unhappy people went out and strictly fulfilled it. The poor Hebrew
brick-makers, in whose work coarse straw of wheat cut fine is
necessary to make the clay cohere, as they are only dried in the sun,
are now distributed all over Egypt seeking straw, which hitherto the
Egyptian laborers brought to them in carts and laden barges. Thus
dispersed, they gather stubble, and dry bulrushes, and grass, and
every thing they can in their haste find on the surface of the ground;
for if night comes and their tale of bricks falls short, they are
beaten. As, therefore, one half of the time of many is consumed in
searching the highways and fields, instead of being all the time, as
heretofore, engaged only in making brick, the task put upon them is an
impossible one; and everywhere the sound of the rod and whip, and the
cry of sufferers, goes up from the land. At length the elders and
officers of the Hebrews (for their own people are often made their
taskmasters, who also had to account to their Egyptian captains for
their fulfillment of the king's command), got courage from despair,
and meeting the king as he was abroad in his chariot, cast themselves
before him, crying, "Wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us? It is not
our fault that we cannot make up the number of bricks, as heretofore,
seeing straw is not given us; and thy servants are beaten; but the
fault is in thine own officers."
Pharaoh angrily answered, "Ye are idle! Ye are idle! Ye have not
enough to do, or ye would not think ye had time to go into the desert
to sacrifice to your God. Go, therefore, and do your tasks, for there
shall no straw be given you."
"And shall we deliver the tale of bricks?" they cried.
"To the last one of them!" answered the king; and with an impatient
sign for them to stand aside from his chariot-wheels, he dashed
forward on his way, attended by his brilliant retinue. The unhappy men
then perceived "that they were in evil case," as one of them said to
me in relating this interview; and meeting Moses and Aaron in the
fields not long afterwards, one of their number said, indignantly, and
with grief--
"The Lord look upon you, Moses and Aaron, and judge you, because by
your interference with the king, thou hast put a sword into the hand
of Pharaoh to slay us."
Moses looked sorrowfully and troubled, and raising his eyes heavenward
as he left them without a reply, for he wot not how to answer, they
heard him cry unto his God, and say--
"Lord, wherefore hast Thou so evil entreated this Thy people? Why is
it that Thou didst send me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in
Thy name, he hath done evil to this people; neither, O Lord God, hast
Thou delivered Thy people at all!"
Then came a voice from heaven, which they heard, and said--
"Thou shalt see what I will do to Pharaoh; for he shall let you go,
and drive you out of his land. I am the Lord who spake to thee in
Horeb, out of the burning bush; and I appeared unto Abraham, unto
Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty. But by my name
JEHOVAH was I not known to them. I have heard the groaning of the
children of Israel. Wherefore say unto them, 'I am the Lord, and I
will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will
take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God; and ye shall
know that I am the Lord your God, which bringeth you out from under
the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you in unto the land
which I did swear to give to Abraham, and to Isaac, and to Jacob, and
I will give it to you for an heritage. I am the Lord!'"
With these words, Moses sought to comfort the Hebrews, his brethren,
going to them and proclaiming it to them in their ears; but for an
anguish of spirit, and the great pressure of their cruel bondage upon
their minds, they did not hearken unto him. Hope in their bosoms was
utterly dead. Moreover, many of them looked on him with eyes of
hatred, as the author of this increase of their wretchedness.
What a situation was this for the servant of God! Confident of the
power and truth of Jehovah, he could not reconcile therewith this
increase of the power of Pharaoh. Perhaps, at times, his own faith was
severely tried.
Since then, a month has passed, during which period I saw Moses often
in Goshen, where he passed his time in encouraging those of his
brethren who would give heed to him.
In the mean while, Pharaoh, as if in contempt or defiance of the God
of the Hebrews, has been engaged in extraordinary religious rites; and
every day the streets have resounded with the music of instruments and
choral songs of processions to the gods. I witnessed all of these
ceremonies, and will describe some of them that are not mentioned by
you in your letters from Egypt, my dear father.
On the seventh day after Moses and Aaron left him, Thothmeses went in
state to the black marble temple of the sacred serpent, Uræus, to
offer sacrifice and oblation to its great image of gold with jewelled
eyes and hideous head. He addressed it as the god of wisdom and
sagacity, and presented offerings of flowers, and a necklace of
emeralds; while, for the living serpents, held sacred by the
Egyptians, he left gifts of money to purchase food for their
repletion.
