Moses, Man of the Mountain (19 page)

T
he 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!

So he told the people to make themselves comfortable for a few minutes. He had to go and question God. The people muttered and grumbled but there was nothing to do but wait. Moses walked off with Joshua and Aaron behind him and went walking in the woods. No more than a half an hour in the woods and Moses found a whole grove of the trees he was looking for. So he sent and had some tree-chopping done and sweetened the water. The people all drank and watered their stock and went to bed that night telling each other what a great man Moses was. He could even sweeten water that God had left bitter. There was no doubt about it, they had a great leader in front of them. Moses sat thinking, “Supposing I had not met that desert traveler way back yonder? Why was I chosen to lead these people instead of somebody else? They have revolted against me twice before we are fairly started on the journey. Why should I lead people whose ways are strange to me and who neither understand me nor trust me? How come, Voice?”

T
he next day bright and early Moses was on the march. He led on to Elim because he knew there were a dozen huge springs of water in a grove of seventy palms. Moses decided to camp three nights so that the stock could be well watered and eat the grass growing around there.

He was pleased to see everybody in good humor again. But inside he was lonesome for Jethro and his family and all day his thoughts were in Midian. He took one of the mixed people who had come out of Egypt with him and sent him off on a camel to find the land of the Kenites and tell Jethro what had happened.
*
Joshua felt hurt that he was not given such a confidential mission, but when Moses told him, “Son, there’s liable to be some fighting before long and young as you are, you are my man of war. I couldn’t do without you that long.”

Soon one morning, over the muttered protests of many who wanted to just stay on where they were, Moses struck camp and went. His road was roughly towards Mount Sinai and he meant to be there as soon as possible. When the people saw the holy mountain they were bound to believe in its God. They were bound to understand Him better. Maybe there, they would realize that they were really free people at last.
Now they acted like they knew they were free by ear but they couldn’t conceive of it. They did not believe they could take on any responsibility for themselves at all. They kept clamoring for somebody to act for them. But Moses had made up his mind to be patient until they should learn something. He was looking forward to Sinai and all it meant to him and them.

They struck out across the wilderness of Sin, and Moses marched them as hard as they could go to shorten both his time and his journey. To Moses, the quickest way to show the people to God and God to the hosts, was the best. Besides he hoped that his messenger had reached Jethro and that his friend and father would soon be meeting them somewhere along the way. So he led on across the barren waste called the Wilderness of Sin.

Joshua, mounted on a horse, rode up and down the line and passed out the orders as Moses gave them to him. While he was passing up and down and back and forth he would hear all that the people had to say and he let Moses know how they felt. So one night when the hosts were deep in the wilderness, he rode back and looked up Moses.

“The people are grumbling again,” he told Moses gloomily.

“What’s the matter this time?”

“They say they’re hungry. They talk about splitting off. Some of them done formed a committee.”

“Oh, they have, eh? Go tell ’em I say come here.”

When Joshua went and told the committee what Moses said, they got mad with him and told all about his big mouth and his slew feet before they got through. “You up there running your mouth to that man Moses, and get us all killed with some kind of a plague. You ain’t no good and you better quit lying on us, too.”

“But you said all I told him and more besides. If you are dissatisfied how come you don’t tell the man instead of doing all this talking and backbiting? He’s here to help us and that’s what he’s trying to do.”

“Listen at that long, tall young one that ain’t quit wetting
his diapers yet, trying to tell us what to do with our own mouths. Here we was talking before he was born and now he’s going to come along and tell us how to talk. Course, we did mention that we ain’t had nothing decent to eat since we been in this wilderness and that looks like this Moses ought to do better than he’s doing if he makes out he knows all about God and can get anything he wants, more specially since he went and drug us off from our good homes in Egypt. But that ain’t talking about nobody. That’s just saying.”

“Well, Moses is just saying that you come on up front and talk your big talk to him instead of to me and the rest of the people. And he’s sitting in his tent and he’s looking for you right now. Come on.”

“We’re going and see what he want with us, but don’t you be running up there putting out no lies on us no more, and we don’t mean no Joe more, we mean no blamed more.”

“I am the servant of Moses and his adopted son too, so don’t let me hear nothing you don’t want him to know. Anyhow, you all done talked this thing so much and so loud, till it’s funny for you to make out it’s any secret. I bet the folks way back in Egypt could hear your whooping and hollering for rations that you ain’t bought.”

