Moses, Man of the Mountain

by Zora Neale Hurston

  “All right, get it told. What’s the matter now?”

  “Moses, we’re hungry.”

  “There’s plenty manna. I see to that every day.”

  “But we’re tired of manna. We want something else to eat.”

  “Why don’t you find it then? Nobody is stopping you, are they?”

  “We can’t find nothing around here.”

  “If you can’t find anything except the manna which I provide for you, how do you expect me to find anything?”

  The committee began to boil like a pot. The spokesman whirled and made gestures with his hands. They acted out desperation, despair and futility. “Lawd, listen at that man! Here he done took and brought us out of Egypt where we was getting along just fine. We remember the nice fresh fish we used to get back there in Egypt every day. Nice sweet-tasting little pan-fish and a person could get all they could eat for five cents. Unhunh! and didn’t we used to eat ’em, too. And the nice fresh cucumbers, and the watermelons, and the leeks and the onions and plenty garlic for seasoning! You could get a decent meal most anywhere before you could turn around. And now look where we’re at—out here in this hungry wilderness with our souls all dried up and nothing but this manna before our eyes. Oh, we wish we had of died down there in Egypt instead of coming off like a pack of fools.”

  Moses listened until the end and then he said, “I’m sure sorry for you all, but not because you are crying after the fleshpots of Egypt. I’m sorry for you because you don’t feel hungry nowhere else except in your bellies. You have lost sight of your high destiny in your scramble after food. You hate me at times for not being more interested in your stomachs than in your hearts. You are looking at this thing from one viewpoint and I’m looking at it from another. Here I am struggling to make a great nation out of you and you are worrying about fried fish and cucumbers! Do you see me eating anything like that?”

  “We don’t know what you eat while you shut yourself up inside this great big old tent.”

  “Where do you reckon I would get it from?”

  “Oh, you got that right hand of yours and that rod, ain’t you? You got quails and this manna and water and a whole heap of other things with it. You could give us anything we wanted if you would.”

  “I see. You trust my ability, but you don’t trust my judgment.”

  “We don’t mean it that way exactly. But it’s hard to love freedom if it keeps you hungry.”

  Moses saw a certain pleasure in Aaron’s eye so he said, “Aaron, you could help out the people in a case like this.”

  “Oh, they know that if I had the power you got they wouldn’t want for a thing. I been all through what they been through and I got some sympathy for ’em. They all know that.”

  “I see, Aaron. I see just what you mean, and it ain’t what they think you mean, but we’ll come to that part later on. Now, you Elders of the people, somebody done got you in the notion that I can get anything you want to eat and drink at a moment’s notice. Supposing I could. But that ain’t the question. I don’t want to spend all my time and strength pulling miracles for the sake of your bellies. I’m here to make a nation out of you all, if you will work with me.”

  “Lord, the man come talking about making us a nation when we ain’t even got garlic to season with! We want something besides this manna to eat.”

  Moses stood up and looked down on the committee and said, “It’s a good thing your cattle can’t talk or they would slur you as you do me, for your lack of interest in fodder. Well, go on home and I’ll stop planning the future for you for the moment to satisfy your lusts. But it is getting a little tiresome, this always assailing me about trifles. You committeemen never come to help me, you come to complain.”

  They started on out and Moses let them go, all but Aaron. When they were alone Moses said to him, “Aaron, you ain’t as helpful as you might be. I been noticing it right along. Here I made you the high priest, and gave you all the pomp and regalia that I could but you still don’t seem to feel your responsibility the way I would like.”

  Aaron fingered the jewelled girdle about his loins and stroked his beard. “Oh, well,” he said, walking to the door, “maybe there’s a lot of things you don’t understand. Maybe sometime you’ll find out you can’t dog people around and dominate ’em as you see fit. That you can’t use other folks for your stepping stones and then throw ’em away.” Aaron flourished on out and around the bend of the road and left Moses in deep thought. Moses made two decisions and called Joshua.

