By Way of the Wilderness

by Gilbert, Morris

  Moses, who had never known a hungry day in his life, wondered what it was like to have this kind of hunger. He knew that normally months would pass between one mouthful of meat and the next for these slave families, but this festival was a time when normal restraints were thrown away. He watched as a woman hacked and sawed at the hippo, opening up a tremendous cavity. She was plastered with blood, and reaching down inside, she drew out the liver, which she threw to her children, then went back to pulling at the flesh of the beast. A fire had been built on the shore, and the oldest children threw the liver on the coals while the younger watched, crowding around and yelping like wild beasts themselves.

  Soon a man and woman, who were presumably husband and wife, grabbed the scorched liver off the fire and threw other chunks of meat on it. The flesh of the hippo was delicious in Moses’ opinion, and he watched as the people, who were starved for animal fat, went wild gorging themselves, cramming the juicy, fatty meat into their mouths. While the people were still carving out the meat, the priests were going around collecting the ivory teeth, which belonged to the pharaoh and were as valuable as the elephant tusks brought from the land of Cush far to the south. The hides were given to the army to be turned into leather war shields. The meat that could not be consumed on the riverbank would be pickled in brine, smoked, or dried. Much of it would be used to feed the army, the lawyers, the keepers of the temple, and other civil servants.

  “Quite a sight, eh, Lord Moses?”

  Moses turned to see Majal, his chief lieutenant, who had come to stand beside him. Majal was a short, muscled individual with gaps between his teeth and a pair of bright, snapping black eyes. He was an expert soldier, and if he was afraid of anything on earth, no one ever found out about it.

  “Have you wondered, Majal, what it would be like to be a slave?”

  Majal stood stock-still for a moment, his black eyes fixed on Moses. “Why would I think about that?”

  “I think about it,” Moses said. “Look at them. They’re starving to death. That is probably the first meat some of those children have ever seen.”

  Majal shifted uneasily. He knew Moses’ history, and now that Moses himself was referring to the Hebrews, he had a sudden thought. “You can’t think about things like that,” he said. “People are born according to the will of Ra.”

  “You really believe that?”

  “Well, it’s what the priests tell us.”

  “Don’t believe everything you hear,” Moses said.

  Moses watched the archers in the boats killing the crocodiles that swarmed to the fresh blood of the slain hippos. Harpooners were driving their lances through the tough, scaly hides. Many of the harpooners were so skillful that it took only one thrust to kill the beast, but if they missed, the croc would roll, twisting the harpoon and dragging the men under the water with it. Moses saw at least two men killed by the crocodiles.

  Majal watched Moses for a while, thinking what a strange master he had, then said, “I’m going to find me a woman. Come along.”

  “No, I’ll stay here, Majal.”

  Majal shrugged his massive shoulders and sauntered off. Moses had been seized by a feeling he could not understand, a feeling that he was being watched, and his eyes searched the seething crowd as they feasted on the meat. He spotted a woman who took no part in the festivities. She was tall and thin and wore the typical garb of a slave woman. She was not beautiful, for a lifetime of hard labor had etched itself into her face.

  Nonetheless, her eyes caught at Moses, and he realized he had seen her before. Memories came rushing back, and he knew that this woman, whoever she was, had sought him out many times. He remembered seeing her when he was a very young man, when he would often wander through the streets of the city. He had thought little of it then, but now something in him responded to her.

  Her eyes were light brown, her skin roughened by blowing sand and exposure to the blistering Egyptian sun. He could see that her hands were hard and calloused, but it was not her physical appearance that held Moses there. Rather it was the intensity of her gaze.

  Impulsively he started toward her, but after two or three steps he stopped. Something passed between the two of them as each ignored the yells and laughter and noises of the crowd. Moses seemed to be drawn into the woman’s eyes and could not understand why.

  Why is she watching me? he thought. An irrational fear seized him. Without another word he turned and moved away, keeping his back to the woman. He did not turn to look at her but could feel her eyes boring into his back, and he hastened his pace to get away from her as quickly as he could.

  ****

  “This is good, daughter,” Amram muttered, savoring another piece of roasted hippo meat. He could not chew but enjoyed sucking out the juices. His eyes were alight with pleasure as the fat ran down his beard.

  Jochebed laughed, staring at her husband. “You’re a pretty sight,” she said. “You eat like an old crocodile, snapping at your food.”

  “Say what you will,” Amram grunted, ignoring his wife’s taunts. “We don’t get meat like this very often.”

  Miriam and Aaron had been able to procure a goodly portion of the meat, and Miriam and Jochebed had roasted it, preserving the grease in which to soak the thin flour cakes she had baked over the coals.

  Miriam had said little during the meal, but when everyone had finished and her mother rose to gather and clean the wooden dishes, she said, “I saw Moses this afternoon … and he saw me.”

  Aaron turned to face her, his eyes alight. “Did he speak to you?”

  “He started to,” Miriam said with a nod. “He turned, saw me, and our eyes met.” Her voice was soft, but there was an excitement in it. “He recognized me, I’m sure.”

  “He should,” Jochebed said, staring at her daughter. “You’ve pursued him all of his life.”

