horsemen, and he would have cast himself into the Nile; but Gabriel
stayed him, declared who he was, mounted him on the fiery cherub, and
they crossed the Nile on his back.
There stood Moses, who, when he saw Aaron, exclaimed, “Truth is come,
Falsehood is passed.” Now this was the sign that God had given to
Moses, “_Behold he cometh to meet thee._”[489] And they rejoiced over
each other.
But another account is this: Moses entered Memphis with his sheep,
during the night. Now Amram was dead, but his wife Jochebed was alive.
When Moses reached the door, Jochebed was awake. He knocked at the
door; then she opened, but knew him not, and asked, “Who art thou?”
He answered, “I am a man from a far country; I pray thee lodge me, and
give me to eat this night.”
She took him in, and brought him some meat, and said to Aaron, “Sit
down and eat with the guest, to do him honor.” Aaron, in eating
conversed with Moses and recognized him.
Then the mother and sister knew him also. And when the meal was over,
Moses acquitted himself of his mission to Aaron, and Aaron answered, “I
will obey the will of God.”[490]
Moses spent the night, and the whole of the following day, in relating
to his mother the things that had befallen him.
And on the second night, Moses and Aaron went forth to Pharoah’s
palace. Now the palace had four hundred doors, a hundred on each side,
and each door was guarded by sixty thousand fighting men. The angel
Gabriel came to them and led them into the palace, but not by the doors.
When they appeared before Pharoah they said: “God hath sent us unto
thee, to bid thee let the Hebrews go, that they may hold a feast in the
wilderness.”
But Pharoah said, “_Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to
let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go._”[491]
Tabari tells a different story. Moses and Aaron sought admittance
during two years. Now Pharoah gave himself out to be a god.
But Moses and Aaron, when they spake at the door with the porters,
said, “He is no god.” One day the jester of Pharoah heard his master
read the history of his own life, and when he came to the passage which
asserted he was a god, the jester exclaimed, “Now this is strange!
For two years there have been two strangers at thy gate denying thy
divinity.”
When Pharoah heard this, he was in a fury, and he sent and had Moses
and Aaron brought before him.
But to return to the Rabbinic tale. Moses and Aaron were driven out
from the presence of Pharoah; and he said, “Who admitted these men?”
And some of the porters he slew, and some he scourged.
Then two lionesses were placed before the palace to protect it, and the
beasts suffered no man to enter unless Pharoah gave the word.
And the Lord spake to Moses and Aaron, saying, “When Pharoah talketh
with you, saying, Give us a miracle, thou shalt say to Aaron, Take
thy rod and cast it down, and it shall become a basilisk serpent; for
all the inhabitants of the earth shall hear the voice of the shriek
of Egypt when I destroy it, as all creatures heard the shriek of the
serpent when I stripped it, and took from it its legs and made it lick
the dust after the Fall.”[492]
On the morrow, Moses and Aaron came again to the king’s palace, and the
lionesses would have devoured them. Then Moses raised his staff, and
their chains brake, and they followed him, barking like dogs, into the
house.[493]
When Moses and Aaron stood before the king, Aaron cast down the rod
before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a serpent, which
opened its jaws, and it laid one jaw beneath the throne, and its upper
jaw was over the canopy above it; then the servants fled from before
it, and Pharaoh hid himself beneath his throne, and the fear it caused
him gave him bowel-complaint for a week. Now before this Pharaoh was
only moved once a week, and this was the occasion of his being lifted
up with pride, and giving himself out to be a god.[494]
Pharaoh cried out from under the throne, “O Moses, take hold of the
serpent, and I will do what you desire.”[495]
Moses took hold of the serpent, and it became a rod in his hands. Then
Pharaoh crawled out from under his throne, and sat down upon it. And
Moses put his hand into his bosom, and when he drew it forth, it shone
like the moon.
The king sent for his magicians, and the chief of these were Jannes and
Jambres. He told them what Moses had done.
They said, “We can turn a thousand rods into serpents.”
Then the king named a day when Moses and Aaron on one side should
strive with Jannes and Jambres[496] and all the magicians on the other;
and he gave them a month to prepare for the contest.