  “Joshua, get ready. I am going to send a representative from each tribe to spy out the Promised Land and you are going. Call a meeting of the Elders and find out who the other eleven men are by tomorrow night. I want this pilgrimage to end before long.”

  CHAPTER 38

  The other decision Moses kept to himself. But with his plan all formed he felt better. The spies would come back with a favorable report. They were bound to. It was late August and all of the fruit trees would be loaded down. He had been in Canaan at this time of the year and knew what it looked like. They were bound to be favorably impressed. Then a swift, hard military thrust and the journey would be over. The Israelites would have a home, a God and a name. He would miss the mountains of Midian with Jethro’s sheep trotting before him. The long exchange of thoughts with Jethro and the little comforts and delights with Zipporah. Jethro was getting mighty old. Maybe Moses would get back in time to spend a year or two with him. He hoped so very much. That night while the people feasted on quail which Moses had brought in to them on a big wind, Moses sat on the side of the mountain and fought with himself. He asked himself, “Why not go on home and leave these people to do whatever they want to? Aaron is stupid and full of conceit like all little men suddenly elevated to places of power. But if he wants to lead, why not go on and lead your life and let him lead? You brought them out of Egypt with the might of your right hand and you have done this thing up to now. Here they are in striking distance of Canaan with an army and with laws and statutes. Why not quietly go on home?” It was a tough battle, but Moses came down the mountain in the morning and went on with his plans for taking Canaan. For a period during the night he had had a vision of freedom but morning found him back in harness. He was a man who had been called.

  Forty days passed and the spies came back. They came back with a bunch of grapes that it took two men to carry and they brought melons and cucumbers and various fruits and vegetables and the people were fired to go where things like that were growing.

  Then they heard about the people they had to fight before they could own the land and another wind swept the camp. It made no difference that two of the spies sent out said that they had a good chance to win. Not even the word of Joshua, the military leader of Israel, could talk down the fear inspired by the other ten.

  “The land is rich,” Joshua and Caleb told them. Caleb said, “All we got to do is to go take it. It’s right there for us, ain’t that right, Joshua?”

  “It certainly is. We could lay down a hard campaign of two weeks and own every inch of Canaan from end to end. All it needs is some good hard fighting before they get time to double-teen us.”

  Another spy said, “Don’t you all listen to Joshua and Caleb. Them two is crazy in the head. Just listen at them now and all of us will be dead. Them people live in stone houses and even the town’s got walls around ’em. We couldn’t never take ’em. And just look how many nations we got to fight! There’s the Amalekites, and they live in the southern part there and they are stronger than they was when we fought ’em a few years back.”

  “But we are stronger too,” Joshua cut in. “Don’t forget that. And then another thing, we was just as green as grass when we whipped ’em last time. We ought to mop up for ’em this time. Shucks! They ain’t no trouble.”

  “Don’t tell me they ain’t no trouble. And then there’s some mountains all around and they just full of fighting folks. There’s the Hittites and the Amorites and the Jebusites and, man, those f
olks can fight. And then over along the seacoast those Canaanites, and there sure is plenty of ’em to fight too.”

  Caleb said, “Aw, let’s go on up and take the place. We can beat all those little nations one by one. Half a day to a nation and take that place. It sure is pretty country. Then we will have a place of our own that we can rule over and do as we please.”

  “Folks, don’t you let Joshua and Caleb fool nobody. You ain’t heard the worst yet. Do you know we passed through one place where everybody was giants? Yesirree, those men of Anak are sure enough big men. Why, they are so big we look like grasshoppers to ourselves beside them and that ain’t the worst of it, we looked like grasshoppers to them, too. Don’t you let Caleb and Joshua fool you to run up against those people. Wouldn’t nothing be left of Israel but a grease spot.”

  A few men wanted to follow Moses, Caleb and Joshua, but the big majority got scared and pulled back. They got so scared that they got mad.