  “You should have spoken to him before this,” Aaron said.

  “What would I say?” Miriam countered.

  “You could ask him how he feels having his family in slavery while he lives in the palace.”

  “That’s enough of that!” Amram quickly admonished Aaron. “God spared his life.”

  “Spared him for what?” Aaron said with irritation. “So he could wear fine clothes and eat the best of food while we starve?”

  It was an old argument in the family. Aaron, for years, had tried to convince Jochebed and Amram that they should approach Moses. His argument had been that Moses was wealthy, the son of the daughter of Pharaoh. It would be nothing to him to give a dozen golden rings to his family. He would never miss them. Jochebed, however, had refused, and she refused now.

  “It was God who saved him, and God will have to do whatever must be done.”

  “I think we should speak to the elders about my brother.”

  Miriam had spoken quietly, but the three members of her family turned to look at her. “What would we say?” Amram asked.

  “I don’t know, but it might be that they will know better than we what to do about Moses.”

  Amram fell silent, and his head dropped. Grease from the meat stained his beard, but he paid it no heed. Finally he lifted his head and stared at Miriam. “You may be right, daughter. I will go to the elders and see what they say.”

  “Good,” Aaron said, his eyes sparking with excitement. “Now maybe we’ll get some good out of what God has done in the life of my brother.”

  ****

  The elders of Israel were holding one of their regular meetings. Korah, the head elder, was a heavyset man with a round face and a black beard that covered most of his features. His eyes were also black and conveyed a sense of power. He sat within the circle of elders and dominated any decisions they made.

  Like all the Hebrews, Korah was a slave, but he had managed to accumulate some property, and this fact gave him power in this nation of slaves. The other elders were also better off than most of the slaves, wearing garments that were not tattered and appearing far healthier than most of the Hebrew men. The
se were men who through cunning had won certain privileges with the Egyptians and now served as overseers under the Egyptian overseers. The Hebrew slaves resented having some of their own people as overseers, but they also feared and respected them for having gained such a position.

  Korah had just said, “We will do no more today but tomorrow—” He never finished his statement for the cloth door of the hut suddenly opened and Amram walked in.

  “What is it, Amram?” Korah said with irritation. “Can’t you see we’re having a meeting?”

  “Yes, I know. That is why I came.” Amram bowed low and said quickly, “There is a matter I would bring before the elders of Israel.”

  “Well, what is it?” Korah snapped impatiently. “We don’t have time for small things.”

  “I have come,” Amram said hurriedly, “to speak of my son Moses.”

  Instantly every eye turned toward the old man who stood before them. He was bent and frail and had no authority, but every one of the elders knew the story of his son and how he had been delivered from death and become part of Pharaoh’s family.

  “What about Moses?” Korah demanded.

  “My family and I have been wondering if he would be willing to do something to help our people.”

  Korah’s face flushed. “If he had wanted to help us, he would have done it long ago.”

  Eli, one of the elders, said, “Perhaps he doesn’t know who he is.”

  “Of course he knows!” Korah snapped. “Everybody in Egypt knows. Why should he be ignorant of his origin?”

  “Amram may be right,” Jacob, a tall thin man with hawklike features, spoke up. “We need all the help we can get, and he has the pharaoh’s ear.”

  “That’s right,” Eli said eagerly. “One word to his mother, Princess Kali, would be all it would take.”

  “Yes,” Jacob agreed, nodding vigorously. “The pharaoh listens to her.”

  “Why would he listen to a woman?” Korah said with displeasure.

  “That is hard to understand, but in this case I know it is so,” Jacob insisted.

  Korah stared around the circle of elders and then turned to face Amram. “What would you have us to do?”

  “I would not know how to advise you. You are the wise men of our people. Surely you can think of some way that Moses can be of help to us.”

  Korah stared at the old man, then shook his head in disgust. “Expect no help from your son. He has had years to give it to us, and he has not even once acknowledged that you are his family and that we are his people. Speak no more of this, Amram.”

  “It shall be as you say,” Amram said.

  He bowed to the elders and left the hut, and a lively discussion ensued. Jacob and Eli joined together to try to convince Korah and the other elders that there might be some wisdom in what the old man had suggested.

  “After all, what would be the harm in trying?”

  “We have other things to do,” Korah snapped. “I will hear no more of this.” He rose and the meeting was over.

  Jacob and Eli left together, discussing the meeting as they returned to their homes. “Korah is jealous of any authority that might threaten his own,” Eli said. “He is afraid he will lose his power if Moses comes to help us.”

  Jacob looked around and said, “I wouldn’t speak those words if I were you. Korah has long ears.”

  ****

  At the insistence of his Egyptian mother, Moses made an effort to show more interest in religion—not because he had any faith in the gods of Egypt, but for her sake. It also made sense to placate the high priest, Jafari, the most powerful man in Egypt next to the pharaoh. Moses knew that to cross him would invite disaster.

  The sun was shining brightly, and the temple areas were busy. Moses made his way down the crowded streets, passing by many of the temples. For the Egyptians, a temple was the home on earth for the god or goddess to whom it was dedicated. Normally only priests and priestesses went inside, while the worshipers themselves went only as far as the entrance.

