From the Shores of Eden

by Shelley Penner

  “I…killed a man in Egypt.”

  Reuel nodded gravely. “This is indeed a serious matter. Tell me what brought you to this.”

  “Do you know the story of the Hebrews in Egypt?”

  “Tell me.”

  “They are the descendants of Ya’aqob, son of Enoch, son of Abraham, who migrated from Ur in Chaldea to Egypt during a great famine long ago. For generations they became respected advisors to great houses, even to Pharaohs. They settled in the land of Goshen on the east bank of the Nile, and their numbers and influence prospered until one Pharaoh, Akhanaten, became so influenced by his Hebrew advisors that he accepted the One God and worshipped Him as the sun-god, Ahten. He forbade the worship of other gods, especially of the state god, Amen of Thebes, and established a new capital at Tell el-Amarna. He built new temples with flat roofs for studying the heavens as you do and attempted to force revolutionary changes on the armies and priesthood. But the people detested his reforms.”

  “Did they rebel?”

  “Would you rebel against God? Egyptians believe a Pharaoh possesses the divine ka, the soul of rulership. No mere mortal could replace him, for he is the earthly incarnation of divinity. After Akhenaten, his son-in-law, Tutankhamen, became Pharaoh. He re-established the old religion and returned the capital to Thebes. But Akhenaten’s reforms caused much bitterness against the Hebrews, who the Egyptians saw as instigators. Tutankhamen sent armies against Goshen and re-established it as a vassal state and a source of slave labor.

  “I led a privileged life as a child, raised in the court of Pharaoh, calling his daughter Mother.”

  Reuel felt astounded. He had surmised that Moshe was high born and therefore educated, but he had never suspected royal connections.

  “Ramses, the son of Pharaoh, and I grew up together like brothers. We took lessons together, in weapons, in letters, in worship, in all matters. When we reached manhood, I became an officer in Pharaoh’s army. Ramses took a wife, a woman named Medlar. At their wedding I met Medlar’s cousin. Mahreni seemed a beautiful girl, willful and passionate. I fell in love with her, and she with me. Or so I thought. One night, when our hunger for each other became too great to resist, she lured me into her bed chamber. But when I disrobed to lie with her…she…stared at me as if I had become a monster. She began to scream. When the palace guards burst into the room, she accused me of being a Hebrew slave in disguise and claimed I attempted to rape her.

  “The guards brought me before Pharaoh for judgment. The court physicians examined and condemned me as a slave by evidence of a circumcision performed in infancy. Bithiah, the daughter of Pharaoh, the woman I called Mother, confessed to the deception; at a time when all male-born children of Hebrew slaves were condemned to death or castration, she found me, a Hebrew infant, hidden in a floating basket in the reeds along the river. She adopted me, telling her father I was the child of a friend who had died. Pharaoh felt furious to learn she had lied to him. He ordered me put to death, but Bithiah and Ramses begged for my life. So instead, they set me to work with the other slaves, making clay bricks for monuments to Pharaoh’s greatness.

  “I had never considered the slaves before, never contemplated the hardships of their lives. Now suddenly I lived them. The other slaves hated me for what I had been. We had nothing in common except our misery. And worse, the overseer disliked me because I reminded him that, for all the power he held over his fellows, he remained a Hebrew, and in Egypt a Hebrew could never become more than a slave. I was rebellious and warrior trained, and he dared not press me, but when I in my strength produced more than my ill-fed fellows, he beat them for shirking. In particular, one old man, R’ubhen, was too weak and ill to fill his daily quota, so I began helping him, adding every third brick I made to his. He became my only friend. One day he brought a man to see me, Aaron, who claimed he was my brother. I learned I had a Hebrew family, a father, a mother and a sister, Miriam. Aaron took me to meet them. I…recognized my mother as the nurse from my early childhood. I felt so confused and bitter, not knowing where I belonged. I said things in anger that should have remained unspoken.

