Legends of the Jews, Volume 2 — Chap. 4-10 – Moses in Egypt

MOSES AND AARON BEFORE PHARAOH

The day Moses and Aaron made their appearance before Pharaoh happened to be the anniversary of his birth, and he was surrounded by many kings, for he was the ruler of the whole world, and this was the occasion on which the kings of the earth came to do him homage.

When the attendants announced Moses and Aaron, Pharaoh inquired whether the two old men had brought him crowns, and, receiving a negative reply, he ordered that they were not to be admitted to his presence, until he had seen and dismissed all the others desirous of paying him their respects.

[154] Pharaoh's palace was surrounded by a vast army.

It was built with four hundred entrances, one hundred on each side, and each of them guarded by sixty thousand soldiers.

Moses and Aaron were overawed by this display of power, and they were afraid.

But the angel Gabriel appeared, and he led them into the palace, observed by none of the guards, and Pharaoh decreed severe punishment upon the inattentive sentinels for having admitted the old men without his permission.

They were dismissed, and others put in their places.

But the same thing happened the next day.

Moses and Aaron were within the palace, and the new guard had not been able to hinder their passing.

Pharaoh questioned his servants, how it had been possible for the two old men to enter, and they said: "We know it not!

Through the doors they did not come.

Surely, they must be magicians."

[155] Not enough that the palace was guarded by a host, at each entrance two lions were stationed, and in terror of being torn to pieces none dared approach the doors, and none could go within until the lion tamer came and led the beasts away.

Now Balaam and all the other sacred scribes of Egypt advised that the keepers loose the lions at the approach of Moses and Aaron.

But their advice availed naught.

Moses had but to raise his rod, and the lions bounded toward him joyously, and followed at his feet, gambolling like dogs before their master on his return home.

[156] Within the palace, Moses and Aaron found seventy secretaries busy with Pharaoh's correspondence, which was carried on in seventy languages.

At the sight of the messengers of Israel, they started up in great awe, for the two men resembled angels.

In stature they were as the cedars of Lebanon, their countenances radiated splendor like the sun, the pupils of their eyes were like the sphere of the morning star, their beards like palm branches, and their mouths emitted flames when they opened them for speech.

In their terror, the secretaries flung down pen and paper, and prostrated themselves before Moses and Aaron.

Now the two representatives of the children of Israel stepped before Pharaoh, and they spake, "The God of the Hebrews hath met with us; let us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice unto the Lord our God, lest He fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword."

But Pharaoh answered, saying: "What is the name of your God?

Wherein doth His strength consist, and His power?

How many countries, how many provinces, how many cities hath He under His dominion?

In how many campaigns was He victorious?

How many lands did He make subject to Himself?

How many cities did He capture?

When He goeth to war, how many warriors, riders, chariots, and charioteers doth He lead forth?"

Whereto Moses and Aaron replied: "His strength and His power fill the whole world.

His voice heweth out flames of fire; His words break mountains in pieces.

The heaven is His throne, and the earth His footstool.

His bow is fire, His arrows are flames, His spears torches, His shield clouds, and His sword lightning flashes.

He created the mountains and the valleys, He brought forth spirits and souls, He stretched out the earth by a word, He made the mountains with His wisdom, He forms the embryo in the womb of the mother, He covers the heavens with clouds, at His word the dew and the rain descend earthward, He causes plants to grow from the ground, He nourishes and sustains the whole world, from the horns upon the rem down to the eggs of vermin.

Every day He causes men to die, and every day He calls men into life."

Pharaoh answered, and said: "I have no need of Him.

I have created myself, and if ye say that He causes dew and rain to descend, I have the Nile, the river that hath its source under the tree of life, and the ground impregnated by its waters bears fruit so huge that it takes two asses to carry it.

and it is palatable beyond description, for it has three hundred different tastes."

[157] Then Pharaoh sent to fetch the books of the chronicles of his kingdom from his archives, wherein are recorded the names of the gods of all the nations, to see whether the name of the God of the Hebrews was among them.

He read off: "The gods of Moab, the gods of Ammon, the gods of Zidon—I do not find your God inscribed in the archives!"

Moses and Aaron exclaimed: "O thou fool!

Thou seekest the Living in the graves of the dead.

These which thou didst read are the names of dumb idols, but our God is the God of life and the King of eternal life."

[158] When Pharaoh said the words, "I know not the Lord," God Himself made answer, saying: "O thou rascal!

Thou sayest to My ambassadors, 'I know not the strength and the power of your God'?

Lo, I will make thee to stand, for to show thee My power, and that My Name may be declared throughout all the earth."

[159] Having searched his list of the gods of the nations in vain for a mention of the God of the Hebrews, Pharaoh cited before him the wise men of Egypt, and he said to them: "Have ye ever heard the name of the God of these people?"

