When Daniel first meets Joel and Thacia on the mountains overlooking Ketzah, they discuss the occupation of Israel by the Romans. Daniel tells the twins that he “curse[s] the air they breathe” (p. 13). Joel agrees with him, and Thacia argues that they should not let the Romans bother them. Thacia reassures the boys that “deliverance will come…The Jews have been worse off before” (p. 14). All three of them then discuss the previous fights on Galilee, where they are standing. Daniel tells them, “Joshua, Gideon, David, all of them fought on the soil of Galilee…It will be so again” (p. 15). Thacia then replies that she and Joel had “always thought that up here we’d see him” (p. 15).

All three imagined that the deliverance from the Romans would be a Messiah who came from the Galilee. The difference is in how they imagined the deliverance would take place. Thacia and Joel “used to think he would come with a great host of angels” (p. 16). Thacia sees this as a childish, wildly imaginative idea, while Joel thinks that it is valid to imagine that a Messiah for Israel would first be seen in Galilee. However, Joel believes that it will not be a man sent by God, but “men, real men, trained and armed and ready” (p. 17). Daniel responds to this by telling Joel and Thacia that these men are already in Galilee, and that the army of men is already training.

So while they all imagined that deliverance for Israel would come from Galilee, the precise form of that deliverance was different.