Moses, Man of the Mountain

by Zora Neale Hurston

  “I see her!” a woman at Miriam’s elbow breathed in ecstasy. “Oooh, ain’t she elegant! Ain’t she pretty, though? I’d give anything to look like that. She looks like Mrs. Leader.”

  Miriam turned and spat at the woman, but unwilling as her eyes were, she saw the admiration of Zipporah in thousands of faces and she felt utterly helpless in the presence of it. She was carried forward against her will by the slow wave of women that crept behind Moses and Zipporah as they walked. She could see women already trying to set down their broad bare feet in the same way that Zipporah set down her dainty sandals. Her walk and her gestures were catching. They were more than willing to take the wife of Moses for a pattern. So Miriam gave vent to her feelings in another way.

  “Look at you!” she screamed. “Look at you! Running and gaping behind a woman and what she got on when we come here to this mountain to meet our God. Is that any way to act? You ought to be so glad that we got a God that made us free and now He is picking out a home for us and here you go running after somebody because they got on gold anklets and neck-rings and forget all about our new God in the mountain. Look at old Aunt Judy! Awringing and atwisting herself and grinning like she was some young gal! And she look like somebody slapped her in the face with a buzzard gut! All of you look like you done gone crazy! Get on back to your tents! Somebody in Israel got to have some sense.”

  Miriam changed the direction of their feet, but she did not change the direction of their thoughts. She went off to talk to Aaron about it.

  Meanwhile Moses reached his tent door and ushered Zipporah inside. Then he stepped back outside to give final orders before he excluded himself from the public for the night. He told Joshua what to do and then saw Jethro approaching.

  “You don’t tell me you are turning in already, Moses,” Jethro said with objection in his voice.

  “Yes, I am. Got to talk with my wife.”

  “We got to talk some, too, Moses. Very important matters we got to talk over together.”

  “All right, you and I will talk all day tomorrow.”

  “But it’s still daylight, Moses, we could go over a lot of things before dark if you would consider.”

  “Oh, well, it’s so near sundown it’s not worth bothering. See you tomorrow.”

  Jethro looked at Moses searchingly and said, “Moses, you are hurrying the sun across the sky to sleep with a woman.”

  “I believe I’m guilty, Jethro. It’s your daughter’s fault. It’s a shame the way this woman keeps me running after her, but it looks like there ain’t no help for it. I reckon I’ll have to keep it up until I die.”

  “Don’t forget you are called, Moses. You got a work to do that’s going to take up about all of your time.”

  “Did the Voice say give up my wife too? I hope not.”

  “But, Moses, you have to consecrate yourself for work that you got to do. Women pull men aside, you know.”

  “You’re right, I reckon, Jethro. In fact, I know you are right and maybe the day will come when I can go by your rule, but I will have to get a lot older than I am. Right now it’s too hard for me. How come I can’t have my wife with me to enjoy?”

  “Moses, I reckon each one of us is talking from his own standpoint. Maybe you’re right and I’m wrong. People put a whole lot of things on altars that they can’t put inside of themselves, so there’s a pile of things on altars that ain’t in people, and then again, there’s a lot of things in people that ain’t on altars. So I reckon it was meant to be like that.”

  “Yes, Jethro, I have found all that out for myself. Everything in its time and place. Zipporah is waiting for me. See you tomorrow morning.”

  Next morning when Jethro came to the tent of Moses to look for him he was out and gone. Zipporah was being moved to a tent of her own with her several attendants, and thousands of women were crowded around staring at Zipporah and her trappings. Mrs. Moses was the greatest sensation the women had ever had.

