Moses, Man of the Mountain

  “That’s very serious talk you are doing, Pharaoh,” Moses said. “The Lord don’t love ugliness and He usually does something to let you know. Now, you done promised and took back your word so much till I reckon I’ll have to send you another plague. You have got to learn that there is something in the world bigger than your pride and vengeance.”

  The chief priest stood up and said, “It’s hard on the people, all these plagues and things. Why not let those Israelites go, Pharaoh? This Moses is threatening us with another plague.”

  “Oh, nothing but tricks,” Pharaoh sneered. “He’s bound to run out of tricks after a while.”

  Moses looked behind the mask of Pharaoh and was almost sorry for him. Then he remembered what he had to do. He handed Aaron his rod and walked to the fireplace and took up a handful of ashes and in the presence of Pharaoh, his court and the priests he said, “I am sending you a plague of boils on everybody in Egypt except Goshen.” He threw the handful of ashes toward heaven and kept his hand lifted until the light air had scattered the ashes to the four winds. And all over Egypt from Pharaoh to the swineherds, people broke out in boils. Pharaoh called on his priests for help, but they were too sore to move from their beds. And nobody was well enough to wait upon the others. The whole nation, except Goshen, groaned and suffered until Pharaoh sent for Moses and promised solemnly this time to let the Hebrews go. Egypt had suffered ten awful days and a great number of people muttered that the labor of the Israelites wasn’t worth it. Why not let them go? But again Pharaoh changed his mind. The majority of the ruling class saw ruin in social change. So Moses went to him and said:

  “I see that you think you are smarter than God. You have promised after each plague to let the Israelites depart to worship their God in their own way and in places of their own choosing, and each time you have double talked as soon as the trouble was taken off you. All right, tomorrow at this same time, I promise you a deadly storm of hail that shall kill people in the streets and in the fields; it shall strike down animals; it shall destroy crops and ruin houses.”

  “Hail?” asked Pharaoh of his court. “What is this man talking about? I never heard of such a thing.”

  So Moses told him what it was. And Pharaoh laughed out loud at that. “Hail!” he laughed. “Hail in a country where we don’t even have rain? You are not trying to amuse me now after all your other tricks?”

  Pharaoh laughed some more and everybody helped him. They knew Moses had power because they had seen his signs and wonders but hail in Egypt was too much to believe. What! Water so cold that it turned to stone? This was really too much. And falling from the sky? How would Moses get the water up there in the first place? and even if he could, how would he get the coldness up to it to turn the water to stones and make it fall? Now, Moses has really overstepped his bounds. This must be a joke. They were relieved that he threatened hail instead of something that really could happen like a flood. Maybe it was like Pharaoh had said, Moses was bound to run out of tricks after a while and this looked like the end. The menace of Moses was gone for good. Pharaoh had worn him out.

  “Meet me out on the battalion grounds outside of town tomorrow at this same time and see who is right and who is wrong,” Moses challenged. “I may be lying. You better try me and see.”

  Everybody was coming to see this plague of hailstorms for hardly anybody in Egypt had even seen ice. A few who had traveled tried to tell what it was like, but even they had not seen ice showers. All over the city people were making jokes about it. Such a nonsense. Ice out of the sky where everybody knew the hot sun lived.

  This public interest was new. At first the battle of enchantments was between Moses, Pharaoh and the priests, but by now, from what they had seen and suffered, all Egypt was interested in that man who sent plagues. And a plague like hail that really couldn’t happen was something to go to see. The people turned out by the thousands.

  Pharaoh rolled in a little late with all of his priests behind him. As soon as he saw Moses he called, “Moses, are you ready to make ice fall out of the sky on us yet?”

  Moses looked at the sky closely before he answered. “Not quite ready yet. I’ll let you know in a little while.”

  “I’ll bet you’re not ready.” So he told his priests to make some magic to entertain the people while Moses got ready, which they did for more than an hour.

  All of a sudden Moses looked at the sky and walked out in the middle of the parade ground and took his stand. He lifted both hands high and spread them abroad and the hundred-prong lightning began to play across the sky, and thunder rolled behind it from east to west. Zig-zag fire darted from the sky to the earth and ran along the ground. Then while Moses still held up his hands, the hail began to fall. It fell and it fell and everybody fled the place but Moses. He stood as if he were cast in stone with the lightning playing about him and the hailstones falling like shot from heaven. The people fled with Pharaoh, but they did not escape the hail. It devastated Egypt as Moses had promised.

  The chief scribe lifted himself from the ground where he had fallen when some younger man tripped him in flight and said, “There has been nothing like it since Egypt became a nation,” and everybody else was saying the same thing.

  They came with the east wind and went with the west wind. That is how the locust came into Egypt at the call of Moses. The hail storm had frightened Pharaoh while it lasted and he had said the people of Goshen could go. But as soon as it was over, he sent soldiers to guard the borders of Goshen so that not a soul could depart. He aggravated the matter by refusing the brickmakers straw, which had always been furnished to them. Now, he said, they must find straw for themselves and at the same time they must turn out just as many bricks. He was going hard.