  “From one thing to another, that Moses keeps us in a strut. If it ain’t one thing it’s another. Now he wants us to go get ourselves killed just to make him a King and we just ain’t going to do it. That man don’t mean us no good at all. Let’s go on back to Egypt where we belong, but first thing let’s kill him for bringing us off.”

  Moses heard the mad clamor of the multitudes and knew the danger that he faced. Men circled him where he stood, snarling like animals. All they needed was a leader with courage enough to cross that small bare circle of ground that separated them from Moses. “Now is your time, Aaron,” Moses thought to himself. “Now is your time if you only had the courage to seize it. But you are a snarling hyena, waiting for some lion to make your kill for you.” But never for a moment did Moses forget that some unknown might find the spark that would destroy him, and more than that, destroy his mission. But in spite of it all he was cool enough to note the shuffle of the grass in the wind and the little dance of dust in a whirlwind. He realized that he was in great danger of being taken for a mere man where he stood. While in the Tabernacle of the Congregation they could scarcely think of him apart from the mysteries. So he turned suddenly and walked in that direction, wondering if he would live long enough to make it. And the clamoring mob, led by their Prince, followed him.

  He invited the Princes and the Elders to enter and told the people to wait outside. He entered last and faced the angry Princes and Elders for a full minute in silence then fell on his face in the door.

  A great gasp went up from the Princes and the people outside crowded back from the door in some nameless fear. The figure of Moses on the ground did not look helpless somehow. It inspired more terror than it would have even with the uplifted hand. Everybody shrunk away as far as they could.

  Old Miriam outside crept forward a little in front of the others and then backed away as fast as she could. Then she broke a silence of several months.

  “Something awful will happen from this,” she whispered from a throat so dry that it rattled. “It is a bad sign. He will lift that right hand and Israel will suffer terribly. It is better to do as he says.”

  The people and the Princes stood back and gazed on Moses. Not a man in Israel would have touched him. Their weapons were frozen to their hands, though the wish for his death was in the minds of many Princes and Elders. Moses sensed his victory and slowly stood erect.

  Moses stood up and swept the nation with his eyes and they were scared.

  “Lord,” Moses said, “what kind of cowards are these You sent me to lead? You bring them out of slavery in Egypt with a high hand. You take care of them in the wilderness. You speak to them from Sinai and point out a beautiful rich country which You tell them is theirs. All they need to do is to show fight to a bunch of scrub nations and take the country and cease their wanderings in the wilderness. But will they do it, Lord? No! They are cowards. And none of these slave-minded cowards shall enter the land You promised them. They shall wander in this wilderness until they are all dead. That is, all those who are grown enough to know what they are talking about. Their carcasses shall rot in this wilderness. I am not talking about Joshua and Caleb, Lord. I am talking about these others. I can make something out of their children, but not out of them. They have the essence of greatness in them and I shall fight them and fight myself and the world and even God for them. They shall not refuse their destiny. In this wilderness shall they be consumed, and here they shall die.”

  When the people thought overnight about what Moses had said, they were more scared of him than they were of the fighting nations. So they got up soon in the morning and went up on the mountain and told Moses that they were ready to fight now, and they were willing to acknowledge to the fact that they talked too much the day before. But Moses told them, “It won’t do you no good to come around talking about fighting today, because that ain’t in my plans. You’re just breaking into my arrangements to be starting any war today. Go on home, all of you. The Lord ain’t helping you do no fighting today. You go beyond that mountain and tackle those Amalekites and Canaanites and you’ll get your whipping because I’m not going and the Ark of the Covenant is not going and Joshua is not going, so if you want to be hardheaded and go jump on those people, go right ahead.”

  But some of the Princes told the people to come on and fight, because, they argued, if they won’t it would prove that they didn’t need Moses as much as they thought they did. In fact, if they won they could cut loose from him and God and everything else and be so free till they were foolish. So they went on to fight and the battle went against them from the beginning and they had to run it out for the most part, those who were able to run.