“We ain’t supposed to buy nothing. Moses is supposed to look out for us and take care of us. We left our good homes in Egypt for his sake, didn’t we?”

“No. He wasn’t the one in slavery. His back wasn’t subject to no lash, you know. He was a Prince of the house of Pharaoh. He didn’t have to pay us no mind if he didn’t want to.”

“Humph! I ain’t saying nothing but there’s a bug under that chip.”

“Aw, don’t change so many words with me. Bug under that chip! Why you so suspicious? Don’t jaw at me. I ain’t the boss. Come on and tell Moses about it.”

Moses called Aaron to him. “Come on, Aaron, we got to sit on a case. The people are all hungry and mad.”

“I done heard all about it. They been griping me since yesterday.”

“You didn’t say nothing to me about it, Aaron.”

“Oh, it was just something that didn’t need much attention. I figgered I could handle it myself. I’d naturally understand ’em better than you.”

Moses didn’t say anything for a minute. He looked at Aaron’s face and he noticed the way he walked. His face looked like Ta-Phar’s. There was the look of weak brains and strong pride. And he walked like he was conscious of the envy of men. “A beggar on horseback,” Moses said to himself. “And first and last, something will have to be done about him.” Out loud he said, “Well, Aaron, whatever it was you did and said to ’em, it don’t seem to pacify ’em. Let’s take our seats under that big tree over there, so all them that wants to can come before us.”

So the committee of two hundred, selected from all of the tribes, came up to Moses and Aaron under the tree. “It’s no use for me to try to talk any high court language to these people. I might as well get right down with them, and you don’t need to talk for me anymore, Aaron. I’ll just talk to the people myself.” So when the people crowded up before the two men, Moses spoke to them as a Hebrew.

“Eh, eh!” one old crone exclaimed with pleasure. “Moses is getting so he talks our language just like we talk it ourselves.”

“Yeah, and the more Moses gets natural with us, the stiffer Aaron gets. He tries to sound like some high-toned Egyptian talking proper—when he don’t forget to do it.”

“And that’s what makes it funny—he forgets.”

“Yes, and Moses forgets too and goes back to talking his proper talk when he gets excited, too. I done took notice of that.”

Nobody answered right away because everybody waited for somebody else to talk first. Then all of a sudden somebody started to beat his breast and wail and the whole crowd took it up and wailed. They cried out, “I wish to God we had of died whilst we was back in Egypt. There we was sitting down every day to a big pot of meat and bread. If this God you done
got us mixed with just had to kill us, we sure wish He had of killed us down in Egypt on a full stomach. We don’t care if they did work us some. We would much rather die tired than to die hungry.”

“What makes you think you got to holler and cry about it?” Moses asked. “We’re assembled and gathered here to find out what you all are grumbling and mumbling about and do what we can about it. We didn’t come here to fuss and fight. Now what’s the matter?”

“Not to be so much trouble, but we’re hungry, boss.”

“I’m mighty sorry to hear that, folkses. I realize myself that rations are none too plentiful around here.”

“What we want to know is why you bring us off here where there ain’t a thing to eat.”

This put Moses on a deep thought and before he realized it he was thinking the thoughts and speaking the language of a cultivated man.

“I had the idea all along that you came out here hunting freedom. I didn’t know you were hunting a barbecue. Freedom looks like the biggest thing that God ever made to me, and being a little hungry for the sake of it ought not to stop you. Your wives and your children are your own now. I lift your eyes to the hills. I have been hungry a lot of times in places just like this, but I felt that getting what I went after was worth it, so I made myself satisfied. I found out want won’t kill you half as quick as worry will.”

“Where you get that good word from?” Aaron asked Moses in quick admiration.

“Oh, I don’t know exactly. Just from living, I reckon, Aaron.” Moses began to relax again. “Now you committeemen that’s standing before me, where do you all figure I was going to find enough groceries to feed all of you all?”

“That we don’t know and we figure it ain’t none of our business. You brought us out there, didn’t you? We want to know if this powerful God you talk about is here amongst us or if He ain’t.”

Moses was irritated but he tried not to show it. He took a long breath before he spoke.

“Well, if going a little hungry for your own sake is such a worry to you I’ll have to do something about it. Go tell the people they are going to get bread and it’s going to be bread from heaven. This evening the Lord is going to send you meat and meat a-plenty. Tomorrow morning, go look on the ground anywhere around here and pick up the bread to go with it. You are bound to hear some more qualifications about that bread later on. I’ll send it out by my helpers. Now all of you go on about your business and let me think awhile.”

