The midnight heavens, decked with countless stars, spanned with their
cloudless azure vault the flat plains of the eastern Delta and the city
of Succoth, called by the Egyptians, from their sanctuary, the place of
the god Tum, or Pithom.
The March night was drawing toward its end, pallid mists floated over
the canal, the work of Hebrew bondmen which, as far as the eye could
reach, intersected the plain, watering the fields and pastures along its
course.
Eastward and southward the sky was shrouded by dense veils of mist that
rose from the large lakes and from the narrow estuaries that ran far up
into the isthmus. The hot and dusty desert wind, which the day before
had swept over the parched grass and the tents and houses of Succoth,
had subsided at nightfall; and the cool atmosphere which in March, even
in Egypt, precedes the approach of dawn, made itself felt.
Whoever had formerly entered, between midnight and morning, the humble
frontier hamlet with its shepherd tents, wretched hovels of Nile mud,
and by no means handsome farms and dwellings, would scarcely
have recognized it now. Even the one noticeable building in the
place--besides the stately temple of the sungod Turn--the large
fortified store-house, presented at this hour an unfamiliar aspect.
Its long white-washed walls, it is true, glimmered through the gloom as
distinctly as ever, but instead of towering--as usual at this time--mute
and lifeless above the slumbering town--the most active bustle was going
on within and around it. It was intended also as a defense against the
predatory hordes of the Shasu,
[Bedouins, who dwelt as nomads in the desert adjacent to Egypt, now
regarded as part of Asia.]
who had made a circuit around the fortified works on the isthmus, and
its indestructible walls contained an Egyptian garrison, who could
easily defend it against a force greatly superior in numbers.
To-day it looked as if the sons of the desert had assailed it; but the
men and women who were bustling about below and on the broad parapet of
the gigantic building were Hebrews, not Shasu. With loud outcries and
gesticulations of delight they were seizing the thousands of measures
of wheat, barley, rye, and durra, the stores of pulse, dates, and onions
they found in the well-filled granaries, and even before sunset had
begun to empty the store-rooms and put their contents into sacks, pails,
and skins, trays, jugs, and aprons, which were let down by ropes or
carried to the ground on ladders.
The better classes took no share in this work, but among the busy
throng, spite of the lateness of the hour, were children of all ages,
carrying away in pots, jugs, and dishes-borrowed from their mothers’
cooking utensils--as much as they could.
Above, beside the unroofed openings of the storerooms, into which the
stars were shining, and also at the foot of the ladders, women held
torches or lanterns to light the others at their toil.
Pans of blazing pitch were set in front of the strong locked doors of
the real fortress, and in their light armed shepherds were pacing to
and fro. When heavy stones or kicks belabored the brazen-bound door from
within, and threats were uttered in the Egyptian tongue, the Hebrews
outside did not fail to retort in words of mockery and scorn.
On the day of the harvest festival, during the first evening watch,
runners arrived at Succoth and announced to the Israelites, whose
numbers were twenty-fold greater than those of the Egyptians, that they
had quitted Tanis in the morning and the tribes intended to leave at
night; their kindred in Succoth must be ready to go forth with them.
There was great rejoicing among the Hebrews, who like those of their
blood in the city of Rameses, had assembled in every house at a festive
repast on the night of the new moon after the vernal equinox when the
harvest festival usually began. The heads of the tribes had informed
them that the day of liberation had arrived, and the Lord would lead
them into the Promised Land.
Here, too, as in Tanis, many had been faint-hearted and rebellious, and
others had endeavored to separate their lot from the rest and remain
behind; but here, too, they were carried away by the majority. Eleasar,
the son of Aaron, and the distinguished heads of the tribe of Judah, Hur
and Naashon, had addressed the multitude, as Aaron and Nun had done in
the city of Rameses. But Miriam, the virgin, the sister of Moses, had
gone from house to house, everywhere awakening the fire of enthusiasm in
men’s hearts, and telling the women that the morrow’s sun would usher
in for them and their children a new day of happiness, prosperity, and
freedom.
Few had been deaf to the appeals of the prophetess; there was an air of
majesty, which compelled obedience, in the bearing of this maiden, whose
large black eyes, surmounted by heavy dark eye-brows, which met in the
middle, pierced the hearts of those on whom her gaze was bent and seemed
to threaten the rebellious with their gloomy radiance.
The members of every household went to rest after the festival with
hearts uplifted and full of hope. But what a change had passed over them
during the second day, the night that followed it, and the next morning!