  Miriam came up to look and see because the whole nation of women was talking about nothing else, and she couldn’t stay away. They had no more interest in prophecy and politics. They were still interested in the earrings of Mrs. Moses and her sandals, and the way she walked and her fine-twined colored linens. What she was doing was the way they all wanted to do. Anyhow they could all dream about it and talk, even if they couldn’t be like that. Miriam stood off at a short distance from the elaborate tent being put up for the exclusive use of Mrs. Moses and her saliva turned to venom in her mouth. She went up closer to finger the royal linen that Moses had brought out of Egypt for his wife. Then, as before, she looked down at her rough clothing and work-twisted feet and hands and she became aware of class. This woman of Moses’ had been oiled with something from birth that she lacked and the futility of wishing for it made her more angry than ever. She whirled to find Aaron and Moses so she could empty herself out somehow.

  She found Aaron and had another talk with him, but Moses was holding big court out under a shade tree. People by the thousands stood around for him to pass on their cases. They had been waiting for several weeks for Moses to set court, and law cases had accumulated. Moses listened to evidence and passed out judgment until his mouth was tired. Then Jethro called him to one side and spoke to him.

  “Moses, what you got all these folks hanging around you like this for?”

  “Big court has set, Jethro. I’m handling cases.”

  “Is that what you call yourself doing? I thought it was a dog-fight or something like that going on. If you’re handling cases why don’t you handle ’em right, Moses? You can’t make out the way you are going.”

  “How you mean, Jethro?”

  “Look at all these thousands of people standing around waiting for their cases to come up. You can’t handle that many cases in one day.”

  “Well, you see, Jethro, we’ve been so busy with other things that I just haven’t had time to sit on no cases. Naturally everybody comes to me when they have words over things and I have to lay a hearing on each case.”

  “Well, I’m telling you that you just can’t do it, Moses. You got more than two million souls under you and you ain’t but one lone man. You can’t listen to every little jumped-up fuss that people get up. It will wear you out and kill you dead. And then again it ain’t fair to the people to come stand round you all day like this without knowing whether you’re going to find time to see ’em or not.”

  “What am I going to do then, Jethro? The folks just will law one another. Somebody’s got to sit on the case.”

  “You sure are right there and I don’t mind telling you so. But you can’t listen to every case. It’s much too much. Tell you what to do. You appoint good men to sit on all these small cases and get rid of ’em. You listen to the great big ones that nobody can settle but you. Then everything will work along smooth for everybody.”

  “All right, Jethro. That’s a good idea you give me and I mean to carry it out just like you told me. You being a chief over people nearly all your life, you have learned something about how to handle ’em. I have been more of a military man.”

  “That is not your job in this case. You got to be something to these people that looks like God. That’s a mighty big thing by itself. You appoint men to fight and men to judge, and men to wear the robes of priests and servants around the gathering place of the spirit. You have to be the something bigger and better than the robes and the outward signs. You have to stand between the people and God.”

  “That’s a mighty big mouthful you said, Jethro. It’s big like the womb of Time.”

  “I know it, Moses. But you can fill the bill. It’s just one step higher up the shiny mountain for you, and you been climbing all the time. Be something pointing toward God to the folks, Moses. That’s what you was born to be.”

  When Jethro’s words went into the little door in Moses’ ear, something else went inside besides. He felt that he had been embraced by Time itself. He was never to be the same man again.

  “An
d if you don’t mind, Moses, let me get on back home again.”

  “Oh, no, Jethro, I want you to stay with me all the time. I need you real bad to see this thing out to the end.”

  “You did need me, but now you don’t. Let me go on home again. You got your wife and children now, and I done you all the good I could already. You know where home is any time you want to talk anything over. In fact it will be a help to you to come home and talk things over with me now and then. You know these woods and roads better than anybody else on earth. Much as you done traveled ’em. Come home for a few days when you can. Sun-up tomorrow I reckon I’ll hit the grit for home. Mighty lonesome there now without you and the children. Everybody married off and out of the house. It ain’t much for me to do now but sit and think.”