On the day appointed--it was Pharaoh’s birthday--all the inhabitants
of Memphis were assembled in a great plain outside the city, where
lists were staked out, and the royal tent was spread for the king to
view the contest.
Moses and Aaron stood on one side and the magicians on the other.
The latter said, “Shall we cast our rods, or will you?”
Moses answered, “Do you cast your rods first.”
Then the magicians threw down a hundred ass-loads of rods, tied the
rods together with cords, and by their enchantment caused them to
appear to the spectators like serpents, leaping and darting from one
side of the arena to the other.
And all the people were filled with fear, and the magicians said, “We
have this day triumphed over Moses.”
Then the prophet of God cast his rod before Pharaoh, and it became a
mighty serpent. It rolled its tail round the throne of the king, and it
shot forth its head, and swallowed all the rods of the enchanters, so
that there remained not one.
After that all had disappeared, Moses took the serpent, and it became a
rod in his hand again, but all the rods of the magicians had vanished.
And when the magicians saw the miracle that Moses had wrought, they
were converted, and worshipped the true God. But Pharaoh cut off their
hands and feet, and crucified them; and they died. Pharaoh’s own
daughter Maschita believed; and the king in his rage did not spare her,
but cast her into a fire, and she was burnt. Bithia was also denounced
to him, and she was condemned to the flames, but the angel Gabriel
delivered her. The Mussulmans say that he consoled her by telling her
that she would become the wife of Mohammed in Paradise, after which he
gave her to drink, and when she had tasted, she died without pain.
Then Moses and Aaron met Pharaoh in the morning as he went by the side
of the river, and Moses said to the king, “_The Lord of the Hebrews
hath sent me unto thee, saying, Let My people go, that they may serve
Me in the wilderness_.”
But Pharaoh would not hearken to him. Then Aaron stretched out his rod
over the river, and it became blood.
All the water that was in the vessels also became blood, even the
spittle that was in the mouth of the Egyptians. The Rabbi Levi said
that by this means the Israelites realized large fortunes; for if an
Israelite and an Egyptian went together to the Nile to fetch water,
the vessel of the Egyptian was found to contain blood, but that of the
Israelite pure water; but if an Israelite brought water to the house of
an Egyptian and sold it, it remained water.[497]
But Pharaoh’s heart was hard; and seven days passed, after that the
Lord had smitten the river.
Then went Moses and Aaron to him. But the four hundred doors of the
palace were guarded by bears, lions, and other savage beasts, so that
none might pass, till they were satisfied with flesh. But Moses and
Aaron came up, collected them together, drew a circle round them with
the sacred staff, and the wild beasts licked the feet of the prophets
and followed them into the presence of Pharaoh.[498]
Moses and Aaron repeated this message to Pharaoh, but he would not
hearken to them, but drove them from his presence. Aaron smote the
river; but Moses on no occasion smote the Nile, for he respected the
river which had saved his life as a babe.[499] Then the Lord brought
frogs upon the land, and filled all the houses; they were in the beds,
on the tables, in the cups. And the king sent for Moses and said:
“_Intreat the Lord, that He may take the frogs from me and from my
people_.” So the Lord sent a great rain, and it washed the frogs into
the Red Sea.
The next plague was lice.[500]
The fourth plague was wild beasts.
The fifth was murrain.
The sixth was boils and blains upon man and beast.[501]
The seventh was hail and tempest. Now Job regarded the word of Moses,
and he brought his cattle within doors, and they were saved; but Balaam
regarded it not, and all his cattle were destroyed.[502]
The eighth was locusts; these the Egyptians fried, and laid by in store
to serve them for food; but when the west wind came to blow the locusts
away, it blew away also those that had been pickled and laid by for
future consumption.[503]
The ninth plague was darkness.
The tenth was the death of the first-born.
The Book of Jasher says that, the Egyptians having closed their doors
and windows against the plagues of flies, and locusts, and lice, God
sent the sea-monster Silinoth, a huge polypus with arms ten cubits
long, and the beast climbed upon the roofs and broke them up, and let
down its slimy arms, and unlatched all the doors and windows, and threw
them open for the flies and locusts and lice to enter.[504]
But the Mohammedans gave a different order to the signs:--(1) the rod
changed into a serpent; (2) the whitened hand; (3) the famine; (4) a
deluge, the Nile rose over the land so that every man stood in water up
to his neck; (5) locusts; (6) anommals--these are two-legged animals
smaller than locusts; (7) blood; (8) frogs; (9) every green thing
throughout the land, all fruit, all grain, eggs, and every thing in the
houses were turned to stone.[505]
After the plague of the darkness, Pharaoh resolved on a general
massacre of all the children of the Hebrews. The Mussulmans put the
temporary petrifaction of all in the land in the place of the darkness.