The next day he proceeded, at the head of the priests and the most
magnificent religious procession I have seen in Egypt, from his palace
along the sphinx-lined avenue to the terrace of the Nile, opposite the
Island of Rhoda, where stands a brazen statue of the god Nilus, with
those of Osiris and Thoth on either side of its pedestal.
Descending from his chariot, he advanced to the river, and poured from
a goblet, set with diamonds, a libation of wine into its waves, and
invoked the river itself as a deity, concluding his prayer with a
curse upon the God of the Hebrews. Then, at his command, the chief
sacrificer advanced, leading a Hebrew boy four years old, whom he laid
upon the altar before the statue of the god, and, at a stroke of his
sacrificial knife, sacrificed there. I could scarcely refrain from a
cry of horror. I knew that the Egyptians, on certain occasions,
sacrificed human beings to the gods; but I never expected to behold an
immolation like this. The palpitating form of the child was then taken
up by two assistants, and the blood of its heart was poured forth into
the Nile, as a libation to the god. The empurpled wave then received
the inanimate form, amid a crash of instrumental music. This unusual
libation of blood to the Nile was intended as an act of defiance to
the Hebrew JEHOVAH.
The following day, Pharaoh made a procession to the temple of sacred
frogs, on the borders of the canal of Amun. Here libations were poured
out before a colossal sphinx having a frog's head, and offerings made.
The frog is held sacred by the Egyptians, because it is supposed to
purify the waters by feeding on poisons in the marshes and river.
The succeeding day Pharaoh, as if possessed with a religious
infatuation, that now led him to seek the favor of gods hitherto
neglected by him, in his dread of the God of the Hebrews, paid a
visit, with all his court, to the temple of the scarabæus, or sacred
beetle of Egypt. This is a marble edifice, adorned with a frieze of
scarabæi, having heads of every variety of animal. The god himself is
a gigantic beetle of black marble, with a human head. He is supposed
to protect the temples from vermin, such as lice and fleas; for one of
these seen in a temple, or upon the garments of a priest, causes
ceremonial defilement, and neither priest nor temple may be made holy
again but by purification.
The next day a procession was made by Pharaoh and his people to the
little temple of Baal-Zebel, a deity that is reverenced as their
protector from flies, which sometimes infest the land in ravenous
swarms, and which, it is believed, this idol only can remove. Can
Thothmeses be so superstitious? Or does he make all this show of piety
merely to humor the superstitions of his people, and sustain the
priests of these shrines? Does he fear Moses and his power, so as to
desire to strengthen himself in the affections of the priesthood and
people?
The day after the visit to the temple of the fly-god, he went in great
state to the temple of the sacred ox of On, Mnevis. Here he
sacrificed, prayed, poured libations, and offered oblations. It was an
imposing scene, as he was attended by one thousand priests clad in
rich vestments, and wearing shining crowns, the whole waving censers
of gold. Of the god he asked protection to all the cattle of Egypt,
and prosperity to the harvests; and then solemnly denounced the God of
the Hebrews, as a God not known or honored in Egypt, and who, if He
existed, was but a God of slaves.
The next day of this ten days' ovation, Pharaoh proceeded to the
gloomy temple of Typhon, on the edge of the desert. Here a Nubian
slave was sacrificed to the Evil Principle, by being bound to the
altar and burned alive. The officiating priests then gathered the
ashes and cast them high into the air, calling on their god and
praying him, that wheresoever an atom of the ashes was borne on the
wind, evil might not visit the place.
Thothmeses has diligently revived the human sacrifices which Queen
Amense forbade, and the act sufficiently illustrates the native
cruelty and superstition of the man.
Two days afterwards, having crossed the Nile in great pomp, he
proceeded, in grand procession, to the temple of Serapis. The god
Apis, you are aware, my dear father, has the peculiar office, besides
many others, of protecting the country from locusts; and at the
seasons when these destructive insects visit Egypt, Apis is invoked to
command them to retire from the land.
The rites performed by the king before the god were imposing and
gorgeous. He invoked him, not against locusts, but against the God of
Moses!
Does not all this show a secret dread of the God he defies? Yet he
knows nothing of His power, and has witnessed no act of wonder
performed by Him. Doubtless he felt, that a servant who dared to be so
bold and confident, must have a divine Master, who is great and
powerful. Perhaps he had heard of the God of the Hebrews in times
past;--of the dream of Prince Joseph and the seven years' famine;--of
the destruction of the vale of Sodom, with its cities, by fire from
heaven at God's command;--of the dispersion of the nations at the
pyramid of Babylon;--of the mighty deluge which He caused to overflow
the mountains and drown the world! Perhaps, for he is learned and
intelligent enough, when Aaron spoke to him of the God of the Hebrews,
he remembered who He was in times of old, and trembled to hear His
name again.
