The Deliverer (22 page)
“Why don’t you tell me how it helps my cause if some of the slaves die of old age in the desert?”
Now I really forced myself to think deeply. What had caused Satan to hate the Israelites to start with? Hadn’t he always tried to kill them? Yes, but why? I forced myself to remember. As the memories came rushing back, it was like being there again. Why, of course. How could I forget? It started in the garden when Satan tricked Adam and Eve. In my mind I could hear the voice of God all over again. It was that day when He cursed Satan.
“The seed of the woman shall crush your head.” I wouldn’t dare say it out loud, but that must be it. As long as even one of the Israelites remained alive, it didn’t matter how many were dead. He hated them all but feared only one. But which one? I scrambled for words to answer him without suggesting he might be afraid of the Israelites.
“I just thought, you know, the more we eliminate, the fewer you have to worry about.” I knew
worry
was the wrong word the moment it crossed my quivering lips. I tried quickly to recover.
“Not that you’re worried; nothing like that. I just meant they wouldn’t be crossing over into Canaan to cause any trouble.”
I swear he changed colors right there in front of me. Not a different color entirely, more like a deeper shade of the color he was. Saying nothing, he turned and walked back to his throne, where he stood for a moment before turning around sharply and sitting down. He leaned toward me and motioned for me to come closer with the crooked digitlike appendage on the end of his claw.
I was so afraid I could barely move, but I forced myself to inch closer to him.
“I want you to listen to me.”
“Of course, sir. I hang on your every word.”
“Shut up. Just shut up and listen to me. I do not want to have this conversation again. Do you understand me?”
I nodded but dared not speak.
“Dead Jews do not help me. How long they wander in the desert or how long they live or how many there are is of no interest to me. None. Zilch. Zero. Do you understand that?”
No, I didn’t, but I managed to nod that I did.
“I wanted them to cross over to Canaan; the sooner the better. I do not care about their bodies. I want their souls. I want their worship. I want them to abandon God the way a frustrated wife leaves her husband for her lover. I want God to hurt for them, long for them, pine for them as He watches them come to me in unabashed worship. I want Him to watch as I ravish them. I cannot seduce them in the desert. They must cross over into my … boudoir.” He laughed wildly.
I was feeling queasy as I processed what he was saying.
“But now look what you’ve done,” he said.
“I’VE DONE?” I screamed the words but kept them from leaving my throat by swallowing them and biting down hard on my tongue. Didn’t I say if things went wrong it would be my fault? I thought things had gone right, and it was still my fault.
“If you had done your job correctly, they would be crossing over instead of turning back to the desert.”
“My job is to watch and report. I don’t cause anything to happen,” I wanted to shout.
“What do you suppose is going to happen to them while they wander in the desert for forty years?” I knew it was rhetorical question, so I looked at the floor as if at a loss for words, which was mostly the case.
“Let me tell you what will happen. They will get stronger. God will pay more attention to detail with them. He will instruct them in every aspect of life. He will leave nothing to chance. It will give Moses time to designate a successor and to train him. When they cross over, it will be harder to seduce them.”
Joshua
, I thought but did not give any hint that I knew who it would be.
“Now, get out of my sight. Watch them every minute of every day for the forty years. Miss nothing, and do not come back until the time of the transfer of the mantle. You are of no value to me until that time.”
My wings were limp and dragging on the floor as I trudged slowly out of the throne room. Why did I feel so dejected? Certainly Satan never had any affection for me—or anyone else—so it wasn’t like I’d been suddenly spurned. Why did I care whether he thought I was of value or not? My service to him was always a matter of my existence, not my devotion. I hated him. He was the reason for all of my misery, all of my loss. He was the destroyer of my purpose. It made no sense that I felt discarded as some worthless thing. He had always treated me as worthless. What was wrong with me?