  “A few days later, a private procession rode past the workplace, a most unusual event. Few of the nobles cared to witness the crude realities of slavery. I saw Mahreni, almost close enough to touch. She had no reason to visit that quarter unless to see what she had brought me to. I called out to her, but she ignored me as she would any slave. I felt consumed by bitterness. Later that afternoon, the overseer sent R’ubhen and I and another man to fetch a load of straw for the bricks, and as we carried the heavy baskets back, R’ubhen fell suddenly ill, clutching at his chest and gasping for breath. The overseer came to see what delayed us and began beating him. The anger and despair I attempted to contain all day exploded into madness, and I struck the overseer until I killed him. When I turned to help my fellows, they shrank from me. I realized then what I had done and knew Pharaoh would not permit me to live. So I slipped out of the city and escaped.”

  Moshe waited as the silence lengthened, hoping for some word of understanding, of vindication perhaps. When none came, he said finally, “If you wish me to depart from you now, I will understand.” But Reuel’s fingers closed hard on his arm, attempting to express the inexpressible.

  “My silence is not condemnation, my son. I grieve for your suffering, and that of the children of Abraham.”

  * * *

  Far out in the deep dark, the fiery comet Ashtarth once again entered the fringes of the solar system. Over the eons her encounters with the outer planets in their long, slow orbits remained rare, but the inner worlds suffered from her rampages. The stress of dancing with her had torn one planet asunder, reducing it to a scattered ring of asteroids, some of which traveled on with her, condemned by her fatal attraction to follow in the entourage of debris that made up her tail. This time, however, would prove different; this time the mighty fifth world, almost twelve times the mass of the comet, stood guard over her path. Like a pebble tossed into a bowl, Ashtarth hit the rim of Jupiter’s gravity well and spun around its outer edge, threatened with becoming a permanent satellite. But her forward thrust remained such that she managed to tear free, losing a large portion of momentum in the effort. With speed and orbital arc reduced to a fraction of their original, she charged on, towards a catastrophic rendezvous.

  * * *

  Tears of joy watered the furrows of Reuel’s face as he cradled the tiny spark of humanity that was his first grandchild, a boy. Zippora, weary from her birthing labor, leaned back against her husband’s shoulder, content to rest in his arms.

  “He is beautiful, my children. You have made me very happy. What name are you going to give him?”

  “I shall call him Gershom,” Moshe said. “It means ‘an alien resident in a foreign land’, for that is what I have become.” He didn’t notice the reaction his words caused in his wife and father-in-law, the way their smiles waned and a shadow of fear passed between them.

  Several days later, when the evening stars shone brightly and the planet Jupiter rose above the mountains, Reuel called Moshe to his side. “For many nights I have studied the signs accompanying the birth of your son,” he said, “and they seem strange indeed. Look.” A new star had appeared, seeming born by fission from the body of Jupiter. “I don’t know if this is an omen of greatness, or one of impending doom. I fear dark days are coming. Feel how the earth trembles.”

  * * *

  In a deafening explosion, the top of Mount Horeb blew away. The earth began to shake like a blanket in the wind, with the children and animals of Jethro tumbling like seeds on its undulating surface. The flock of Jethro scattered, staggering drunkenly over the unstable landscape. Moshe and his sisters fell and clung to the earth in terror. A fissure opened beneath Chavva and she clawed at the rim, screaming as the grave yawned beneath her dangling feet. Moshe scrambled to her rescue on hands and knees and drew her to safety. The air vibrated with thunder as the racked earth groaned and
shrieked in agony. At last, the quaking subsided. The daughters of Jethro clung to Moshe, shivering and weeping.

  “Come,” he said, “it is over now and we remain safe. We must find the animals before they scatter too far.”

  “Look,” Tamar cried, “a tree of fire has grown from the Mountain of God!”

  Gouts of molten rock spewed in a bright fountain from the crest of Horeb. Moshe stared at the phenomenon for a long moment, dread blossoming in his heart. He helped the girls gather the flock together, then said, “You must go home without me, sisters. Tell Zippora I will come when I can. I must answer to the voice of God.”

  “Moshe, no!” Chavva cried. Young Tamar, so brave until now, started to sob.

  “Don’t go up there, Moshe,” Naomi pleaded. “You will die. Zippora will never forgive us if we don’t bring you back.”