They replied, "We have been told that He is a son of the wise, the son of ancient kings."

Then spake God, saying, "O ye fools!

Ye call yourselves wise men, but Me ye call only the son of the wise.

Verily, I will set at naught all your wisdom and your understanding."

[160] Pharaoh persisted in his obduracy, even after Moses and Aaron had performed the miracle of the rod.

At the time when the two Hebrews succeeded in entering the palace, guarded as it was by lions, Pharaoh had sent for his magicians, at their head Balaam and his two sons Jannes and Jambres, and when they appeared before him, he told them of the extraordinary incident, how the lions had followed the two old men like dogs, and fawned upon them.

It was Balaam's opinion that they were simply magicians like himself and his companions, and he prayed the king to have them come before him together with themselves, to test who were the master magicians, the Egyptians or the Hebrews.

Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and he said to them: "Who will believe you when you say that you are the ambassadors of God, as you pretend to be, if you do not convince men by performing wonders?"

Thereupon Aaron cast his rod to the ground, and it became a serpent.

[161] Pharaoh laughed aloud.

"What," he exclaimed, "is this all your God can do?

It is the way of merchants to carry merchandise to a place if there is none of it there, but would anyone take brine to Spain or fish to Accho?

It seems you do not know that I am an adept in all sorts of magic!"

He ordered little school children to be brought, and they repeated the wonder done by Moses and Aaron; indeed, Pharaoh's own wife performed it.

Jannes and Jambres, the sons of Balaam, derided Moses, saying, "Ye carry straw to Ephrain!"

[162] whereto Moses answered, "To the place of many vegetables, thither carry vegetables."

To show the Egyptians that Aaron could do something with his rod that their magicians could not imitate, God caused the serpent into which His rod had been changed to swallow up all the rods of the magicians.

But Balaam and his associates said: "There is nothing marvellous or astonishing in this feat.

Your serpent has but devoured our serpents, which is in accordance with a law of nature, one living being devours another.

If thou wishest us to acknowledge that the spirit of God worketh in thee, then cast thy rod to the earth, and if, being wood, it swallows up our rods of wood, then we shall acknowledge that the spirit of God is in thee."

Aaron stood the test.

After his rod had resumed its original form, it swallowed up the rods of the Egyptians,[163] and yet its bulk showed no increase.

This caused Pharaoh to reflect, whether this wonderful rod of Aaron might not swallow up also him and his throne.

Nevertheless he refused to obey the behest of God, to let Israel go, saying, "Had I Jacob-Israel himself here before me, I should put trowel and bucket on his shoulder."

And to Moses and Aaron, he said, "Because ye, like all the rest of the tribe of Levi, are not compelled to labor, therefore do ye speak, 'Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord.'

If you had asked for a thousand people, or two thousand, I should have fulfilled your request, but never will I consent to let six hundred thousand men go away."

THE SUFFERING INCREASES

Beside refusing to dismiss the children of Israel, he ordered, on the very day of Moses and Aaron's audience with him, that the people be required to deliver the prescribed tale of bricks, though the taskmasters were not as heretofore to give them straw to make brick.

Another decree was, that the children of Israel were not to be permitted to rest on the Sabbath, for Pharaoh knew that they used the leisure for reading the rolls that described their redemption.

All this was a part of God's plan, the oppression of Israel was to be increased the closer the end approached.

As they wandered up and down the land of Egypt gathering the straw they needed for the due tale of bricks, they were maltreated by the Egyptians if they caught them on their fields.

Such unkind acts perpetrated by the whole people made it impossible for them to cast the entire blame for the bondage of Israel upon Pharaoh.

All the Egyptians showed cruelty to the Israelites on their straw foraging expeditions, and therefore the Divine punishment descended upon all alike.

This frightful time of Israel's extreme suffering lasted six months.

Meantime Moses went to Midian, leaving Aaron alone in Egypt.

When Moses returned at the end of the reign of terror, two of the Israelitish officers accosted him and Aaron, and heaped abuse upon them for having increased the woes of their people rather than diminished them.

They spake, saying, "If ye are truly the ambassadors of God, then may He judge between us and Pharaoh.

But if you are seeking to bring about the redemption of Israel on your own account, then may God judge between you and Israel.

You are responsible for the widespread stench now issuing from the Israelitish corpses used as bricks for building when our tale was not complete.

The Egyptians had but a faint suspicion that we were waiting for our redemption.

It is your fault if they are fully conscious of it now.

We are in the quandary of the poor sheep that has been dragged away by a wolf.

The shepherd pursues the robber, catches up with him, and tries to snatch the sheep from his jaws, and the wretched victim, pulled this way by the wolf and that way by the shepherd, is torn to pieces.

Thus Israel fares between you and Pharaoh."

The two officers that spake these stinging words were Dathan and Abiram, and it was neither the first nor the last time they inflicted an injury upon Moses.