  So Moses lifted his right hand and the east wind woke up from where it was sleeping and romped across the narrow valley of Egypt all day and all night. And on the wind came the locusts in such hosts that daylight became dark. Their wings clashed out a din and their voices muttered of hunger. They came and muttered and trembled upon the wheat fields and muttered and ate and grumbled in their jaws until not a leaf was left standing in Egypt. Then when Egypt was eaten bare they attached themselves to a west wind that blew and went with the wind into the Red Sea.

  The servants of Pharaoh gathered around him and asked him, “Pharaoh, how long is this man going to be set like a trap in Egypt to catch us? The nation can’t stand this kind of a thing much longer. We’re just about ruined already. Aren’t you ever going to do anything to stop it?”

  “Then you will support me if I send these Hebrews out of my sight?”

  “Do we have to go that far? Can’t we compromise somehow?”

  “We can see,” Pharaoh said wearily.

  “Give them a light vacation—a day or two ought not to ruin us.”

  “Call out the army, and send it down into Goshen.”

  “For what? Killing our slaves won’t get our work done.”

  “Oh, let’s leave it to Pharaoh. He is responsible for the country. He is conducting this on his own responsibility. Let’s leave it to his intelligence.”

  Pharaoh wilted under this back-handed thrust and dismissed the council.

  So Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron.

  “Moses,” he said, “I’ve about decided to let those people go out to worship like you asked me. But I can’t let everybody go. You understand. If I did that my work would be at a standstill. Now if you all could let me know exactly who is going out to worship and just where they plan to go and how long they aim to be gone, I might give you some consideration.”

  “Pharaoh, if I told you any of those things you asked me, I would be telling you what I don’t know myself. The Lord of Israel has ordered all the people to go out to a place which He will point out after we get on the way. That’s all he told me, and I’m selling it just like I bought it.”

  “Before I let you go I will have to know when you are going, where you are going and how long you plan to stay.”
br />   “I can’t tell you that, Pharaoh,” Moses said stubbornly.

  “Then nobody is going to step. Think I’m going to have all the help off the place at one time and I don’t even know where they are at?”

  “The time will come, Pharaoh, when they will go, and that soon, I’ll bound you that.”

  “You say they will and I say they won’t and I happen to be King of Egypt. And all Egypt will support me in my position.”

  “We’ll see about that, King or no King. The god I represent is stronger than thrones.”

  The next Wednesday Moses got up early in the morning and sent word around all over Goshen for the people to get hold of every lamp they could get their hands on and lay in a-plenty of oil. Gather up a-plenty lightwood and kindling because they were going to need it mighty bad. Then he went on over to the palace to talk with Pharaoh.

  Moses noted that Pharaoh looked sunken and worn. His haggard face was a grim, ashen mask. But his eyes glittered like an asp at bay. Moses noted too that his right hand rested on the hilt of his sword.

  “Pharaoh,” Moses began with a deceptive gentleness, “I come this time to save you from yourself.”

  Pharaoh started at the sound of Moses’ voice as if he had been stabbed.

  “Say what you have to say and leave here. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to hear your voice. I don’t want to hear your wretched name called again.”

  “I see that you are afraid, Pharaoh.”

  “A Pharaoh afraid?”

  “That crown and that throne make you a Pharaoh, but inside of that frame you are a man. And you are afraid. And I know you do not know what you are afraid of. Your fear is so vast that it has crumbled you up inside. But for that you would have killed me weeks ago.”

  “Liar!”

  “Pharaoh,” Moses went on calmly, “as I came along I saw long trains of people fleeing Egypt—to the mountains, up the river, anywhere so long as they got out of Egypt. Not Hebrews, mind you, but your own people. They were afraid. Whole villages and towns were empty. It seems that Egypt has learned my name.”

  “Egypt knew your name before and nobody left but you.”

  “That was because I was not warring against Egypt then. They had never suffered plagues. But now they flee away. You can calm Egypt and restore your country to peace.”

  “If you have come to tell me to let those Hebrews go, I tell you right now, No! I will not let them go.”

  “You mean you can’t let them go. You wish you could. You know and I know what it would cost you. You can’t undo in a few weeks what you took generations to do. So you don’t dare to do what would ease your position.”

  “Never mind about the affairs of Egypt. They do not concern you. You came here to ask me to let the Hebrews go. I tell you, No. So you have nothing to keep you here.”

  “But, Pharaoh, I can’t go. My conscience wouldn’t let me until I warn you that my God says you must let His people go.”

  “Moses, I know nothing about this God. Nobody seems to know anything about Him but you. I can’t allow the welfare of Egypt to be destroyed by your superstitions. You see that your tricks have not moved me.”

  “Oh, yes, they have. You and Egypt will never be the same after I am gone. And I warn you that I have other tricks, as you call them in scorn, more terrible than those that you have experienced. Don’t make me use them to scourge you. Let the Israelites go.”

  “You can’t scare me, Moses. Out of the consciousness of my might, I have been indulgent with you. Don’t provoke me any further.”

  “No, you have temporized with me because you are weak.”

  “Weak? Why, I have a million men under arms.”

