“You heard me at the meeting distinctly tell that man to leave us alone and let us serve our Egyptian masters in peace, didn’t you? We was getting along fine—plenty to eat and a place to sleep and everything. We wouldn’t be in the fix we’re in right now if that Moses had of let us alone.”
“Who asked him to butt in nohow? Our business didn’t concern him, did it? It was our backs they was beating. It wasn’t none of his and if we was satisfied he ought to been tickled to death. Now Pharaoh is going to kill us all.”
“Great Ra! Great Horus! Great Thoth! Great Isis and the forty-two gods of the double justice! Save us.”
Slowed down by the weight of the chariots over the rough ground, the horses were coming in a walk. Moses reached the rear of his great huddle of trembling humanity and took his stand, between danger and his charges. Again, he was one against all Egypt. Listening and thinking back, it was hard to keep his feelings from flying to his head. He had but to step aside and leave them to Pharaoh and his servants. But Pharaoh himself was driving the first chariot as the cavalcade approached, and he wanted to face him and beat him one last time. He laughed to himself as he thought, “Pharaoh thinks he’s pursuing me, but it’s the other way around. I been on his trail for thirty years, and now I got the old coon at last, as Jethro would say. Let me fuddle him all up for a night and then I will raise my hand. First and last, I’m showing him my ugly laugh.”
As the chariots drew near the panic grew in Israel. They committed every kind of folly and showed their inside weakness. Then Moses showed his power again. He turned his back on the Egyptian horde and spoke to his people. Spoke to them in their own dialect as one of them.
“Stand still!” he commanded in a sterner voice than they had ever heard before. “Stand still, every last one of you and stop that screaming and yelling. You haven’t got a thing to be scared of. That ain’t nobody but Pharaoh and his army and we done beat them too many times before. Don’t get so excited about nothing! The Lord is going to fight for you just as He’s been doing all along. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord which He is going to show you today. See those Egyptians there? Take a good look at ’em, because those Egyptians that you are looking at today, you’re never going to see them no more as long as you live. And nobody else won’t be seeing them either. Stand still and keep quiet is all I ask you to do.”
Moses didn’t lift his hand while he talked but the command in his voice was calming. Suddenly everybody felt secure and brave.
Moses just stood and looked and the pillar of cloud that went before the host moved around from the sea and spread itself like a great plumey curtain between the Israelites and Pharaoh and hid each camp from the other. The Israelites felt shut in and safe. The Egyptians felt shut out and puzzled. They were afraid to attack until they could know what went on behind that cloud screen, so Pharaoh ordered his forces to camp until next day and then to attack with vigor.
“They can’t get away from us so we might as well get some sleep. Our horses need freshening too,” Pharaoh ordered. “We got them in a trap—between us and the sea. We’ll close the trap in the morning.” So they turned in and rested so they could have plenty of vim to butcher Hebrews in the morning.
But Moses never slept. The signal pillar of fire glowed behind the cloud screen and lighted the camp of Israel. Moses himself went back to the sea and stood. When the hour came he called up the east wind and stretched out his hand. They broke the head of the eastern drum and marched out on the sea. The retreating tidal waters did not creep on as was their habit; they fell back from the strait on either side like two mighty armies in retreat. Both sides shrank away from the uplifted hand like lambs before a lion. The waters fled back and back and back and stood in a solid wall on either side and waited on the powers to close them up again.
Then Moses ordered the march. In the same order in which they had come down to the sea, Moses told his hosts to cross over. Flocks first, then women and children followed by the six hundred thousand men of fighting age armed with whatever Moses could find in Egypt to put in their hands—clubs, spears, javelins, old swords, sticks and anything that could wound and tear.
The bones of Joseph crossed over after the women and children. Then Moses challenged Pharaoh. The smoky cloud screen lifted. The fiery pillar again went before the hosts and the sentries of the Egyptian army saw that the children of Israel were escaping across the sea and ran to wake up the camp. “Wake up! The Hebrews have broke camp and are gone.”
