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Chapter 5
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Bronze Bow, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love vs. Vengeance
Trust, Dependence, and Friendship
Leadership: Power vs. Service
Earthly Hopes vs. Heavenly Values
Summary
Analysis
Leaving Hezron’s house, Daniel feels hurt and resentful. He decides to leave Capernaum for good. But before he gets very far, he stops at a well, and a Roman soldier orders him to draw water for his horse. Then Daniel offers the same water bowl to the soldier. When the insulted soldier kicks Daniel, Daniel throws the bowl into the soldier’s face in anger. Then he runs. The soldier throws his spear at Daniel and strikes him in the ribs. Only after Daniel flees into a nearby orchard does he realize how much pain he’s in; his thoughts and vision become clouded. He summons enough strength to flee back to Joel’s house.
Hezron had warned that Daniel is too heated, and that warning is quickly proven true. Daniel insults the soldier by offering him the same vessel his horse just drank from, and then he fails to contain his anger. The soldier finds this sufficient cause to try to kill Daniel, seeing him as disposable.
Themes
At first, when she sees Daniel, Malthace tries to get him to leave again. Her father will get angry, and she can’t let Daniel disrupt Joel’s studies—Joel already feels torn. Daniel is about to leave when he collapses, unconscious. When he wakes up, he’s in pain, lying somewhere dark. Malthace, leaning over him, explains that he’s in a storage room. She offers him a drink of strong wine, then cleanses his wound. Then Daniel dozes until, sometime later, Joel appears in the room, carrying a candle.
Despite their father’s warning and their own misgivings, Malthace and Joel unhesitatingly shelter Daniel. This move is not just loyal but risky, since their family would be seen as complicit if the Romans discovered Daniel in their custody.
Themes
Joel is distraught. He tells Daniel that people are searching for him all over Capernaum. He also doesn’t think Daniel is safe in the storage room. He proposes moving Daniel to a passageway in the wall where nobody from the household will stumble across him. The twins manage to pull Daniel on a mat into the narrow, stuffy passage. Before he leaves, Joel apologizes for his father’s anger—Hezron fears that Joel will run off to join the Zealots. As Daniel falls asleep, he thinks he hears a voice whispering, “Goodnight, Daniel.” He imagines it is his mother’s voice.
The twins continue to show their loyalty and courage as they take responsibility for Daniel’s safety. Even if Joel doesn’t become a Zealot, his protection of Daniel would be little different in his father’s eyes. When Daniel imagines he hears his dead mother’s voice, it suggests that Daniel feels safe in his friends’ care. Used to depending only on himself, he entrusts himself to others as he once did to Rosh—which will be a turning point for him.
Themes