It seemed as though the desert wind had buried all their courage and
confidence in the dust it swept before it. The dread of going forth to
face an unknown future had stolen into every heart, and many a man who
had waved his staff full of trust and joyful enterprise was now held, as
if with clamps and fetters, to his well-tilled garden, the home of
his ancestors, and the harvest in the fields, which had just been half
gathered.
The Egyptian garrison in the fortified store-house had not failed to
notice that the Hebrews were under some special excitement, but they
supposed it due to the harvest festival. The commander of the garrison
had learned that Moses desired to lead his people into the wilderness to
offer sacrifices to their God, and had asked for a reinforcement. But he
knew nothing more; for until the morning when the desert wind blew, no
Hebrew had disclosed the plans of his kindred. But the more sorely the
heat of the day oppressed them, the greater became the dread of the
faint-hearted of the pilgrimage through the hot, dusty, waterless
desert. The terrible day had given them a foretaste of what was
impending and when, toward noon, the dust grew thicker, the air more
and more oppressive, a Hebrew trader, from whom the Egyptian soldiers
purchased goods, stole into the store-house to ask the commander to
prevent his people from rushing to their doom.
Even among the leaders the voices of malcontents had grown loud. Asarja
and Michael, with their sons, who grudged the power of Moses and
Aaron, had even gone from one to another to try to persuade them, ere
departing, to summon the elders again and charge then to enter into
fresh negotiations with the Egyptians. While these malcontents were
successfully gathering adherents, and the traitor had sought the
commander of the Egyptian garrison, two more messengers arrived with
tidings that the fugitives would arrive in Succoth between midnight and
morning.
Breathless, speechless, dripping with perspiration, and with bleeding
lips, the elder messenger sank on the threshold of Amminadab’s house,
now the home of Miriam also. Both the exhausted men were refreshed with
wine and food, ere the least wearied was fully capable of speech. Then,
in a hoarse voice, but from a heart overflowing with gratitude and
ardent enthusiasm, he reported the scenes which had occurred at the
exodus, and how the God of their fathers had filled every heart with His
spirit, and instilled new faith into the souls of the cowards.
Miriam had listened to this story with sparkling eyes; at its close she
flung her veil over her head and bade the servants of the household, who
had assembled around the messengers, to summon the whole Hebrew people
under the sycamore, whose broad summit, the growth of a thousand years,
protected a wide space of earth from the scorching sunbeams.
The desert wind was still blowing, but the glad news seemed to have
destroyed the baneful power it exerted on man, and when many hundreds
of people had flocked together under the sycamore, Miriam had given her
hand to Eleasar, the son of her brother Aaron, sprung upon the bench
which rested against the huge hollow trunk of the tree, raised her
hands and eyes toward heaven in an ecstasy, and began in a loud voice
to address a prayer to the Lord, as if she beheld him with her earthly
vision.
Then she permitted the messenger to speak, and when the latter again
described the events which had occurred in the city of Rameses, and then
announced that the fugitives from Tanis would arrive in a few hours,
loud shouts of joy burst from the throng. Eleasar, the son of Aaron,
proclaimed with glowing enthusiasm what the Lord had done for his people
and had promised to them, their children, and children’s children.
Each word from the lips of the inspired speaker fell upon the hearts
of the Hebrews like the fresh dew of morning on the parched grass. The
trusting hearers pressed around him and Miriam with shouts of joy, and
the drooping courage of the timorous appeared to put forth new wings.
Asarja, Michael, and their followers no longer murmured, nay, most of
them had been infected by the general enthusiasm, and when a Hebrew
mercenary stole out from the garrison of the store-house and disclosed
what had been betrayed to his commander, Eleasar, Naashon, Hur, and
others took counsel together, gathered all the shepherds around them,
and with glowing words urged them to show in this hour that they were
men indeed and did not fear, with their God’s mighty aid, to fight for
their people and their liberty.
There was no lack of axes, clubs, sickles, brazen spears, heavy staves,
slings, the shepherds’ weapons of defence against the wild beasts of the
desert, or bows and arrows, and as soon as a goodly number of strong men
had joined him, Hur fell upon the Egyptian overseers who were watching
the labor of several hundred Hebrew slaves. Shouting: “They are coming!
Down with the oppressors! The Lord our God is our leader!” they rushed
upon the Lybian warders, put them to rout, and released their
fellows who were digging the earth, and laying bricks. As soon as the
illustrious Naashon had pressed one of the oldest of these hapless men
like a brother to his heart, the other liberated bondsmen had flung
themselves into the shepherds’ arms and thus, still shouting: “They are
coming!” and “The Lord, the God of our fathers, is our leader!” they
pressed forward in an increasing multitude. When at last the little band
of shepherds had grown to a body of several thousand men, Hur led them
against the Egyptian soldiers, whom they largely outnumbered.
