Isaiah's Daughter

Starred review from October 30, 2017
Andrews (Miriam) continues her mission to explore the lives of lesser-known women of the Bible in this thrilling account of Hephzibah, the wife of King Hezekiah of Judah. She begins her life as Ishma and is orphaned as a girl when her family is killed by Israelite soldiers. After a treacherous flight, she is welcomed into the prophet Isaiah’s home. There she meets the young prince Hezekiah, who has also suffered: he watched his brother be sacrificed to a pagan god. The two children form a friendship rooted in their shared pain that develops over the years into a lasting love. Isaiah adopts Ishma and bestows on her a new name given by Yahweh: Hephzibah, which means “delight of the Lord.” Together, she and the newly crowned King Hezekiah face many challenges as they strive to be obedient to Yahweh, aided (and sometimes constrained) by the prophecies of her biological father that she and “the king of Judah” will end up together. Andrews’s excellent tale invites readers to have a new appreciation for the time of the prophets and to reconsider what trust in God truly means.