  “And in your panic you contemplate sending a million men against one man. I thought you said you were brave.”

  Pharaoh half rose from his seat in his anger. “You are getting beyond your depth, Moses. I might forget my patience in a moment.”

  “Oh, you will have your hour with me, when the time that is set for it comes. In the meanwhile I am to tell you to let the Hebrews go.”

  “And I tell you that I will not let them go. Nothing on earth can make me change my mind.”

  “Nothing, Pharaoh?”

  “Nothing, on my sacred oath, nothing. My very soul revolts at the thought.”

  “Then you have forgotten your past terrors.”

  “I never had any to forget.”

  “Perhaps not, but, Pharaoh, when you come to wind up that last ball of sorrow, don’t forget that I reasoned with you.”

  “Fear is no part of me, say what you will.”

  “Pharaoh, have you ever seen darkness?”

  “Of course I have! A night has followed every day I ever saw.”

  “But did a day always follow every night you ever saw, Pharaoh?”

  “It never failed yet.”

  “It is just possible that a Pharaoh even is about to learn something new. You are going to have darkness in the broad open daylight. I am turning my back on you and the great invisible darkness that stands behind me shall make itself known. I am loosing the plague of darkness on Egypt.”

  Moses went out of the palace and lifted his right hand and the light began to thicken. There were no clouds in the sky. The world just began to grow dim. By the time Moses got home it was dusk in mid-afternoon. Then it went on from there. Egypt knew darkness, living crawling darkness that had a life of its own. It had body like the wind and it heaved in motion like the sea.

  In Goshen, lamps burned in every house and at the doors. But in other Egypt the darkness smothered down upon the earth. Its pall silenced cries and choked back laughter. Even the beasts ceased groaning after the first hour. Egypt was soundless and motionless for three whole days. And outside of Goshen, nobody saw anybody else for the space of three days. It was a soundless vacuum like in heaven when the orchestra before the throne strikes silence for the space of half an hour once in every thousand years. When the three full days were over the darkness began to lift and to withdraw itself across the Red Sea into the land of Midian, into a certain mountain from which it had come.

  In the druggy gray shadow of the departing darkness, children and parents groped toward each other and huddled together in silence a long while before they spoke. The lion that had fought off its own cubs in the terror of sightlessness hovered them again, and the asp had faith once more in its fangs.

  “Horus is dead beneath the sundown horizon. His light will never come again,” one priest whispered to the others. These were the first words spoken in Egypt since the reign of nights without days.

  “Egypt will die in this coldness that has leaked out of the darkness,” his brother whimpered. “How can we strain against a man who has killed our gods? Darkness strips everybody of everything. We can’t live.”

  And everywhere in Egypt tongues began to move and say, “The pride and stubbornness of Pharaoh has destroyed us all.”

  And what they saw with their eyes was terrible. Old ones, sick and poor; children, women trampled to death during the darkness when the nation was stampeded by fear. Bodies on steps and in doorways.

  The moment that he could see his hand before his face Pharaoh began to call out to his attendants to come closer to him. “I am King of a dead nation,” he moaned. “Go beg Moses to come. The children of Israel can go. Find lamps and lanterns and go get me Moses.”

  But by the time that his messengers could grope their way to Goshen the light of a natural night had lightened Egypt. There was no moon, but the stars could be plainly seen. So Pharaoh haughtily refused to talk to Moses when he came, and put him off until morning and went off to bed.

  “Moses,” he said next morning, “as bad as I hate to see you in any form or fashion, I am a reasonable man. So I am prepared to let you go and take the children of Israel to go serve your God, but your flocks and your herds stay right here. You understand me, don’t you?”

  “I heard you, Pharaoh, but when we go out to worship, not a hoof will be lef
t in Egypt.”

  “If you are only going out to worship your God as you say, what do you need livestock for?”

  “We don’t know what we might need to serve the Lord with until we get there. The flocks and the herds go with us or we don’t go.”

  “Well, you don’t go then. Egypt will not be robbed like that.”

  “Ta-Phar, I’m just as wore out with you as you are with me. I been just fooling along with you because I remember you’re mean and stubborn, so I took advantage of it to let you make a fool out of yourself before Egypt. But I’m through playing with you now. I came back into Egypt to lead out the children of Israel. I am showing you my ugly laugh now.”

  “Don’t you stand up here in my palace and talk to me like that, Moses. I am King in Egypt. Get out! And look out for yourself too. Don’t look in my face again, for the day you do is the day you die. Get out!”

  Moses laughed a laugh that he had been saving up for more than thirty years. “You told the truth then, Ta-Phar. I will certainly not see your face again—not that I ever got any pleasure out of it anyway. But you will hear from me again, and you sure won’t like it when you do.”

  “It is my will not to see you again. Be warned.”

  “But I tell you, Pharaoh, that you will. I am talking for Israel now and you are talking for Egypt. But a time will come when you will seek me out so that Ta-Phar and Moses may stand face to face. You will seek me out to fight me. And I’ll be there, Ta-Phar, and I’ll be exulting like a stallion.”

  “And if that time ever comes, you be there like a stallion. I shall be there, a lion in his strength.”