Hezekiah’s brother Gedaliah (who had sons) could rule Judah, after all,
and that would satisfy God’s promise, since Gedaliah, too, was a
descendant of David. Moreover, Hezekiah relied on the law of the king
in Deuteronomy 17:15-20, which forbids the king to multiply wives or to
cause Israelites to return to Egypt. Although his grandfather Zechariah
told him that this law required him to be married to only one woman,
Hezekiah entertains the interpretation of certain Levites that the law
forbids having lots of wives, not having more than one wife. And, when
Eliakim appeals to the part of the law against going back to Egypt to
discourage Hezekiah from forming an alliance with Egypt, Hezekiah does
not agree with Eliakim’s interpretation: the text says that the
Israelites cannot go back to Egypt, not that Israel cannot ally with
Egypt.
Another salient issue in this book surrounding the application of the Bible—-and this also appears in Lynn Austin’s Restoration Chronicles—-is
that of legalism vs. accepting God’s love and grace. Hezekiah had long
obeyed God because he believed that this would influence God to benefit
him and his nation. Isaiah, however, shows Hezekiah a fresh
perspective of God, one that highlights God’s grace and unconditional
love. This dichotomy also appears in the debate about what should be
done to Hephzibah. Shebna advocates that she be executed for her
idolatry, since that is what the Torah commands, but Eliakim says that
the Torah is also about compassion and mercy. These themes of grace and
love fit into Austin’s evangelical worldview.
3. My favorite part of the book is where Eliakim’s wife, Jerusha,
reaches out to Hephzibah, and Hephzibah later has the opportunity to
repay Jerusha’s kindness. Hephzibah is alienated from her family, her
friends, and her people, and Jerusha feels a call from God to reach out
to Hephzibah, against the wishes of Eliakim. Later, Jerusha is
incapacitated with fear because the Assyrians are about to attack and
she sees that their intimidating spokesperson is Iddina, the Assyrian
soldier who captured her and terrorized her in the second book of the
series. Jerusha is afraid that the Assyrians will take her newborn
baby, just as they did in the past. Hephzibah reaches out to Jerusha
amidst Jerusha’s pain.
The Strength of His Hand ends with Manasseh being born to
Hephzibah, and Hezekiah exhorts his newborn son to love God. Of course,
Manasseh as king will not do this, but will be the most wicked (and,
perhaps to the disturbance of biblical writers who believed the
righteous prospered and the wicked suffered, one of the
longest-reigning) kings. In the next book of the series, Austin will
tell a story about how this happened.