The camp woke up by degrees. Nobody could believe the sentry at first. They had to get to their feet and get their heads clear of dreams first, and then the peeping dawn did the rest. It was hard to believe, but the sea was really divided and the Hebrews were tramping across on dry land.
“Well, I’ll be—” Pharaoh began, then sprang to action. “Get up and harness the horses! Don’t let ’em get away! A palace and high houses to the man who overtakes Moses and hands him over to me alive! Get up and get after our slaves.”
In a few minutes the camp was furiously alive. Leaping into chariots, shouts, cries, plunging and neighing of horses, clash of arms on shields, posing Pharaoh’s chariot with its three Arabian horses in front of the forces and the furious charge to the sea crossing while the last ranks of the Hebrews were still in sight.
Moses heard the commotion in the Egyptian camp and knew that his movements had been seen as he intended them to be. He hurried across after the last man and waited. He saw the mad charge down the beach. He saw them hesitate there to debate the wisdom of trying the unusual crossing. Then he deliberately showed himself to Pharaoh and the frenzied pursuit was on. The six hundred chariots dashed down into the sea ten and twenty abreast. The Egyptians shouted in triumph as they viewed the cowering Israelites on the opposite shore.
Then when the Egyptians had thoroughly committed themselves to the sea bed and wagered their lives and their vengeance on it, Moses stood on the opposite shore and looked hard at his pursuers. He could distinguish the royal chariot with its fiery Arabians well in the lead. Those were fine horses, Moses recognized, and a splendid chariot. But Ta-Phar had always thought too well of chariots. He could not see his uncle’s face at that distance and read its expression, but he could feel it, the hatred, the bafflement and the lust for vengeance. Behind him the Israelites were already over their joy at the miraculous crossing and were beginning to cry out in fear.
“Moses! The Egyptians are coming after us! Ain’t no more seas for us to cross.”
“I see them. Don’t worry.”
What he knew must come, happened. Away from the smooth sand of the shore, the horses and the heavy chariots struck rough going. Horses began to flounder and fall as they stepped into holes and soft clay. Chariots swerved, overturned, and control was lost. Chariots coming after plunged into the tangle and were themselves overturned. Then Moses lifted his hand.
The gripping east wind loosed its mighty fingers and the sea water came rushing back to its bed. It was a moving time. There was the outspoken voice of the wind going east; the mad grumble and shout of the waves as they raced back to embrace each other over the clamor of men in fright, the scream of drowning horses, the last mad struggle of the chariots. That all made a boiling place in the sea for a space. Then there was just the heaving Red Sea with its two shores. Egypt on one side and Moses and his mission on the other. Moses stood and looked on the sea. It was a long time before he thought to change his rod from his right hand to his left and let the wind and the sea subside.
Behind him he heard the people exulting. “Didn’t we outdo old Pharaoh, though?” Miriam was asking everybody. “It was a great victory for our God,” Aaron was saying. “The Lord is a man of war. The Lord is His name.” “Old Pharaoh thought he knew who to fool with and who to let alone.” “We showed him something. Yeah, he’s dead out there in the ocean and there ain’t no help for it. That’s one old Pharaoh won’t have no great big old tombstone over him.”
“Well, he’s got
the great big sea over him, and I reckon that’s big enough to suit anybody.”
They made a song on that and danced it off. A man with a good voice got out in the center of the ring and sang.
“Old Pharaoh’s dead!”
And the chorus answered, “How did he die?”
And the solo man went to dancing and said: “Well, he died like this!” and he danced that off. Then he sang another part and everybody went on dancing and shouting.
“Oh, he died in his chariot and he died in the sea
And he wouldn’t have died at all if he let us be.”
They sang that over and over and danced on it until they got tired. Then Miriam took the cymbal and some more women went behind her and they went all over the camp singing:
“Oh, Miriam played the cymbal over the Red Sea
Miriam played the cymbal over the Red Sea
Miriam played the cymbal over the Red Sea.
