Keepers Of The Covenant, by Lynn Austin

[Note: This book was provided free-of-charge by Bethany Books in exchange for an honest review.]

Lynn Austin is a well known author of biblical historical novels [1], and it was a pleasure to be able to obtain a copy of her latest novel for free. I did not intend, though, for this novel to speak so painfully and so awkwardly about my own life as this novel does. In a way, this was true with Gods and Kings as well, which I read before beginning this blog, and which dealt with the subject of a woman overcoming her PTSD through love. Yet just as that novel dealt with a struggle I was facing then (and sadly, still face now), this particular novel deals with the particular anxieties of my own present existence in a way that is difficult to describe and somewhat uncomfortable to realize. I have not read enough of her works to know if this is an intent of hers or if she just happens to blindly stumble on a lot of my sensitivities in life.

The plot of this novel (which, at 470 pages of text, is a sizable effort) is fairly straightforward. It begins in Babylon where Ezra and his family members and fellow Jews hear of the edict of Haman that is to lead to their annihilation in the Persian Empire. The first quarter of the book is filled with an immense set of fear and panic and dread as Jews in the Holy Land and in Babylon, a state of emotions I know well. Even once the mood shifts and the people are able to defend themselves, there is a great deal of incident in who lives and who dies, and in the repercussions of the actions of others. Throughout the novel there is the fortuitous finding of laws that have a dramatic effect on the story, mostly involving marriage, which is a central preoccupation of this work. The desire for holiness and remaining faithful to the covenant of God is what drives Ezra and his fellow priests and Levites back to Jerusalem and involves them in a complicated effort that involves both justice and mercy for many people.

The characters of this particular novel are well-drawn. Amina is a delicate but beautiful young lady whose crippled leg makes her unwanted in her Edomite village and gives her the opportunity to be adopted into Israel as an orphan. Reuben is an orphan himself who spends his young adulthood living a dissipated life as a thief before finding his calling as a Levite guard. Ezra is portrayed as being a serious and somewhat intense but gentle-hearted and conscientious person who accepts leadership and struggles with the high demands of being a teacher of God’s law in Babylon and Judah, and his levirate wife Deborah is strong-willed and a courageous woman herself. As might be expected, this novel is rich in powerful women as well as in decent men, and it tells a story that seeks to harmonize the demands of law and grace. It is, strikingly. a Christian novel set in among the most Jewish of times, the restoration of Judah to the promised land after the Babylonian captivity.

At its heart, this novel is an exploration of divine providence, how it works in mysterious ways, and it is altogether fitting that it should close with an examination of the Book of Esther, whose events are at the start of the book. In a way, this book, although it is part of a larger cycle, itself is an organic whole, reflects on the fact that in our lives God seems absent even if He is directing events to accomplish His will. That will is often mysterious, at times it may seem downright perverse or malign, but its end is for good, refining our character even as it gives us the chance to both give and receive unexpected grace to others and come to better understand Him through the twisty courses of our complicated lives. This novel is the right novel at the right time, an encouragement to trust in God and to continue to do the best that one can in the knowledge that He knows what He is doing. That is a lesson we can use at any time, but it seems particularly relevant at this stage of my life.

[1] And she has spawned a lot of imitators:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/book-review-zoheleth/