Three days afterwards the king visited the shrine of Isis, and poured
libations, and made thanksgivings; and invoked her, as the moon, and
controller of the seasons and weather, to send abundant rains upon the
mountains of Ethiopia, and the sources of the Nile, so that the annual
overflow, now near at hand, may not fail, nor the land be deprived of
its fertility.
Two days later, with a procession of all the priests of all the
temples, and with chariots, and horsemen, and footmen,--a vast
array,--he visited the great temple of Osiris, or the sun; and, after
august ceremonies, himself acting as high-priest, with the high-priest
of On for his assistant, he presented the statue of the god with a new
crown of gold, and a crook and flail of ivory inlaid with jewels. He
invoked him, by the appellation of the god of light, the dispeller of
darkness, the terror of clouds, and the foe of lightnings and storms.
And he implored clear skies, and serene weather for the harvests, as
heretofore.
Thus the piety of Thothmeses has been quickened into unwonted activity
by the dread of the God of Israel, as if he would secure his gods'
faithfulness should the God of Moses be too strong for him. In the
mean while the children of Israel are groaning under the weight of
their increased oppression. I have seen Aaron to-day. He informed me,
with looks of holy faith in his God, that Moses and he were,
to-morrow, by God's command, to appear again before Pharaoh, and
demand the release of the Hebrews.
What a scene will be enacted! Will these two courageous men brave his
anger, and escape? I tremble for the result. They are firm and
resolved, being strong in the strength of their God. I shall be sure
to be at the palace to-morrow, that I may behold these servants of
Jehovah meet, once more, face to face, this cruel Pharaoh and his gods.
Your affectionate son,
REMESES OF DAMASCUS.
LETTER IX.
REMESES OF DAMASCUS TO SESOSTRIS.
CITY OF ON.
MY VERY DEAR FATHER:
You will read what I am about to write, with the profoundest interest.
The two mighty Hebrews again sought an audience of the king, and
boldly demanded the freedom of Israel.
This meeting did not take place in the palace of On, but in that at
Memphis, on the avenue of the pyramids. Pharaoh was seated in the
court of the palace, giving audience to the governors of the
thirty-nine nomes, which now constitute the number of his provinces.
When he had ended his instructions to them, Moses and Aaron were
announced. I stood near him conversing with the prince; for I knew
that the two men of God purposed to seek the king's presence.
"How darest thou announce these Hebrews?" cried the king, sharply, to
his trembling grand-chamberlain.
"I could not forbid them, O king! I fled instinctively and without
power of resistance before the majesty of their presence. Behold them
advancing!"
Pharaoh turned pale. He essayed to give some fierce order to those
about him, but his tongue failed him.
"Who will slay me these men?" cried the Prince Amunophis, seeing the
king's troubled looks.
Not a man moved. Awe and curiosity took the place of all other
feelings. Side by side the two brothers came unfalteringly forward
till they stood before the monarch,--fixing their regards only upon
him.
"What are ye come for, Moses and Aaron?" at length he uttered, in a
thick voice. "Have I spared your lives, that you might come again to
mock me in my palace?"
"We are come, O king," answered Moses with dignity, and looking far
more kingly than he whom he addressed--"we are come in the name of the
God of the Hebrews. He hath heard their cry from all the land of
Egypt, by reason of their taskmasters, and I am sent to command thee,
in His name, to send the children of Israel out of thy land!"
"Have I knowledge of your God? What is His power? Let Him make Himself
known! Or, if He hath sent thee to me, where are thy credentials from
His hand? I listen to no ambassadors from God or man, unless they show
me that they are sent. By what sign wilt thou declare thy mission? If
a king sent thee, show me his handwriting; if a god, show me a
miracle!"
Aaron held the rod of Moses in his hand, and casting it upon the
marble pavement of the court, it became a serpent, slowly gliding
along the floor and flashing fire from its eyes. The servants of
Pharaoh fled before it. The king upon his throne, at first, became
alarmed, but seeing the monster inflate its throat and stretch lazily
and innocuously along the lion-skin before his footstool, he smiled
contemptuously and said--
"Thy Arabian life has given thee great skill, O Moses. Ho! call my
magicians! I have magi that can equal thy art!"