  “Hush, my sisters. If God wants my spirit, He will take it, no matter where I go. He has called me, and I must answer.”

  They left with many sorrowful backward glances, and he watched them out of sight before turning his steps resolutely toward the sacred mountain, the accused marching courageously to face judgment. He sensed death awaiting him, and he feared yet longed for the peace it offered. The wind remained steady from the southeast, blowing a black finger of ash in the direction of Egypt. When nightfall hid the trail, Moshe rested, wrapped in his cloak against the ash that fell like snow. The sullen light of the volcano dimly illuminated black billows of clouds that blotted out the stars. For one brief moment, the inky curtain parted, and he saw the comet, the Angel of Death, amidst the branches of fiery lava.

  Moshe made camp on the high ridge opposite the crater. For days he observed the volcano, waiting for God to pass judgment, going barefoot on this holy ground. On the third day the wind shifted, sending an invisible miasma of foul gas that left him choking and gasping. His vision dimmed as he lost consciousness, and he sank willingly into what he thought was death. Then, suddenly, God stood before him within the burning thicket of lava, a shape too glory-bright to look upon, and God gave him a vision. He saw a flock of sheep within a grassy pen, surrounded by wolves. Occasionally the wolves would kill and eat one of the sheep, but though the gate stood open, the flock seemed reluctant to trade the security of their grassy prison for the uncertainties of freedom. Then the Angel of Death rose above them, beating bright wings that whipped up a whirlwind. The cyclone smashed through the fence and shattered it, scattering and confusing the wolves, forcing the flock to brave the unknown. They looked to Moshe, the shepherd, for guidance, and suddenly he held the Angel in his hand, a staff that glowed like molten gold, a blazing beacon through the darkness of the tempest. The wolves began to close in, but Moshe threw his staff down on the ground, and it turned into a serpent. The wolves also turned into serpents, but Moshe’s serpent swallowed them up. Then Moshe grasped the serpent by the tail, and it turned once more into a staff.

  Moshe woke and shook off the sifting of ash that had settled over him. He felt sick, his head tortured as if something too large had tried it on for size. He rubbed his aching chest as he considered the dream, reluctant to accept the mission it conferred upon him. Leprous patches on the back of his hand suddenly caught his eye, and his stomach crawled with horror. He thrust his hand back inside his robes, shaken by this sign of divine displeasure.

  “My God!” he cried. “How can I do your will if you afflict me?” He wondered suddenly if the corruption could spread skin to skin, and he jerked his hand back out of his clothing. But strangely, his flesh now appeared healed.

  “You are truly great, Lord, but what if the sons of Abraham do not believe my untrained words? When they say to me, ‘If you are sent by the God of our forefathers, tell us His name?’, then what shall I tell them?”

  From the burning bush thunder quaked the earth and struck Moshe to his knees. In the terrifying voice of the mountain, he heard the name of God, “Yah-weh…I am that I am.”

  * * *

  The family celebrated Moshe’s homecoming with joyous relief. After a festive dinner, Moshe and Reuel sat together by the garden wall, as had become their custom in the evenings. It was a time they both cherished. Moshe had shared little of his experience on the mountain, but now he said, “I must return to Egypt, Reuel.”

  His father-in-law looked at him and said nothing.

  “I have given you the heir you longed for, now I ask your blessing to go.”

  “I have seen you staring back across the distances that separated you from your destiny. I would not hold you against your will, Moshe. I hoped you felt content enough to stay.”

  “I have felt…happier than I ever thought I could feel again…happier than I deserve. But this is a thing I must do.”

  “And what of Zippora?”

  Moshe hesitated. “I will leave it for her to decide, whether she will share the hardships of travel and the dangers of being Hebrew in Egypt or wait here in safety for my return.”

  “You will return then?”

  “If God permits.”

  For a long time they stared at the comet making a long streak of light across the night sky, and contemplated the sorrows of parting. Moshe told Reuel of his dream.