The Egyptian bowmen had already discharged a shower of arrows, and
stones hurled from the slings of the powerful shepherds had dealt fatal
wounds in the front ranks of the foe, when the blast of a trumpet rang
out, summoning the garrison of the fortress behind the sloping walls and
solid door. The Hebrews seemed to the commander too superior a force to
fight, but duty required him to hold the fort until the arrival of the
reinforcements he had requested.
Hur, however, had not been satisfied with his first victory. Success
had kindled the courage of his followers, as a sharp gust of wind fans
a smouldering fire, and wherever an Egyptian showed himself on the
battlements of the store-house, the round stone from a shepherd’s sling
struck heavily upon him. At Naashon’s bidding ladders had been brought
and, in the twinkling of an eye, hundreds climbed up the building from
every direction and, after a short, bloodless struggle, the granaries
fell into the Hebrews’ hands, though the Egyptians had succeeded in
still retaining the fort. During the passage of these events the desert
wind had subsided. Some of the liberated bondsmen, furious with rage,
had heaped straw, wood, and faggots against the gate of the courtyard
into which the Egyptians had been forced. It would have been a light
task for the assailants to destroy every one of their foes by fire;
but Hur, Naashon, and other prudent leaders had not suffered this to be
done, lest the provisions still in the store-rooms should be burned.
It had been no easy matter, in truth, to deter the younger of the
ill-treated bondsmen from this act of vengeance; but each one was a
member of some family, and when Hur’s admonitions were supported by
those of the fathers and mothers, they not only allowed themselves to
be pacified, but aided the elders to distribute the contents of the
magazines among the heads of families and pack them on the beasts of
burden and into the carts which were to accompany the fugitives.
The work went forward amid the broad glare of torches, and became a new
festival; for neither Hur, Naashon, nor Eleasar could prevent the men
and women from opening the wine-jars and skins. They succeeded, however,
in preserving the lion’s share of the precious booty for a time of need,
and thus averted much drunkenness, though the spirit of the grape-juice
and the pleasure in obtaining so rich a prize doubtless enhanced the
grateful excitement of the throng. When Eleasar finally went among them
for the second time to tell them of the Promised Land, men and women
listened with uplifted hearts, and joined in the hymn Miriam began to
sing.
Devout enthusiasm now took possession of every heart in Succoth, as it
had done in Tanis during the hour that preceded the exodus, and when
seventy Hebrew men and women, who had concealed themselves in the temple
of Turn, heard the jubilant hymn, they came forth into the open air,
joined the others, and packed their possessions with as much glad
hopefulness and warm trust in the God of their fathers, as if they had
never shrunk from the departure.
As the stars sank lower in the heavens, the joyous excitement increased.
Men and women thronged the road to Tanis to meet their approaching
kindred. Many a father led his boy by the hand, and many a mother
carried her child in her arms; the multitude drawing near contained
numerous beloved relatives to be greeted, and the coming dawn could not
fail to bring solemn hours of which one would wish no beloved heart to
be deprived, and which would linger in the souls of the little ones till
they themselves had children and grandchildren.
No bed in tent, hovel, or house was occupied; for everywhere the
final packing was going on. The throng of workers at the granaries had
lessened; most of them were now supplied with as much food as they could
carry.
Men and women equipped for travelling lay around fires hurriedly lighted
in front of many tents and houses, and in the larger farms shepherds
were driving the cattle and slaughtering the oxen and sheep which were
unable to go with the people. The blows of axes and hammers and the
creaking of saws were heard in front of many a house; for litters to
transport the sick and feeble must be made. Carts and wains were still
to be loaded, and the heads of families had a hard task with the women;
for a woman’s heart often clings more closely to things apparently
worthless than to those of the greatest value. When the weaver Rebecca
was more eager to find room in the cart for the rude cradle in which her
darling had died, than for the beautiful ebony chest inlaid with ivory
an Egyptian had pawned to her husband, who could blame her?
Light shone from all the window openings and tent doors, while from the
roofs of the largest houses the blaze of torches or lanterns greeted the
approaching Hebrews.
At the banquet served on the night of the harvest festival, no table had
lacked a roast lamb; during this hour of waiting the housewife offered
her family what she could.
The narrow streets of the humble little town were full of active life,
and never had the setting stars shone upon features so cheerful, eyes
sparkling so brightly with enthusiasm, and faces so transfigured by hope
and devout piety.