  “I’ll be there with you as often as I can get away. You know my heart is there, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Moses, I do. But this work done waited so long to get done, son. I hope you fulfill your birth-mission and do it right. Me and God neither one can’t make out without you. We both realize you got an awful load to carry, but there wasn’t no other way to get it done. Don’t forget that when things get awful bad with you, me and God will both be sorry, but the mission, Moses, the mission.” Jethro lifted his old hands up on the shoulders of Moses, gave him a powerful eye-look that lasted a long time; leaned his head on Moses’ strong chest and hugged Moses very hard. In effect he had departed for home in spirit and at the same time pleaded for understanding. He was gone when Moses woke up in the morning.

  CHAPTER 33

  Next day at a good hour, Moses went up on the mountain as if he had been called. The shining mountain. The mountain with a Voice. The mountain that cloaked the Presence. The mountain that had given Moses and Israel a God. The mountain that had given him his rod of God. The mountain that was the altar of the world. That was the way Moses was thinking when he climbed up its woody slopes with Joshua following behind him at a distance.

  And from the cloud-ringed summit the Lord called out to Moses and told him who He was. To make Moses remember, the Lord called to mind the victories over Pharaoh in Egypt and the miracles since Israel had crossed the Red Sea. So Moses told Him right away that he remembered well.

  “Moses, I see the people you brought here before me and I think well of them. Now, if they will listen to me when I speak, and keep the laws I’m going to hand down, I’m going to make a peculiar treasure out of those same people.”

  “Thank you, Lord,” Moses said.

  “Now, Moses, you go back to the people and see to it that they wash themselves all over today and tomorrow and wash their clothes, too, and generally clean up and then you sanctify them for two days and get them all ready for the third day. And I am coming down in the plain sight of everybody on Mount Sinai. And, Moses, I’m going to have a trumpet sound one long pull. And when you hear that, tell everybody to gather around the foot of the mountain. I’m coming.”

  Moses went on down and got all the people cleaned up and made all the arrangements. Then he told the people, “I know how forward and brash some of you people are, so I’m going to tell you right now that Mount Sinai is holy ground. Don’t a one of you set foot on it, nor even put your hands on it. When the Lord appears to you on the top of the mountain, you stand still and listen because it is sure death to the one that touches that mountain. You hear me? Even your animals better not be caught grazing on it. And now don’t nobody sleep with your husbands and wives until God done been here and gone.”

  It was the third day and it was morning. Moses got up soon and put on the special new robe that Zipporah had had made for him. Everybody was clean and dressed. A low rumble of thunder from the mountain brought everybody out of their tents to gaze at the mountain and to listen. They saw the huge white cloud drop down and rest on the crest of the mountain like a Pharaoh assuming his throne. Something like lightning played in fiery figures, over and above the cloud-like visitor and great flashes darted from the interior of the mass and went back inside again. And the trumpet on the mountain sounded so long and so loud that everybody trembled.

  “Come on, people!” Moses called out and told everybody. “Come on out. God wants to see you and talk to you. Everybody come stand right where I put you on this low part of the mountain and don’t nobody try to go up. You are here to meet God and listen.”

  Dense white and black columns of smoke rose from the entire upper half of the mountain, and the great mass shook and quivered like a forest. The voice of the trumpet got louder and louder. Then Moses spoke to God and God answered him.

  Moses said, “Here’s Your people, Lord. Where are You?”

  “I’m coming down on top of the mountain to meet you. Don’t let nobody set foot on the mountain but you. But I want you to come on up to the top of the mountain. I want to talk with you.”

  Moses started on up the mountain and all of the people were scared for him. Some of them cried and begged him not to go. But most of them left their mouths just like the Lord found them. If they were open, they stayed open. If they were shut, they might just as well have had the lockjaw for all the use they made of their mouths. But right in front of everybody, Moses went on up into the smoke and flames and disappeared from sight.

  And when Moses got up on the mountain top and vanished from the sight of the people, only one man had nerve enough to put his feet in the tracks of Moses. Joshua dashed from the multitude and began to run up the mountain the same way that Moses had gone. People hollered to him to stop. Some of them began to wail for his death, but he kept right on.

  “You going to drop dead, Joshua!” some of them hollered. “Don’t go up there, Joshua!”

