Final Book in The David Chronicles! A Response from the Reader...

He is my firstborn, the one I am bound to trust, above all others. There is nothing I will withhold from him, especially now, when he is so weak, so susceptible. Besides, even if I’m making a mistake, what’s the worst that can happen? I ask for a quill so as to write a note to Tamar. 

Jonadab has it right there, at the ready. It has been neatly sharpened, so as not to waste any time. “Come to the house of your brother Amnon,” I tell her in my note, “and prepare some food for him.” I consider for a moment if I should replace the word food with dumpling. I decide against it, perhaps because for me, it evokes the unpleasant sight of Amnon licking his lips. And so, without delay, the note is sealed and on its way.

The conversation with Amnon keeps haunting me as I climb uphill, back to my palace. I find his last question disturbing, without being able to explain why. It seemed innocent enough, at first. 

“Would you do anything for me?” 

To which I said, “Of course, son.” 

“How much are you willing to sacrifice?” 

“What kind of a question is that?” In place of an answer, he pressed on. 

“Would you become my accomplice?” 

“To do what?” I wondered, because no crime had been named. I mean, his mind is far from being transparent! How was I supposed to guess what he...

“Where’s Tamar?” I ask, in a voice that is thick with worry. “And Amnon? You seen him? Where’s he?” She waves her dripping hand at me, but it is unclear if this is meant to indicate that there is no one inside—or that I, too, should leave the place. 

I shout at her, hearing my voice echo, with great urgency, throughout the house, “Your master, Amnon, where’s he?” 

The maidservant brings a finger to her wrinkled lips, perhaps to calm me down, which is when, for the first time, I start listening. Like me, she cups her ear. There is a sound out there, barely human—but somehow I recognize that it is not the wind, wailing with such despair, such sad lament. 

At last, “There. There she is,” the maidservant whispers, breaking her silence. 

“Tamar?” I say, hoping the answer would be No.

“Tamar,” she says, her voice cracking. “I was told to do it.” 

“Do what?” 

“Was it my fault? My job is to obey orders.” 

“What was it your did?” 

I can barely hear her, as she says, “I had no choice but to put her out and bolt the door shut after her. She was wearing an ornate coat, a coat of many colors, the kind of garment virgin princesses would wear. 