All was expectation, until at length two stately personages solemnly
entered, each with his acacia rod. They were Jambres and Jannes, the
royal and chief magicians of Egypt, of whose fame other lands have
heard. They were dark-featured, Arabic-looking men, and dressed with
great magnificence, wearing robes blazing with gold and jewels. Their
bearing was haughty and imperious, and they looked about them with
disdain, as if they were beings of a better order than the Egyptians,
who stood awed, or prostrated themselves in their presence.
"Seest thou this serpent?" demanded Pharaoh, directing the attention
of Jambres to the monster, which lay coiled upon the lion-skin before
the steps of the throne; while several of the guard with spears stood
near, to thrust it through, should it approach the king. The magicians
regarded it with surprise, and then looked fixedly at Moses and Aaron.
They had evidently heard by the messengers, what had passed. "Half an
hour since, he was a rod in the hand of that Hebrew magician!" said
the king. "Show him thy art, and that we have gods whose servants can
do as great miracles as this!"
The magicians advanced and said--
"O king, beloved of the sun, live forever! Behold the power of thy own
magicians!" Thus speaking, they cast their rods upon the ground, when
they became serpents also, after a few moments had transpired. Pharaoh
then said, addressing the Hebrew brothers--
"Ye are but impostors, and have done your miracle by the gods of
Egypt, as my magicians do."
"If the god of Egypt be strongest, let his serpents destroy my
serpent: but if the God of the Hebrews be the greatest and the only
God, let my serpent devour his!" Thus quietly spake Aaron.
"So be it," answered Pharaoh.
In a moment, the serpent of Moses uncoiled himself, and fiercely
seizing, one after another, the two serpents of the magicians,
swallowed them. At this there was an outcry among the people; and,
greatly terrified, Pharaoh half-rose from his throne; but Aaron
catching up the serpent, it became a rod as before. Instead of
acknowledging the God of Moses, the king became exceedingly enraged
against his own magicians, and drove them from him, and ordered Moses
and Aaron to depart, saying that they were only more skilful sorcerers
than the others, and must show him greater signs than these ere he
would let Israel go. I have since learned, that these magicians
brought with them real serpents, which they have the power of
stiffening, and holding at arm's length by pressing upon their
throats: that they came with these, which could not be detected in the
obscurity of the shadows where they stood, and casting them down they
resumed their natural motions. That the rod of Moses should devour
them, and return to a rod again, ought to have shown Pharaoh that it
was a miracle, and not sorcery. But his heart seems to be hardened
against all impressions of this nature.
The following morning, the governor of the nilometer having reported
to the king that the Nile had commenced to rise, Pharaoh, according to
custom, proceeded to the river, where the statue of Nilus stands, and
where he had caused the Hebrew boy to be sacrificed and his blood
poured as a libation into the stream. Here, with great pomp, he was
about to celebrate the festivities of the happy event, when, lo! Moses
and Aaron stood before him by the river's brink,--the latter with the
rod, which had been turned into a serpent, in his hand.
"The Lord God of the Hebrews," cried Moses in a loud voice, "hath sent
me unto thee, saying, 'Let My people go.' Lo! hitherto thou wouldst
not hear. Now thus saith the Lord--'In this thou shalt know that I am
the Lord!' Behold, O king, at His command, I will smite with the rod
that is in mine hand upon the waters which are in the river, and they
shall be turned into blood!"
"I defy you and your God, and both of ye shall die!" answered Pharaoh,
pale with anger.
Then Moses, turning calmly to Aaron, his brother, said, in my hearing,
and in that of the king and all his people, "Take this rod of God, and
stretch out thine hand upon the waters of Egypt, that there may be
blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood and
vessels of stone."