The Book of Exodus says that during the darkness “_they saw not one
another, neither rose any from his place_;” but the Arabs say that they
were turned to stone. Here might be seen a petrified man with a balance
in his hand sitting in the bazaar; there, another stone man counting
out money; and the porters at the palace were congealed to marble
with their swords in their hands.[506] But others say that this was a
separate plague, and that the darkness followed it.
And now Gabriel took on him the form of a servant of the king, and he
went before him and asked him what was his desire.
“That vile liar Moses deserves death,” said Pharaoh.
“How shall I slay him?” asked Gabriel.
“Let him be cast into the water.”
“Give me a written order,” said the angel. Pharaoh did so.
Then Gabriel went to Moses and told him that the time was come when he
was to leave Egypt with all the people, for the measure of the iniquity
of Pharoah was filled up, and the Lord would destroy him with a signal
overthrow.
5. THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA.
The Israelites had made their preparations to depart out of Egypt a
month before the call came to escape.
And when all was ready, Moses called together the elders of the people
and said to them, “When Joseph died, he ordered his descendants to take
up his bones, or ever they went out of the land, and to bear them to
the cave of Machpelah, where lie the bones of his father Jacob. Where
are the bones of Joseph?”
The elders answered him, “We do not know.”
Now there was an old Egyptian woman, named Miriam, and she believed in
the Lord. She said to Moses, “I will show thee where is the tomb of
Joseph, if thou wilt swear unto me that thou wilt take me with thee
from Egypt, and that thou wilt ask the Most High to admit me into
Paradise.”
Moses said, “I will do these things that thou askest.”
Then the woman said, “The tomb of Joseph is in the middle of the river
Nile, which flows through Memphis, at such a spot.”
Moses prayed to God, and the water fell till the bed of the river was
left dry; and then he and the women went into it, and came on the tomb
of Joseph; it was a sarcophagus of marble without joints.[507]
Moses made preparations for departure, and said to the children of
Israel, “God will destroy the Egyptians, and will give you their
precious things.”
Then every one among the Hebrews who had an Egyptian neighbor said to
him, if he was rich: “I am going to a feast in the country, I pray thee
lend me jewels of gold and silver to adorn my wife and children.”
The Egyptians lent their precious things, and the Israelites by this
means found themselves possessed of borrowed jewels in great abundance.
Then Moses said, “We will leave Egypt this night when the Egyptians are
asleep. Let every housekeeper softly desert his house, and bring with
him his precious things, and meet outside the town. And let every one
slay a lamb, and sprinkle with the blood the lintel and door-posts of
the house, that the neighbors may know, when they see the blood, that
the house is empty.”
When the middle of the night was passed, the Israelites were assembled
outside Memphis, at the place which Moses had appointed. Then the host
was numbered, and it contained six hundred thousand horsemen, not
including those who were on foot, the women, the children, and the
aged. All who were under twenty were accounted infants, and all who
were over sixty were accounted aged.
After that, Moses placed Aaron in command of the first battalion, and
he said to him, “March in the direction of the sea, for Gabriel has
promised to meet me on its shores.” At that time one branch of the Nile
(the Pelusiac branch) flowed into the Red Sea, which extended over
where is now sandy desert to Migdol.
Moses made the host follow Aaron, troop by troop, and tribe by tribe;
and he brought up the rear with a strong guard of picked men.
It was dawning towards the first day of the week when Israel escaped
out of Egypt.
And when day broke, behold, they were gone away. Then the Egyptians
came and told Pharaoh. He sent to search all the houses of the
Israelites, but they were all empty, only their lamps were left
burning. Pharaoh said, “We will pursue them.” The Egyptians said, “They
have borrowed our jewels; we must follow after them, and recover what
is our own.”