So that’s how the people had the great feast of quail that night and manna in the morning. Ten million quail came and lit all over the camp and the people caught them and quail meat was boiling so that they could smell it clear back to the Red Sea. Then the next morning they went out soon and early to pick up bread. They never had seen any bread like that. It wasn’t a loaf and it wasn’t rolls and it wasn’t pone bread and it wasn’t hoe-cake. It was in grains like seeds. So the people looked at it and called it manna because they didn’t know what else to call it. Manna was a word that didn’t mean anything in particular anyhow, so they called the grains of bread by that name. They ate aplenty of quail and manna and in the cool of the evening they sat around and said that they knew that was a mighty good God that took up with them, and Moses was a fine man to come tell them about it.

When they praised Moses to his face, he merely said to Aaron, “Gather up a peck of that manna and put it on the altar for a souvenir to remember by. Nobody ever saw this kind of bread before, and nobody is going to see any more after this journey is over. Save some so your great-grandchildren will know what happened out here. They ought to know what dangers threatened us and how they were met.”

Moses himself felt lonely and yearned for Jethro and his family. He felt more like an alien than he ever had felt in his life. But the mountain spoke to him from afar, and he answered it in his heart. And his worries and troubles shed off
without really touching him because there was Sinai ahead. Here the people would find peace, God and a perfect understanding. These people were blind. It wouldn’t do to mock them and leave them. He must put them on the right road. That was his difficult mission.

When they camped at Rephidim, several days’ march closer to Sinai, and found that there was no water there, the committee did not wait on Moses respectfully. They rushed up to him with threatening gestures and told him, “Give us some water to drink, man. We ain’t for no foolishness today. One time it’s nasty water that not even a hog could drink. Then we ain’t got nothing to eat. Now we ain’t got no water at all. What kind of a leader is you anyhow?”

Moses said calmly, “You ain’t talking to me, you know. It wasn’t my idea to bring you out of Egypt. Your God commanded me to bring you. Go talk to Him. But I’m telling you now your attitude is a temptation to God to punish you, and punish you to death.”

Nevertheless Moses went on off and talked with God. He said to Him, “Do you see these people of yours would just as soon stone me as not? What must I do about it?”

Then Moses saw an inner vision of a strong stream of clear water surging inside the cliff on the hillside. So he called the committee to him and touched the cliffside with his rod and the fountain of water gushed forth. While the people and the cattle drank, Moses called Joshua to him and told him, “Get me a stone and mark it with a new name for this place. We done had such a big fuss here that the name of the place got to be something that fits the case. From now on, the name of this place is Massah, which means a big fuss.”

Joshua told Moses, “I sure will attend to that first thing in the morning, but I got a message for you.”

“What is it, Joshua? It must be serious from the look on your face.”

“It is, Moses. The Amalekites, those folks who live on the other side of the ridge, aim to jump on us for a fight.”

“I was afraid of that. When do they aim to strike?”

“Oh, in a day or so. They are sending out for their kinfolks and friends to come and help fight. As soon as they get here they mean to beat us and to take our stuff.”

“Joshua, we are going to fight ’em tomorrow morning from sun-up on. Go get out all the fighting men we got right now.”

“You don’t think I’m too young for the men to follow me?”

“No. That makes no difference. Young or old men will follow you if you got that something to make ’em willing. You are going to be one of the great men of arms, watch my word. This will be good practice for you and it will be good for the people. Once they win a battle it will tend to lift up their heads. Now they are scared of everything and they think nothing is scared of them. They need to win something.

“Right now these Israelites are just like a passel of rabbits. You know, Joshua, one time the rabbits all met together in a convention and decided to kill themselves because nothing looked up to them and nothing was scared of them. So they all headed for the river to drown themselves. They hopped like an army down to the river bank. But just before they got to the river there was a marsh that the rabbits had to cross and while they were crossing it they ran over some frogs and the frogs hopped up crying, ‘Quit it! Quit it!’ So the rabbits said to one another, ‘Those frogs are scared of us. We don’t need to kill ourselves no more because something in the world is scared of us. Let’s go on back home.’ So they went on home happy again. Now that is just what the Israelites need—a victory. They just come out of slavery where they’ve been stomped down and trampled on. So we got to fight them Amalekites, and, Joshua, we got to win. If we don’t these people will go to pieces and all our hard work will be undone. We got to win tomorrow. Joshua, for them.”