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UNCLEAN
Being unclean in first century Israel could cost you everything, including your life. This is the situation in which Adinah finds herself at the age of 17 when her first child, a son, is stillborn, and she begins to bleed.
Like all girls her age in Capernaum, Adinah wants nothing more than a husband and many children. Married at the age of 14, she is well on her way to realizing that dream. Her hopes are shattered, however, when she loses her first child and her postpartum bleeding never stops. As an unclean woman, Adinah is no longer welcome in her community. She spends the next year isolated in her home undergoing a string of humiliating and painful medical procedures, costing her husband most of his wealth, and earning further resentment and bitterness from her mother-in-law. Realizing that she will not be healed, she gives her husband the option to divorce her and flees Capernaum. She quickly discovers that it’s even more dangerous outside her home when she is stoned by a group of young men just on the outskirts of town. The following morning, Akim, an unclean man, finds her bloodied and alone on the road and guides her to an encampment of other untouchables.
Adinah’s dreams of family and motherhood are gone. Life for her is now simply a struggle for survival. It’s a daily decision between finding happiness where she is or just ending it. Thoughts of suicide are never far from her mind. She even picks out a tree for that very purpose.
After more than a decade among the unclean and finally adjusting to life as an outcast, Adinah’s health begins to fail her. She knows her time is short and she won’t need the tree. It’s at this point that she learns about a healer coming to Capernaum. The healer from the stories she is told. Thoughts of suicide and acceptance of her fate disappear. She wants life, and she’s willing to risk going back amongst those who stoned her to get it.
Like all girls her age in Capernaum, Adinah wants nothing more than a husband and many children. Married at the age of 14, she is well on her way to realizing that dream. Her hopes are shattered, however, when she loses her first child and her postpartum bleeding never stops. As an unclean woman, Adinah is no longer welcome in her community. She spends the next year isolated in her home undergoing a string of humiliating and painful medical procedures, costing her husband most of his wealth, and earning further resentment and bitterness from her mother-in-law. Realizing that she will not be healed, she gives her husband the option to divorce her and flees Capernaum. She quickly discovers that it’s even more dangerous outside her home when she is stoned by a group of young men just on the outskirts of town. The following morning, Akim, an unclean man, finds her bloodied and alone on the road and guides her to an encampment of other untouchables.
Adinah’s dreams of family and motherhood are gone. Life for her is now simply a struggle for survival. It’s a daily decision between finding happiness where she is or just ending it. Thoughts of suicide are never far from her mind. She even picks out a tree for that very purpose.
After more than a decade among the unclean and finally adjusting to life as an outcast, Adinah’s health begins to fail her. She knows her time is short and she won’t need the tree. It’s at this point that she learns about a healer coming to Capernaum. The healer from the stories she is told. Thoughts of suicide and acceptance of her fate disappear. She wants life, and she’s willing to risk going back amongst those who stoned her to get it.
234 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 15, 2025
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