Now Moses had used craft touching these ornaments, in order that
the Egyptians might be constrained to follow. For if the Israelites
had gone without these, the Egyptians would have rejoiced at their
departure. But because they had borrowed of the Egyptians, therefore
the Egyptians went after them to recover their ornaments, and by this
means rushed into destruction.
And Israel marched all day through the wilderness protected by seven
clouds of glory on their four sides: one above them, that neither
hail nor rain might fall upon them, nor that they should be burned by
the heat of the sun; one beneath them, that they might not be hurt by
thorns, serpents, or scorpions; and one went before them, to make the
valleys even, and the mountains low, and to prepare them a place of
habitation.[508]
Also, when the morning dawned, there was not a house in all Egypt in
which there was not a first-born dead. And this delayed the people
from pursuing after the Israelites; for they were engaged in bewailing
their dead, and in digging graves for them. Thus they were not at
leisure to follow after their former slaves, till they had escaped
clean away.
Also that night was every metal image in Egypt molten, and every idol
of stone was broken, and every idol of clay was shattered, and every
idol of wood was dissolved to dust.[509]
The same day Pharaoh sent into all the cities of Egypt and collected an
army. When even was come the whole army was assembled about the king,
and Pharaoh said to Dathan and Abiram, who had remained behind,[510]
“The Israelites are few in number, _they are entangled in the land, the
wilderness hath shut them in_.” For all the way was full of marshes
and canals of water and desert tracts. “They have acted wrongly by us,
for they have carried away the ornaments and jewels of our people; and
Moses, by magic, has slain all our first-born, so that there is not a
house in which there is not one dead.”
On the morrow--it was the second day of the week--the army was
reviewed, and Pharaoh numbered the host, and he had six hundred chosen
chariots, and two million foot soldiers, and five million horsemen,
and, in addition, there were one million seven hundred thousand horses,
and on these horses were black men.
When the sun rose on the third day, Pharaoh marched out of Memphis, and
he pursued for half a day with forced marches. At noon, Pharaoh had
come up with Moses, and the fore-front of Pharaoh’s army thrust the
rear-guard of the army of Moses. Then the children of Israel cried unto
the Lord, and they said to Moses, “_Because there were no graves in
Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? Wherefore hast
thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt?_”
They were divided into four opinions. One set said, “Let us fling
ourselves into the sea.” Another set said, “Let us return and surrender
ourselves.” The third set said, “Let us array battle against the
Egyptians.” The fourth recommended, “Let us shout against them, and
frighten them away with our clamor.”[511]
And Moses said unto the people, “_Fear ye not, stand still, and see the
salvation of the Lord. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold
your peace._”[512]
Then Moses raised his rod over the sea, and it divided, and let twelve
channels of dry land appear traversing it, one for each of the twelve
tribes. “When Moses had smitten,” says the Koran, “the sea divided into
twelve heaps, and left twelve ways through it, and each heap was as a
great mountain.”[513]
The Israelites hesitated to enter; for they said, “O Moses! the bottom
of this sea is black mud, and when we place our feet on it we shall
sink in and be swallowed up.”
But Moses prayed to God, and he sent a wind and the rays of the sun,
and the wind and the sun dried the mud, and it became as sand.
Then Gabriel and Michael appeared to Moses and said, “Pass on, and lead
the people through. As for us, we have orders to tarry for Pharaoh.”
So Moses galloped forward into the sea, crying, “In the name of the
merciful and glorious God!” and all the people went in after him. But
as they marched by twelve ways, and there were walls of water between,
they could not see each other, and they were in fear; therefore Moses
prayed to the Lord, and the Lord made the water-heaps rise and arch
over them like bowers, and shelter them from the fire of the sun; and
He made the watery walls so clear they were as sheets of glass, and
through them the columns of the advancing army were visible to each
other.
Moses traversed the sea in two hours, and he came forth with all the
people on the other side.
Then Pharoah and his host came to the water’s side, but he feared to
enter in. Now Pharaoh was mounted on an entire horse of great beauty.
He reined in his steed and would not go forward, for he thought that
this was part of the enchantment of Moses.