The other Israelitish officers were gentle and kind; they permitted themselves to be beaten by the taskmasters rather than prod the laborers of their own people put under their surveillance.

The cruel suffering to which his people was exposed caused Moses to speak to God thus: "I have read the book of Genesis through, and I found the doom in it pronounced upon the generation of the deluge.

It was a just judgment.

I found also the punishments decreed against the generation of the confusion of tongues, and against the inhabitants of Sodom.

These, too, were just.

But what hath this nation of Israel done unto Thee, that it is oppressed more than any other nation in history?

Is it because Abraham said, 'Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit the land?'

and Thou didst rebuke him for his small faith, saying, 'Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs'?

Why, then, are not the descendants of Esau and Ishmael held in bondage, too?

Are they not likewise of the seed of Abraham?

But if Thou wilt say, 'What concern is it of mine?'

then I ask Thee, Why didst Thou send me hither as Thy messenger?

Thy great, exalted, and terrible Name is feared in all the earth, yet Pharaoh heard me pronounce it, and he refuses obedience.

I know Thou wilt redeem Israel in Thine own good time, and it is of little moment to Thee that now they are immuring living Israelites in these buildings."

Were He a God of justice only, the Lord would have slain Moses for the audacity of his last words, but in view of his having spoken as he had only out of compassion with Israel, the Lord dealt graciously with him.

He answered Moses, saying, "Thou shalt see what I will do to Pharaoh," words conveying to Moses, that although he would be witness to the chastisement of Pharaoh, he would not be present at that of the thirty-one kings of Canaan.

Thus he was rebuked for the unbecoming language he had used in addressing God.

[164] At the same time God's words were a rejoinder to another speech by Moses.

He had said: "O Lord of the world, I know well that Thou wilt bring Thy children forth from Egypt.

O that Thou wouldst make use of another instrument, for I am not worthy of being the redeemer of Thy children."

God made answer thereto: "Yes, Moses, thou art worthy thereof.

Through thee My children will be brought forth out of Egypt.

Thou shalt see what I will do to Pharaoh."

[165] At the same time God called him to account for having so little faith.

He said: "O for the departed, their like cannot be found any more!

I

appeared unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as El Shaddai, God Almighty, but I was not known to them by My name Adonai, God All-Merciful, as I appeared unto thee.

Nevertheless they did not cast aspersions upon My acts.

I spake to Abraham, 'Unto thee will I give the land,' but when he was about to bury Sarah, he had to pay out silver and buy a resting-place for her body; and yet he did not find fault with Me.

I

spake to Isaac, 'Unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these lands,' but when he desired water to drink, he had to strive with the herdsmen of Gerar; and yet he did not find fault with Me.

I spake to Jacob, 'The land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed,' but when he wanted to spread his tent, he had to acquire a parcel of ground for an hundred pieces of money; and yet he did not find fault with Me.

None of them asked to know My Name.

But thou didst demand to know it at the very first, when I desired to send thee down into Egypt, and after I revealed it to thee, thou didst speak, saying, 'Thou didst tell me that Thou art called Compassionate and Gracious, Longsuffering and Merciful, but as soon as I pronounced this Name before Pharaoh, misfortune descended upon the people of Israel.'

Now I desire to fulfil My covenant with the three Patriarchs, and give their posterity the promised land, as a reward for the unquestioning faith of the Fathers, and also as a reward to the people, who, in spite of their suffering, did not find fault with My deeds.

For this will I give them the land, which they do not deserve to possess for other reasons.

I

swear that I will do thus!"

God pronounced this oath, to banish all fear from the mind of Moses, that He might act only in accordance with His attribute of justice, and thus delay the redemption of Israel for a time, on account of the sins of the people.

[166] Now the redemption of Israel was a settled fact.

But before Moses and Aaron could start on the work of delivering their people, God called various points to their attention, which He bade them consider in their undertaking.

He spake to them, saying: "My children are perverse, passionate, and troublesome.

You must be prepared to stand their abuse, to the length of being pelted with stones by them.

I send you to Pharaoh, and although I will punish him according to his deserts, yet you must not fail in the respect due to him as a ruler.

Furthermore, be careful to take the elders of the people into your counsel,[167] and let your first step toward redemption be to make the people give up the worship of idols."

The last was a most difficult task, and the words of God concerning it wrung the exclamation from Moses: "See, the children of Israel will not hearken unto me.

How, then, should Pharaoh hearken unto me?"

[168] It was the third time Moses declined to go on the errand of God.

Now the Divine patience was exhausted, and Moses was subjected to punishment.

At first God had revealed Himself only to Moses, and the original intention had been that he alone was to perform all the miracles, but henceforth the word of God was addressed to Aaron as well, and he was given a share in doing the wonders.

[169]