  “My bossman and leader went up there, didn’t he?” Joshua called back.

  “He got that right hand of his and that rod, Joshua. He can walk out of the sight of men. He got the black cat bone and snake wisdom. He’s a two-headed man. He ain’t like nobody else on earth. Better come on back, Joshua, before that snake gets to you. We don’t see no more of Moses. Maybe he’s dead up there himself.”

  “Well, if he’s dead up there with God, lemme go up and die too.” So Joshua entered the smoke and fire and disappeared from the people like Moses did. But when he got near the top of the mountain, glory awed him to his knees. He saw Moses standing higher up and seven suns circling around him and the moon was under his feet. Moses held his rod in his left hand and elevated it towards the center of a whorl of light. His right hand was lifted and glowed like the firmament at sunrise. Therefore he knew Moses had more power than man because a voice spoke out of the equator of the moving light and Moses answered it back again. So that is how the people got laws and commandments from heaven, because Moses had power enough to take them out of the mouth of God and give them to the people. So Moses stayed up on the mountain and kept company with God for forty nights and days, and he didn’t eat and he didn’t get hungry. But he fed Joshua every day by a miracle. Therefore Joshua slept down below where Moses sat talking with God and saw Moses in a way that nobody else had ever seen him.

  CHAPTER 34

  Moses stayed up on the mountain so long because it takes a long time to learn God’s secret words that have the power in them to make and to do. Moses learned ten words from God. So he took the ten words of power and he made ten commandments out of them. On the back side of the words there were seals and these seals had the power of all destructions. So Moses came down the mountain with plagues of death in his hands, besides more power to create and to do. And Joshua walked behind him in adoration and awe. Moses walked with the two tables of testimony in his hands and Joshua walked with worship.

  But Moses had stayed within the aureate cloud for forty days and the people below had just about given him up. Most of them thought that Joshua and Moses were dead up there in the smoke. But some said, “Oh, he ain’t dead. He just bit off more than he can chew so he done run off across the mountain and left us. We better begin to shift for ourselves.”

 
They didn’t say anything to Mrs. Moses because she seemed too much like a stranger to them to visit with her up close. Not that she tried to make them feel that way. But she looked like a ruler’s wife to them and they kept off and looked at her tent and her servants and her clothes.

  Aaron didn’t give out any information at all. He kept on saying, “How would I know what that man is doing up there? He never tells me nothing. The Lord told me and him and Miriam to run this thing, but you see how he carries on. He goes up on the mountain to talk to God by himself and that leaves me and Miriam in the dark. I am beginning to think like a whole lot of people in Israel. You can’t put no dependence at all in no Egyptian, don’t care who it is.”

  Miriam said, “Yes, that no-count Egyptian come with his mealy mouth and talked me and Aaron into bringing you all off. We was the ones that done all the work because he ain’t one of us sure enough. He couldn’t have got nobody to follow him. Here I was a big prophetess in Israel and Aaron was a leader, so the people followed us on and off and now he done took full charge and full credit for everything. We ain’t even good enough to go up with him and speak with the Lord. And look at that dark complected woman he done brought and put up to be a Queen over the rest of us women. Why, it’s awful. I never seen such a caper cut in all my born days.”

  “Well, that being the case, let’s we back the deal. We don’t know nothing about where we headed for and nothing, and nobody don’t know nothing about this new Lord in the mountain but Moses and Jethro.” A bosom friend of Aaron’s said this and looked to Aaron for the approval that he knew he would get.

  “But we do know something about our gods back in Egypt,” Miriam went on. “Maybe that’s how come we having such a hard time, because we done give up our gods. Isis will sure help you if you pray to her and pray right. Did the Bull God Apis ever go back on us? No!”

  “Well, then now, how come we can’t have an altar to our real gods and maybe they will help us. It wouldn’t be a bad idea, seeing the fix we’re in. Aaron, you been used to working gold. How come you can’t make us a golden calf for our altar?”