Aaron, obeying, stretched forth his hand with the rod and smote the
water at his feet, in the sight of Pharaoh, and in the sight of the
thousands of Egyptians present, and in a moment the Nile ran blood
instead of water, the fish in hundreds rose to the surface and died,
and the smell of blood filled all the atmosphere. The people uttered a
great cry, and Pharaoh looked petrified with horror. From the galleys
on the river, from the women on the opposite shore, from avenues,
terraces, and plains, from every side, rose a loud and terrible wail,
such as was never before heard. The king sought his chariot, and fled
from the face of Moses and Aaron, and all was wild dismay. These two
servants of the God, whose words had wrought this great wonder, then
walked calmly away. I felt too much awed to come near them, and in my
chariot sought my own palace. On the way I saw that the canals were
red with blood, also the standing pools, the lakes, and every body of
water. Men were running in every direction seeking for water; women
wrung their hands, and despair and fear were impressed upon every
countenance. As I passed the fountains in the court of Pharaoh's
palace, I saw that they also spouted forth blood; and in the corridor
and porticos, the water in the vases for guests, in the earthen jars
for filtering, and in those which stood in the cisterns, was of the
same crimson hue. When I reached my own apartments, lo! there also the
water in the vases and ewers was of the color of blood. The voice of
Moses, empowered by his God, had indeed turned all the waters of Egypt
into blood. Surely, I said, now will the king let Israel go. In the
afternoon I went forth, and saw the Egyptians digging everywhere for
fresh water, along the canals and river. I drove out of the city
towards Goshen, and saw all the people in motion and terror, for but
few knew the cause of the awful visitation. After an hour I reached
Goshen, the fair plain where Prince Jacob once dwelt, and where now
the children of Israel dwell by hundreds of thousands. With joyful
surprise I beheld, as I entered the province, that the canal was free
from blood, the pools sparkling with clear water, and the fountains
bright as crystal. As I rode on in the direction of the dwelling of
Moses, I perceived that the plague of blood had not fallen upon the
land where the Hebrews dwelt--only upon the Egyptians. This was a
twofold miracle.
When Pharaoh found that water could be obtained by digging shallow
wells, and also that Goshen was free from the plague, he sent for
Jambres and Jannes, and offered to pardon them if they could turn
water into blood. They commenced their incantations upon water dug up
from his gardens--for the miracle of the rod covered only the waters
at the time on the surface, whether in the river or in houses. After
art had for some time been practised upon the water, to my surprise it
was turned to the semblance of blood.
"See," cried Pharaoh with great joy, "the servants of Pharaoh are
equal to the servants of the Hebrew God!"
"And O king," said Jambres vainly, "had the Hebrew juggler left us the
Nile, we could have turned that also by our enchantments."
Then Pharaoh rewarded him with a chain of gold, and hardened his
heart, and defied Moses and his God. But in three days afterwards all
the fish died in the lakes, and river of Lower Egypt, and a stench of
their flesh and of crocodiles and reptiles that perished by the blood
in the river, and the difficulty of getting water, rendered Egypt
almost uninhabitable. Thousands fled to the pure air and water of
Goshen, where also I remained. Every hour I expected to behold a royal
courier coming for Moses and Aaron, ordering them to appear before the
king, to receive permission to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt. At the
end of seven days the river and waters of Egypt resumed their natural
color and purity, by God's permission, lest all the people of Egypt
should die for Pharaoh's hardness of heart.
Then God appeared again unto Moses, and commanded him to go before
Pharaoh with the same message as before. But the king, in great fury,
ordered them from his presence, when Aaron stretched forth his hand
over the streams, the river, the canals, lakes, and fountains, and in
a moment myriads of frogs appeared on the shores, in the fields, in
the streets, squares, corridors, terraces, gardens, groves, and
porticos of the temples. They leaped upon every place, upon the
people, upon the stairways. They found their way by hundreds into the
houses and bedchambers, and upon the beds, tables, chairs of palaces
and huts; leaped into the ovens and kneading-troughs, and occupied
every place. In horror the priests closed all the temples, lest they
should enter, and dying there, defile them. Even Pharaoh was obliged
to shut himself up in the recesses of his palace to escape their
loathsome presence.
In great alarm, he was about to send for Moses, when Jambres, his
chief sorcerer, stood before him, and said:
"O king, believe not that the God of this Hebrew is greater than the
gods of Egypt. Thy servants also can do this enchantment."
"Do so, and thou shalt have a rod of gold," answered the king.
Then descending into a fountain, inclosed by a high wall of the
palace, where the frogs had not yet appeared, the magician caused
frogs also to appear. "At first," said the chief butler, who spoke to
me of this deed, "the king was greatly pleased, but suddenly said:
"'What thou hast produced by thy enchantments, remove by thy
enchantments. Command them to disappear from the fountain.'
"This the two magicians not being able to do, the next day, the frogs
rendering every habitation uninhabitable, and the lords of Egypt
appealing to Pharaoh, he sent for Moses and Aaron. It had become time
to do so. Every part of my rooms was filled with these animals; they
got into the plates and cups, and defiled every place--while by night
their combined roar filled all Egypt with a deafening and terrible
noise, so that if a bed could be found to sleep in, sleep was nowhere
possible; and by day we could tread nowhere but upon frogs."
When the two Hebrew brothers again stood in the presence of Pharaoh,
he said, with mingled shame and displeasure--