I managed to drag myself to my perch and crawl up on it, letting my limp wings dangle on either side to keep me from falling off. I didn’t have the strength to hold myself erect. To have been rejected by God was more pain that I thought I could bear. But to be rejected by Satan, the sum of all that is evil, corrupt, and distorted, confirmed my worst fear.
I no longer existed.
I
T DIDN’T TAKE
me long to get over myself and realize that Satan’s opinion of me had nothing whatsoever to do with my value. I was glad to be exiled from his presence for the forty years the Israelites were sentenced to meander in the desert. He had been right about one thing, however. God did use the wandering as a time to have Moses give the Israelites a remedy for every eventuality of life. I watched faithfully for decades, but after a while I lost interest. Besides, once the trek was over and I would be called back in before His Awfulness to report, he wouldn’t care anything about how many rules God had given them. Satan wanted to know one thing: when was the handoff coming between Moses and Joshua.
I planned to use most of the years to work on my brief to present before God and the heavenly court so I would be ready when my day came. Every year I gathered more and more evidence of the disparity between how God treated humanity versus the angels. I just knew that before an impartial court, the evidence would call for my case to be reopened. I could provide thousands of instances when humans committed grievous sin worthy of death only to have God intervene and find a way to let them off the hook. Before a heavenly court, His partiality to you people would surely work to my benefit—at least, I told myself it would.
It’s amazing how fast forty years can pass by. When I realized what time it was, I knew I had to check on the earth to see how near the Israelites were to the finish line. When I saw them stopped near the border at Canaan gathering around the place where Moses was, I took off immediately. Just as I suspected, Moses was giving his farewell speech to the people.
“I command you today: Love God. Walk in His ways. Keep His commandments, regulations, and rules so that you will live blessed by Him in the land you are about to enter and possess.”
“We will,” the people said.
Moses didn’t look convinced. “But I warn you, if you have a change of heart, refuse to listen obediently, and willfully go off to serve and worship other gods, you will most certainly die. You won’t last long in the land.”
“You don’t have to worry about us,” they assured him.
“Well, good, then.” Moses was still not convinced his words were hitting home. “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today. I place before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life so that you and your children will live. And love God, listening obediently to Him, firmly embracing Him.”
“We got it,” they shouted.
“Sure you do,” I added silently.
Finally, someone in the crowd realized this was not a training session but a good-bye speech.
“Wait a minute, Moses. You make it sound like you’re not going in with us.”
“I’m one hundred twenty years old today. I can’t get around like I used to. And besides, God told me I wasn’t going to cross the Jordan with you due to a misunderstanding on my part about how to get water from rocks. Anyway, God will cross the river ahead of you and destroy the nations in your path so that you may dispossess them. Joshua will lead you now.”
“But Joshua is untested,” another called out.
“How can you say that? Joshua’s proved his mettle these forty years. He’s served me faithfully, and God will be with him as He was with me.”
Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him with all Israel watching, “Be strong. Take courage. You will enter the land with this people. You will make them the proud possessors of it. God is striding ahead of you, and He won’t let you down. Don’t be intimidated. Don’t worry.”
Moses didn’t look worried, but Joshua did. Promotion from within is the riskiest way up the ladder. The people watched Joshua “grow up,” so to speak, and knew every mistake he ever made. Joshua, on the other hand, had watched the people and knew how likely they were to duck and run at the first sign of opposition.
Then God whispered to Moses, “You are about to die. Bring Joshua quickly to the tent of meeting so I can commission him.”
“Well, that’s it, then.” Moses took Joshua by the arm and turned to go. “Meeting adjourned.”
God was waiting for them in the tent in a pillar of cloud. In a tender voice, He said to Moses, “You’re about to die and be buried with your ancestors.”
Now, to my mind, this would have been the place to end the conversation. Spirit the old guy off to wherever it is you humans go when you die; let him pass in peace. Moses was ready, standing there with outstretched arms and closed eyes before the pillar of cloud. It sort of ruined the mood when God decided to keep on talking.