  Reuel finally said, “God is sending the Angel as an emissary to help you. There exist legends of antiquity that tell of other angelic visitations upon the earth. Sometimes they appeared as a bright star and bore messages or warnings, but other times they came in the form of a serpent and wrought God’s vengeance upon the wicked. I believe your dream is telling you that this angel is the Staff of God. As it draws near, it will turn into a serpent and wreak destruction, but those who follow behind God, holding to His staff of righteousness, will come to no harm. With His right hand He punishes the wicked, with His left He gathers the righteous like seeds for the sowing. What happened to your hand is a sign also, not a personal threat as you believed. As we are all made from dust, therefore your hand represents the earth. Twice there will come a time of great darkness; after the first the world will be blighted, but after the second it will grow healthy once more.”

  * * *

  Through the streets of Egypt’s capital, Moshe strode in grim silence beside his brother, Aaron. They had just come from an audience with Pharaoh and his advisors. Ramses greeted Moshe with smiling reserve after so many years apart, officially pardoning him for the long-ago death of the slave overseer. They had been close once, as boys, and Ramses never agreed with his father’s harsh rejection of Moshe, or the sentence of slavery for a man he knew to be an honest and loyal soldier. But many years separated the stern and serious men who faced one another now from the smiling friends and brothers they once had been. When Aaron told Ramses about Moshe’s dream, the Staff of God and the impending doom it promised, Ramses just shrugged and said his own soothsayers had studied the signs and pronounced the streak of light in the night sky a good omen, a tribute from the gods to show their respect for Pharaoh, the god incarnate. Moshe made his request anyway, asking that Pharaoh permit the Hebrew slaves to go out into the desert to make the traditional Meriah sacrifice to the One God, to perhaps turn aside the wrath about to descend upon them all. In general, the Egyptians remained tolerant of other religions, allowing their slaves to keep their own traditions and celebrate their holy days. But suspending all work while the Hebrew slaves wandered off into the desert for days to perform some foreign ritual remained out of the question, and Ramses declined the request.

  During Moshe’s years of exile, Aaron had become a revered spiritual leader amongst the Hebrews, using his influence to quell the rumblings of rebellion that would have ended in a bloodbath, with poorly armed slaves pitted against trained soldiers. His pacifying influence won respect and even concessions from Pharaoh and his court and had allowed Aaron to gain this audience with Ramses. But now, disappointed with the results of that visit, the brothers walked together amongst the rich homes of the aristocracy with their walls of dressed stone, their private courtyards
, fountains and hanging flower gardens. It seemed such a stark contrast when the brothers passed through the marketplace and reached the dusty sprawl of the slave quarter where the single-story dwellings were composed of mud and straw with thatched roofs. Here small courtyards remained communal, shared between a dozen small huts sandwiched together, and had no fountains or flower gardens. Slaves needed to carry their daily water, either from the river or the common well, for some from as far away as two miles. Containers and small gardens held herbs and vegetables essential for survival, with no room for the merely beautiful. For most of the slaves, life remained a grueling struggle to fulfill their daily work quotas and grow enough to feed their families. But as a result, most who survived became hardy individuals with physical strength and mental toughness that showed as distinct a contrast to the soft-handed, indulgent Egyptian aristocracy as their dwellings did. And that contrast in lifestyle brewed a simmering resentment just waiting for a chance to boil over into the chaos of rebellion.

  * * *

  The Staff of God grew larger in the sky, until the head of the massive comet dwarfed the moon. The Earth trembled and shuddered at the nearness of this rival, massing almost as large and moving at deadly speed. The strain of resisting that gravitational pull caused the crust of the Earth to split apart with earthquakes, massive volcanoes, tidal surges that swamped huge tracts of farmland. Only the speed of passage kept that battle from ending in mutual destruction.

  A pall of volcanic ash blackened the sky from multiple directions, turning the day as dark as perpetual night. As the comet passed on, her massive tail raked the earth once again, bathing it in red dust and stones that fell in a burning hail. The waters of the mighty Nile gathered the red dust over its enormous watershed and washed it down toward the sea. The river turned red as blood and stank of dead fish. Only the deepest wells, kept covered, held drinkable water.