  The temple before which Moses paused was colorful, the outer wall painted with images of the gods and scenes of the pharaoh’s conquests. Two large sphinxes—carved figures with a lion’s body and a ram’s head—guarded the entrance. Two scribes sat at the temple gates. If someone wanted to ask the god a question, they asked the scribe to write it down and then this was taken inside the temple.

  Moses moved closer and noticed that there were several figures placed against the temple wall. These small clay objects were carvings of the god, with two ears carved into them, and served to remind the gods that they were to listen to the person’s prayers.

  Moses’ lips twisted with disdain as he stared at the objects. Why would a god have to have clay ears? he thought and shook his head. He was about to join those who were praying outside the temple when suddenly the same eerie feeling he had felt during the slaughter of the hippos came to him. Turning quickly, he saw the same woman staring at him. She made no attempt to speak, but her eyes seemed enormous.

  Anger seized Moses, for he was always angered by things he could not understand. But his anger turned to a determination to speak with her, and he strode over to where she stood. Though she was a tall woman, he towered over her and she seemed frail as she stood before him.

  “Why do you always watch me?” Moses demanded. He kept his voice low, for he knew Jafari’s spies followed him constantly.

  Showing no fear, the woman lifted her head and stared directly into his eyes. “Because you are my brother,” she said quietly.

  The words were spoken in a whisper, scarcely audible even to Moses, but they rocked him to the very depth of his soul. He knew the story of his rescue from the Nile as an infant, but his mother had never told him any more than that about his origins. He had always wondered how it had come to be that the son of Hebrew slaves had escaped certain death and now occupied a high position in the Egyptian world. For a moment he even felt light-headed, and a faint hope came to him.

  “What do you mean I am your brother? That’s impossible.” He waited for the woman to answer the charge, to argue, but she said nothing, simply stood looking up at him. Moses saw something in that look he could not identify at first, but then it came to him. The light he saw in her eyes was love, and this shocked him more than anything else.

  “I am your brother?” he asked. “How do you know?”

  “It was I who put you into the basket in the Nile. My name is Miriam.”

  Moses stared at the woman, and though everything in him fought to rise up in doubt, there was something so simple and plain in the woman’s expression that he could not speak for a moment. When he did his voice came hoarsely. “Take me to my family!”

  Chapter 3

  The camp within the land of Goshen where the Hebrews lived was alive with movement. Many of the shelters were only three-sided to allow the occupants to stay cooler in the searing Egyptian sun, but such structures also allowed for little privacy. Moses wondered as he followed Miriam through the camp what it would be like to live with your life always on display. Even with all the difficulties he had in his mind with his life at the palace, he knew suddenly that these people—his own people—had suffered as he could not even imagine.

  Miriam took him along a winding path where women were hard at work in little gardens, no more than ten feet square. Others were cooking over fires. Women and young people were laboring up from the river with pots of water, either on their heads or suspended from a yoke. Several women were grinding corn by pounding the grain with a rock.

  The activity of the camp stunned Moses, and he gazed about him with hungry eyes, wondering again how it came to be that he was not among these people. He saw children of every age, but he also became aware as they moved through the camp that boys were a rarity. He felt sick when he realized that many of the Hebrew boys had been killed as infants, and that the Hebrews feared him in his Egyptian dress, feared that more of their sons would be taken and were now hiding their sons from him.
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br />   Finally the two arrived at their destination. This area was much better cared for than much of what he had seen. The gardens were larger, with rows of cucumbers, leeks, garlic, beans, oats, and barley all neatly arranged.

  Everywhere were animals, mostly goats and sheep, but also ducks and hens, clucking and pecking at the ground. A small pond had been created to give the ducks a home, the larger ducks being followed by a line of tiny yellow ducklings.

  Moses saw that Miriam had stopped in front of a dwelling built of reeds, the entrance of which was covered by a woven rug.

  “In here,” Miriam whispered. She drew the covering back, and Moses stooped to step inside. The interior was lit by a candle, and sunlight streamed through slots on three sides, illuminating the scene before him. Moses was startled to find himself fearful in these surroundings. He had faced the horrors of battle and the threat of death many times, so why should he be afraid in this slave hut? He could not explain it, so he stood quietly, noting that the woman had stepped inside too. She touched his arm. “This is your family, Moses. This is your father, Amram. Your mother, Jochebed—and your brother, Aaron.”

  Moses scanned the three quickly, his gaze coming to rest upon his mother. She was worn and burned by the sun, and her eyes were netted with red veins. She had lost most of her teeth, and her arms were thin as sticks. She was not beautiful, yet Moses could not take his eyes off of her. He bowed and saw that all three of them were speechless. He turned then to face his father. “I am your son?” he whispered.

  “Yes. God has preserved you marvelously.”

  “You are welcome, Moses,” Aaron said. “I have long wished to speak with you.”

  Moses studied Aaron, his mind working slowly in his confusion. “I cannot understand any of this,” he said finally. “I know nothing of you or of your lives. All I know is my life in the royal court.”