“You’ll no sooner be in the grave than this people will be up and searching after the foreign gods of this country that they are entering. They will abandon Me and violate My covenant that I’ve made with them. I’ll get so angry I’ll walk off and leave them on their own and won’t so much as look back at them. Then many calamities and disasters will devastate them because they are defenseless.”
“What?” Moses asked as he dropped his arms and opened his eyes.
“What?” I echoed. Really, why was God dropping all this on Moses on his retirement day?
“Don’t think I don’t know what they are already scheming, and they’re not even in the land yet.”
“I thought we were here to commission Joshua,” Moses replied.
“Right, we are.”
Moses summoned Joshua to come and kneel down as God spoke His blessing over him.
“Be strong. Take courage. You will lead the people of Israel into the land I promised to give them. And I’ll be right there with you.”
Moses closed his eyes again and stretched out his arms in obvious expectation of taking off, but no go. No chariot swinging low, no angels singing, no heaven opening up … nothing. He opened one eye to see if God was still there. He was.
“Was there something else You wanted, Lord?” Moses opened the other eye.
“I’ve got a few more things to say to the children of Israel.”
“Can’t Joshua say it?”
“No, I want you to tell them so they’ll know I’m serious.”
Moses sighed, looked around for something to write with, and then plopped himself down on a pillow on the floor.
“OK, go.”
God began to dictate an entire new set of warnings and admonishments and told Moses to take them to the priests to put in the ark. When Moses entered the tent where the priests were, they were startled, to say the least.
“You’re back?”
“I haven’t left yet. I know what rebels these people are and how stubborn and willful they can be. Even today, while I’m still alive and present with them, they’re thinking rebellious thoughts against God. How much worse is it going to be when I’ve died?”
“Does that mean you’re not leaving?” the chief priest asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous; gather the leaders of the tribes and the officials here. I have something I need to say directly to them with heaven and earth as witnesses, and then I’m out of here.”
So, the priests hurried out and did as Moses had commanded them. It was a little difficult to get the people to assemble again. You know how it is when a crowd disperses, but when they heard Moses had something else to say to them, they hurried up. As soon as they were gathered, Moses began speaking.
“I know that after I die you’re going to make a mess of things, abandoning the way I commanded, inviting all kinds of evil consequences in the days ahead. You’re determined to do evil in defiance of God, deliberately provoking His anger by what you will do.”
“How can you say that?”
“It would never cross our minds to do such a thing.”
“Never mind,” Moses interrupted. “Pay attention; I’m going to teach you this little song.”
“What?” they asked in unison.
Odd as it may sound, that is just what Moses did. All those words he was writing down as God dictated were a song the people were to learn before Moses could die. Why, you may ask. The only explanation I can offer is that your race seems to be able to remember anything you can sing. How many times have you seen a grown person singing the “ABCs” because it’s the only way he can remember that
j
comes before
k
.
When Moses had finished teaching the words of the song to the people of Israel, he said, “Take to heart all these words to which I give witness today, and urgently command your children to put them into practice. This is no small matter for you; it’s your life. In keeping this word you’ll have a good and happy future in this land that you’re crossing the Jordan to possess.”
Moses rolled up the scroll and handed it to the priests, and then he turned to walk back toward the tent of meeting. I followed close behind because I knew God would be there, and I wanted to hear whether He planned a surprise ending in which He would forgive Moses’s one and only sin and let him enter the Promised Land. After all, He had forgiven people for a whole lot more than what Moses did. I loved a happy ending and just knew this was going to be one. Besides, if God changed His mind about Moses’s punishment, it would be more ammunition for my legal brief. Everything was hushed as God spoke from the cloud.
“Climb the Abarim Range to Mount Nebo in the land of Moab, overlooking Jericho, and view the land of Canaan that I’m giving the people of Israel to have and to hold. Die on the mountain, and join your people. This is because you broke faith with Me in the company of the people of Israel at the waters of Meribah Kadesh in the Desert of Zin. You didn’t honor My holy presence in the company of the people.”