  Therefore next day Moses turned the hosts of Israel back into the wilderness to serve their forty years and grow men and women in places of slaves. To wander and to fall down and to die in strange places where nobody lived and where nobody would live again for thousands of years. The Voice had said to take a nation across the Jordan, and the generation which he had brought out of Egypt had failed him. “The third generation will feel free and noble. Then I can mold a nation. Forty years is a long, long time, Joshua, but the Voice commanded me to lead.” And Moses was very sad.

  CHAPTER 39

  They wandered in the wilderness and wandered and sickened and died and gave birth and revolted again and again. So they came in their wanderings to Kadesh which is in the desert of Zin.

  Moses was sitting in his tent writing when he looked up and saw Miriam standing over him. Everything about her was asserting itself that day. Her rusty gray hair that used to be a dry-looking red; her pale eye-lashes that had always been that way and her drooping jowls and shrunken-up figure.

  “Well, Miss Miriam,” Moses said, making a place for her to sit down, “this sure is a surprise, you coming to pay me a visit.”

  “Naw, it ain’t,” Miriam said without taking her eyes off of Moses’ face nor changing a muscle in her own. “Nothing don’t ever surprise you. You know everything beforehand. You know, but you let things happen for reasons.”

  Moses looked at the mask of her face. It looked like nothing had moved in it for years. Nothing had gone in its portals and nothing had come out. It seemed to have finished with everything and just to have been waiting on time.

  “Moses, I come here this evening to ask you to let me die.”

  “Why, Miss Miriam!”

  “I ask you kindly, please, Moses, to let me die.”

  “What makes you think you got to get my consent to die?”

  “Cause I know I can’t die without it. That right hand of yours—it’s got light in front of it and darkness behind. Moses, I come in the humblest way I know how to let you know I done quit straining against you. I done quit putting my poor little strength up against yours. I’m just a beat old woman and I want to die.”

  “But, Miss Miriam, you ain’t had time to enjoy your freedom yet. You ought to want to live to enjoy it and to see Israel a nation.”

  “This freedom is more than a notion, Moses. It’s a g
ood thing. It’s bound to be a good thing ’cause everybody wants it. But maybe I didn’t know what to do with it, ’cause I ain’t been so happy. That ain’t what I come to talk about, Moses. I come here to ask you to please let me die.”

  “That’s something nobody ain’t never asked me before. That ain’t something that I can pass on like the vessels before the altar, Miriam. God got to tell you that and he is seldom known to even do that.”

  “I want to go on back home and lay down, Moses. Is you going to let me die or not?”

  “Miss Miriam, you sure your mind is all right and everything?”

  “Yes, I’m real sure, and I know I want to die. I reckon I done tackled something too big for me and it done throwed me like a bucking horse. I been through living for years. I just ain’t dead yet.”

  “How long do you figure you been through living, Miss Miriam?”

  “Ever since I spent that week outside the camp when, er—when I was a leper. When I was unclean and had the leprosy and looked at myself all over and I was shut out from everything and from the living. That was when I got to thinking with only certain places in my head and I got to fleeing all over with fear. And you showed me your hand, that shiny right hand of yours, every night while I was outside the camp there in the dark. You kept it held up over my head and I’d run all night long but I couldn’t get away from it. You see, I was a prophetess back in Egypt and I had power, that is what the people told me, anyhow. So when you didn’t do to suit me, I made up my mind to fight your power with mine. But I found out I was no more against you than a grain of sand against a mountain, because you beat me and then you bottled me up inside of my own body and you been keeping me in jail inside myself ever since. Turn me loose, Moses, so I can go on and die.”

  “I can’t stop you from dying, Miss Miriam. This notion you got must come from a long way off because it is so strange.”

  “Moses, I’m going home to lay down to die. Don’t let me see your hand over me like it’s been every night for years. I don’t need to drag my bones to Canaan to lay ’em down. This wilderness will do if you are through with me.”