This illustrated manuscript of Isaiah 9:2-7 includes a boot, a bloody garment, a king’s crown, a child, and a yoke (the first brown figure in the left margin).

Before we illustrated our manuscripts, one of the women inquired, “What is a a yoke?” One woman suggested part of an egg. I said that was a sensible guess given how the word sounds, but that this was a different kind of yoke and actually was spelled differently. I had never really noticed the similarity or the silence of the “l” in “yolk.” We all enjoyed that detail about our language.

I passed around a picture of a pair of oxen yoked together and we discussed the concept of being yoked. Someone brought up marriage, a couple being yoked.

How rich are the associations and nuances of these stories, and how perceptive are the women who engage them at the Montgomery County Jail in our weekly Circle of the
Word.