Once she found herself on the street Tamar ripped it. She put ashes on her head and put her hands on her head and went away, weeping aloud as she went.”

~~~

As soon as I had reviewed three of the Inspired by Art books in this series, the last of which complemented this book, I knew I wanted to read the novels. As with the Art book, I found the third book, The Edge of Revolt, the most provocative and filled with new information...for me... I admit that somehow I had missed the impact of what happened to David in his later life...and to his children...

I knew also that I wanted to discuss the books with the author, so began arranging a spotlight to be held on my blog...(that activity has been streaming since the 15th and shows many of those pictures from the Inspired books as well as Poznansky's own art works in different mediums--Take time to check everything out!

In creating questions to discuss, I made my first comment about David, as he had aged... I thought he was weak and although that opinion differed from the author, I continued to feel that way. I admit, however, that I found myself responding to the book as a contemporary rather than historical book. Indeed, reading the book in contemporary language emphasizes just how little many of us have changed over hundreds of years...

The book is brilliantly written, so much so that I could not help forming opinions about the main character based upon my personal concerns of today. More so than in other books, I found I was unable to accept David's part in the rape of Tamar, his daughter. While recognizing that the role of women was different at that time, it was hard to accept the rape of women happened then, in the King's family, and is not only still going on but seems to have taken on a new dimension as Human Trafficking reigns across the world.

Other reviewers may provide a totally unbiased overview that I find I do not want to do for this book...so do check out all the other reviews this book has received... This is an opinion piece, a reader's response to the story, as opposed to my regular review... That is caused by today's chaotic environment where hate, prejudice and injustice seems to rule... openly and with little regard for others.

David had worked hard, first to kill Goliath, and then to go on leading many wars to gain more territory. I raised the hypothesis at the time of David's first murder. What if God's plan was to have the very young David not kill Goliath, but go and stand before him in friendship... Many laugh at the thought...but God is a God of love...after Jesus came...So what change did God have in mind when Jesus died for each of us? For it now seems that little has changed across the world...

Was the death of Jesus in vain, since wars have gone on and on after His Crucifixion? 

David was a man favored by God and it was prophesied that he would be King...Yet David followed the path of his peers, he sought power almost immediately, even while sharing his words in Psalms... He married often as well as had a harem, as was what occurred at that time...

But then he chose to have an affair with a married woman, and after impregnating her, had her husband murdered so he could marry Bathsheba. It is evident from the original story that they fell in love...it happened then and it happens today... Murder was done then...and murder continues across our world, oftentimes through wars that now are even more dangerous with weapons out of control and people using weapons as a sign of power...

But when Tamara was raped... I was forced to consider that the world may never change... For Tamara was raped by her step-brother...forced out of his home, left to be seen as a ruined girl, now no longer worthy of marriage...and receiving no justice for her assault! 

Tamara's father was King at the time. It was up to him to provide justice for his daughter...Not only did he not act as appropriate to convict his son, he made no real effort to comfort his daughter... I see the same thing today, as justice does not seem to be done, rather it is questioned as judgments are made that do not make sense...

David had two positions in his older life. He was King. He was a father.

As King, it was his responsibility to act on behalf of Tamara. He didn't; he allowed it to fester for years, until another son, Absalom, took his brother's life on behalf of Tamara, and, in my opinion, to reveal David's weakness in not handling his duties as King. And when Absalom had his brother killed...David continued to do nothing...as the country's leader.

My favorite Psalm is 121...Written by David, as was his many others, he speaks eloquently, powerfully, and with inspired words...I have a Thomas Kinkaid painting behind me as I type this...In it, he has combined what could be my home in this cabin and adds the legend from Psalm 121: I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills...

Psalm 121 King James Version (KJV)
121 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.
2 My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.
3 He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.
4 Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.
6 The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.
8 The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.
King James Version (KJV)

But David was also a father...It is in that role that he also failed to act, loving all his children and not being able to act to raise his hand against any of them... In this too, I saw that David was weak... for does it not also say...

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.--KJV

And as I read on, I didn't change my mind that David should have acted differently, especially toward Tamar. And yet, there is so much to learn from this third book... Just as David had chosen once to kill for selfish reasons, taking Bathsheba as his own, those decisions of free will continue on and on as we come to face ourselves in this world today... The Tamars of today are many more than at that time--my heart cries for these women pulled today into sex slavery and human trafficking...

And I realize, and as the author indicated in her book descriptions,  that this book is brought to us today to see what our own decisions have brought forth in the world... to clarify and use the stories of what occurred years ago, to look and see the real world that is today... Thank you Uvi Podnansky.

And, that, in every way, we are still in the position of making our own choices, our own decisions. We cannot see David as a man of God as well as dismiss him as a weak man, for if we eliminate that David sought his own forgiveness, we forget that so we must also seek forgiveness and strength when we fail...

As my thoughts continued, I found that it had been time for me to read this book. To recognize that we are each, only human...and weak... We must learn from David's story and decide what we want to say and do in response to David. We can be charmed by his poetry, his music but now there is a bit of darkness in his words as we constantly must adjust to the reality that even men of God are not perfect, no not one... and it is only God that we can look to for perfection...  

And we discover, after all, that we are like David himself... We are weak in our own desires and loves and it is only through God--His Grace-- that we can continue to abide in His Love.

Read The David Chronicles! See what message, what inspiration you will find from these literary books, based upon the original Hebrew, of God's words. There is little about God in David's story... It is you who must seek your way by knowing more, learning more, and opening up yourself to the reality then and our reality...right...now...

Many of you know that I have been very concerned about the chaos happening in America, especially after the Charlottesville violence just this week... David was obviously a man of God, but he acted as he should not have when he had a man murdered. Was that first murder what led to what occurred between and among his children... We must right now choose... will we speak out against evil or do we remain silent, as David did... If is often said that the Bible is the inspired Word of God...and with that comes the opportunity for the Holy Spirit to work through each of us to discover how we are being led...

Are we on The Edge of Revolt?

Uvi Poznansky has written her story as she was inspired to do... Read the entire trilogy... It is great literature of historical events. It is thought-provoking, provocative, and timely and just may have words that will speak to you, as this book did for me... Highly recommended...


GABixlerReviews

Uvi Poznansky Presents Next Inspired by Art Series - The Edge of Revolt

Unlike the first two of these wonderful books, this third in series covers a number of different issues in King David's life. I decided to begin with the Book Description:

Inspired by Art: The Edge of Revolt is a collection of art throughout the ages, around the story of David. This volume focuses on the rape of his daughter Tamar by her half-brother Amnon; the assassination of Amnon at the hands of her brother Absalom; and Absalom’s revolt, trying to topple David from his throne.

These amazing sculptures, paintings, etchings, and manuscripts inspired the author to write The David Chronicles, a series of three volumes, the second of which is A Peek at Bathsheba, where she imagines the love affair and the ensuing scandal. Besides being an artist and having worked as an architect, she taught art history, and this collection served as the basis for a study course analyzing the contrasts in viewpoints around the biblical story.

This collection is arranged not by artist, nor by artistic style or era, but rather by the story moment-by-moment, blow-by-blow, as imagined by various artists. Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Chagall, Frederic Lord Leighton and Jan Steen to name but a few.