But now Gabriel appeared mounted on a mare, and this was the cherub
Ramka.[514] And when the horse of Pharaoh saw the mare of Gabriel, he
plunged forward and followed the mare into the sea. Then, when the
Egyptian army saw their king enter fearlessly into one of the channels,
they also precipitated themselves into the ways through the deep.
They advanced till they reached the middle of the Red Sea, and then
Gabriel reined in and turned and unfurled before Pharaoh the order he
had given for the destruction of Moses in the water, and it was signed
by Pharoah and sealed with his own signet.
“See!” exclaimed the angel, “What thou wouldest do to Moses, that shall
be done to thee; for thou art but a man, thou who fightest against God.”
Then the twelve heaps of water overwhelmed the host. But Pharaoh’s
horse was so fleet of foot that he outfled the returning waters, and
he brought the king to the shore. He would have been saved, had not
Gabriel smitten him on the face, and he fell back into the sea and
perished with the rest. Then said Miriam, as he sank, “_Sing ye to the
Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath He
thrown into the sea_.”[515]
Another curious incident is related by Tabari. When the water reached
Pharaoh, and he knew that he must perish, he cried out, “I believe in
the God of Israel!” Gabriel, fearing lest Pharaoh should repeat these
words, and that God in His mercy should accept his profession of faith,
and pardon him, passed his wing over the bottom of the sea, raised the
earth, and threw it into the mouth of Pharaoh so as to prevent him from
swallowing again, and said, “Now thou believest, but before thou wast
rebellious; nevertheless, thou art numbered with the wicked.”[516]
It was the ninth hour of the day when the children of Israel stood on
dry land on the further side of the sea.
On the morrow, the children of Israel assembled around Moses, and said
to him, “We do not believe that Pharaoh is drowned, for he had peculiar
power. He never suffered from headache, nor from fever, nor from any
sickness, and was internally moved but once a week.”
Then Moses clave the sea asunder with his rod, and they saw Pharaoh and
all his host dead at the bottom of the sea. The bodies of the Egyptians
were covered with armor and much gold and silver, and on the corpse
of Pharaoh were chains and bracelets of gold. The children of Israel
would have spoiled the dead, but Moses forbade them, for he said, “It
is lawful to spoil the living, but it is robbery to strip the dead.”
Nevertheless many of the Hebrews went in and took from the Egyptians
all that was valuable. Then God was wroth, because they had disobeyed
Moses, and the sea was troubled, and for ten days it raged with fury,
and even to this day the water is not at rest where the Israelites
committed this sin. And the name of that place at this day is “Bab el
Taquath.”[517]
6. THE GIVING OF THE LAW.
As long as Moses was with them, the Israelites did not venture to make
idols, but when God summoned Moses into the Mount to talk with Him face
to face, then they spake to Aaron that he should make a molten god to
go before them.
Aaron bade them break off their earrings and bracelets and give them
to him, for he thought that they would be reluctant to part with their
jewels. Nevertheless the people brought their ornaments to him in great
abundance, and one named Micah cast them into a copper vessel; and when
the gold was melted, he threw in a handful of the sand which had been
under the hoof of Gabriel’s horse, and there came forth a calf, which
ran about like a living beast, and bellowed; for Sammael (Satan) had
entered into it. “Here is your god that shall go before you,” cried
Micah; and all the people fell down and worshipped the golden calf.[518]
And when Moses came down from the Mount and drew near to the camp, and
saw the calf, and the instruments of music in the hands of the wicked,
who were dancing and bowing before it, and Satan among them dancing and
leaping before the people, the wrath of Moses was suddenly kindled,
and he cast the tables of the Commandments, which he had received from
God on the Mount, out of his hand and brake them at the foot of the
mountain; but the holy writing that was on them flew, and was carried
away into the heavens; and he cried and said, “Woe upon the people who
have heard from the mouth of the Holy One, ‘Thou shalt not make to
thyself any image, a figure, or any likeness;’ and yet at the end of
forty days make a useless molten calf!”
And he took the calf which they had made, and burned it with fire,
and crushed it to powder, and cast it upon the face of the water
of the stream, and made the sons of Israel drink; and whoever had
given thereto any trinket of gold, the sign of it came forth upon his
nostrils.[519]
Of all the children of Israel only twelve thousand were found who had
not worshipped the calf.[520]