Oh, Miriam played the cymbal right over.”
And they clapped time on that with their hands and danced and double clapped it off like they did the other song because everybody was happy and felt like clapping and dancing. Then Moses told them to make camp for the night.
Moses strolled down the beach a little way and sat down on the same boulder that he had sat down on after the first crossing so many years ago. It was another morning and another crossing and so he thought thoughts again. This time he had crossed over safely with a nation behind him and no weapon worth talking about but his right hand. Well, the present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell. So Moses sat on the rock and said, “You, Voice, you told me to lead out, and by the hardest, I did it. So I’m down here by the Red Sea with these people. You know more about ’em than I do, Lord. What must I do with them now?”
A little tee-nincy voice raised up in the back of his mind and said: “Old Rameses is dead. Ta-Phar is dead. The set who bucked against you and hated you are dead. You know one time you were the idol of Egypt. The army still thinks you are the biggest man they ever made. Moses, you can go back to Egypt and be King. You can do even better than that. You can control the army which controls the King. The Voice told you to lead out and you have led out with a high hand. You have done your duty. The Israelites are out of Egypt and they are free. If they fall into slavery again somewhere else that’s none of your business. You set them free. Moses, there is Egypt right over there and the King is dead in the sea.”
Moses sat on the rock and thought back. He had sat on this rock when he fled from Pharaoh the first time and something had shown him clearly the futility of a life of war. Right on this rock he had forsworn the sword and glory. He got to his feet and looked earnestly at the camp for a while, then he said, “Which way, Lord, which way must I lead Your people?”
CHAPTER 30
The next morning everybody was around Moses’ tent soon after sunrise. Joshua couldn’t hold them back. “We just want to tell him what a great big man he is—bringing us off like that with his outstretched hand.”
Another one said, “Joshua, go on, call him out so we can tell him how we feel. It just came to us in the night that nobody ain’t thanked him yet. We was so excited yesterday on getting free and getting across the sea, that nobody ain’t bowed down and nobody ain’t turned him no thanks. Go wake him up, Joshua, so we can tell him.”
“Mighty sorry,” Joshua told them, “but I just can’t do it. Fact of the matter is, he ain’t asleep. He’s been up a long time talking with God.”
“With God?”
“Unhunh.”
“Tell me how he sounds when he’s talking with God.”
“I didn’t hear him. He goes off by himself to do that.”
“Well, well, well! Is Aaron off talking with God, too?”
“Nope, nobody can do that but Moses. God don’t talk to everybody that comes slew-footing down the road. You know, there ain’t but one Moses in the world. Never was one before and never will be one again.”
“Well, well, well. Reckon we’ll rock on down the road to the camp.”
“Ain’t you going to wait for him and tell him yourself?”
“Oh, no, you can just tell him for us. He ain’t in the notion of putting out no plagues or nothing, is he?”
“Oh, no, he wouldn’t be lifting his hand and stretching it out against us. He saves that for our enemies.”
“Oh, much obliged to you, Joshua. Some of us was kind of worried. We didn’t know if he might get us off and lift up that right hand and destroy us all.”
“Nothing like that at all. Nothing he likes better than to see us prosper. That’s what he led us out for, to better our condition from what it was.”
“And he sure Lord is done it, too. He’s a fine man, a noble man! He’s just like a lion. Look, Joshua, how about that thing he calls a cloud that moves in front of us in the daytime and that fiery thing at night—you reckon it’s harmful?”
“No harm in it at all. It wouldn’t harm a living soul. It’s just there for our guide and leader, so we can know our Lord is with us. Of course, I wouldn’t advise nobody to rush up to it and try to touch it. Stay your distance and it’s just all right.”
“I ’clare to my rest, Joshua, you sure is one smart young one. You done been round Moses so much till you talk just like him. Well, we’ll be getting on back to camp. Where we headed to from here?”
“Moses will tell you when he gets ready.”