~~~

Consider as you open this latest book that you have entered an art gallery with various rooms based upon topic, as opposed to artist... We have seen David and Goliath in the first room, Then the next room is what happened after the fall of the giant...

David became King and we move into his daily life... and are immediately faced with David's Triumph by Raffaello Sanzio, with a somewhat daunting prophecy. And certainly what follows seems to support the statement that the sword would never depart his house...

Nathan the Prophet to David

Now, therefore, the sword will never depart your house...

And it began in the cruelest way... by his son, Amnon attempting to seduce his sister, Tamar, in the painting by Guercino. Graphic accounts thereafter depicts Amnon's attempts continuing until he rapes Tamar and then demands she leave home... portrayed in Desolation of Tamar by James Tissot

It is Absalom who consoles Tamar who has become pregnant by her brother and begins to talk...of revenge... and death... as we study the painting by Mattia Preti, entitled Absalom's Feast 

For me, Study for 'The Assassination of Amnon at the feast of Absalom'  by Guercino proved to be the most dramatic, and I believe, included the main characters involved....

Unfortunately, and with sorrow, I deplore that this is history not a fictional novel being illustrated...

So how was this murder handled? Page after page tells the story as it is written as well as envisioned by multiple painters, but I wondered, how would it also end in today's world, for in the end King David was left with neither of his sons...

And his advisors said to get over mourning... and the result of that demand is poignantly presented... which included the potential response by David...  "Oh that I had the wings of a dove! For then I would fly away and be at rest" painted by Frederic Lord Leighton.

As the book ends, we see The Prophet David by Camillo Boccaccio where we find the older David placing his foot on the head of Goliath...

Was he, perhaps, lamenting that he had ever picked up the sword to kill Goliath... Was he, I wondered, really meant to walk up to the Giant, offer his hand in friendship, and speak of love and not hate? Had he listened to man with their fears rather than to God? Would things be different today if that was really what was to happen? I wondered and thought that this book just might be more important than many will realize... Just my opinion, of course... What do you think?

I found the following song which I found quite applicable in this and in other situations... 

Like David, looking back to what his life had been, and then began to wonder how God could still love him when he may not have listened to God's commands to love one another?  For me, it felt right...it felt true... 

Needless to say, I believe and highly recommend that you check out not only this book, but the entire series...as the visual stories speak to us of King David's life...


GABixlerReviews

Uvi Poznansky is a bestselling, award-winning author, poet and artist. “I paint with my pen,” she says, “and write with my paintbrush.” Her romance boxed set, A Touch of Passion, is the 2016 WINNER of The Romance Reviews Readers' Choice Awards.

Education and work:
Uvi earned her B. A. in Architecture and Town Planning from the Technion in Haifa, Israel and practiced with an innovative Architectural firm, taking a major part in the large-scale project, called Home for the Soldier.

Having moved to Troy, N.Y. with her husband and two children, Uvi received a Fellowship grant and a Teaching Assistantship from the Architecture department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. There, she guided teams in a variety of design projects and earned her M.A. in Architecture. Then, taking a sharp turn in her education, she earned her M.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Michigan.

She worked first as an architect, and later as a software engineer, software team leader, software manager and a software consultant (with an emphasis on user interface for medical instruments devices.) All the while, she wrote and painted constantly, and exhibited in Israel and California. In addition, she taught art appreciation classes. Her versatile body of work includes bronze and ceramic sculptures, oil and watercolor paintings, charcoal, pen and pencil drawings, and mixed media.

Books and Genres:
Her two series won great acclaim. Still Life with Memories is a family saga series with touches of romance. It includes Apart From Love, My Own Voice, The White Piano, The Music of Us, and Dancing with Air. The David Chronicles is a historical fiction series. It includes Rise to Power, A Peek at Bathsheba, and The Edge of Revolt.

Her poetry book, Home, is in tribute to her father. Her collection of dark tales, Twisted, and her Historical Fiction book, A Favorite Son, are both new age, biblically inspired books. In addition, Uvi wrote and illustrated two children books, Jess and Wiggle and Now I Am Paper. For each one of these books, she created an animation video (find them on YouTube and on her Goodreads page.)