The committee made their manners and went on back to their tents. They had found out what they came for—the intention of Moses towards Israel. Some feared him, and many doubted him. Thoughts had troubled many all night. They wanted some assurances.
But Moses was not talking with God as Joshua had said. Moses was down beside the sea gazing on the work of the waves.
The tide had strewn the beach with bodies. The dead bodies of the Egyptian soldiers were flung up along the shore in scores, flung helter-skelter like dolls.
Moses walked among them until he found the body of Ta-Phar, once Pharaoh of Egypt. As he looked down on the dead face, frozen in a gasp, he thought, “So powerful on one side of the Red Sea, so helpless on the other.”
Standing there, Moses was torn by the pitiful sight of all the sudden dead, for a moment, and then he reflected that he had saved them from a fate much worse. They could not have overcome his strategy and carried the Hebrews back, and to return without them would have ruined them all politically and cost them their lives in a much more painful manner. As it was they would be heroes. They had tried to recapture Egypt’s slaves and had lost their lives in the attempt.
Moses stooped and removed the great ring of state from Pharaoh’s drowned hand and studied it in his own palm. It brought all his thoughts of peace and power and he weighed it in his hand for a long time. Then it was no longer the key to the Egyptian palace to him. It was just so much gold, and so many gems. He thought of saving it for Jethro, then he smiled. Jethro wouldn’t give a fig for it for his own use. He thought how proud and happy Zipporah would be to own the royal ring of Egypt, and it grew to be a sinister thing.
“Only something to stir up ambition and create unhappiness,” Moses said out loud as he hurled it as far into the sea as he could. Then he hurried back to the camp and ordered the people to march.
And this was the way they formed to march: The stiff white billowy cloud first. Then Moses on his horse, then the tribe of Levi and the whole host of nearly two million people behind him. So Moses led and he led and he led in the general direction of Mount Sinai for three days and nights. Straight into the wilderness of Shur where there was next to no water and nothing to eat. It took him three days’ march to make a full camp so everybody could rest. Moses remembered the numerous wells, and springs he had seen in this vicinity when he passed through one time on a journey.
Soon as the people saw the water everybody went running to get a drink and to water their stock. Then they went to fussing and came running to Moses and crying:
“Moses, what you reckon we’re going to drink for water?”
“There’s plenty water round here, ain’t it? Why you come running to me?”
“Call it water if you want to. If it ain’t the nastiest and the bitterest stuff! Even my camel won’t drink it. What you mean by tolling us off from all that good water for, to drag us out here to die wanting water?”
The words and the ferocity with which they were spoken caused Moses to inhale deeply before he tried to speak.
“Do you really think I want anybody to die out here?”
“Well, if you didn’t, what did you bring us to any such of a God-forsaken place as this? Nobody don’t know what you got up your sleeve.”
“Let’s don’t talk about it any more. I’ll go out and sample the water. Maybe we can do something about it. Come on, Joshua, and go with me.”
Moses, with Joshua at his heels, went to the nearest stream to drink some of the water. People and beasts were lined up around every piece of water there was and every eye either accused Moses or pleaded with him to do something. Moses could feel the hostility in their eyes attacking his skin as he walked through the multitudes to the water. They watched him while he tasted it and spat it out. Some people laughed when he did it. Others began to wail, “’Tain’t no use! We’re bound to all die in this desert, with our tongues all parched out of our mouths. We just can’t make it to where good drinking water is. Maybe this is the way it was intended to be.”
A great clamor went on all the time that Moses stood with the dipper in his hand, taking a sip of water, wallowing it around in his mouth and spitting it out. Where had he tasted water like that before and what had been done about it? All of a sudden he remembered a scene in a distant waste where he had found nothing but bitter water to drink and then he remembered the traveler who looked like an Arab who had gone to a certain tree, broken off a branch and thrust it into the spring, and instantly the composition of the water was changed. It was not marvelous drinking water after that but it was very drinkable. If only he could find a tree like that around here now!