Not just the Moses who led the Israelites out of Egypt, received the Torah, and spoke to God face-to-face. But a Moses who was also a conquering king in Ethiopia?
It sounds wild, doesn't it? And maybe you're thinking, "Wait, where does that story come from?" Well, let's dive in. Because according to Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews, this is exactly how the story goes.
When Moses was twenty-seven years old – quite a young age for royalty, right? – he became king over Ethiopia. And he reigned not for a fleeting moment, but for a full forty years! Imagine that. Forty years ruling a kingdom before the Exodus even began.
The story picks up on the seventh day of his reign. All the people of the kingdom gathered before their new king, seeking his wisdom on a pressing matter: how to conquer a particularly stubborn city they were besieging.
What would you do in that situation? Call for reinforcements? Devise a new battle strategy? Moses’s answer was… unexpected, to say the least.
He addressed the assembled crowd: "If you will hearken to my words," he declared, "the city will be delivered into our hands." So far, so good, right? Then comes the curveball.
"Proclaim with a loud voice throughout the whole camp," Moses continued, "unto all the people, saying: 'Thus saith the king! Go to the forest and fetch hither of the young of the stork, each man one fledgling in his hand. And if there be any man that transgresseth the word of the king, not to bring a bird, he shall die, and the king shall take all belonging to him.'"
Storks? Seriously?
And the instructions didn’t stop there. "And when you have brought them, they shall be in your keeping. You shall rear them until they grow up, and you shall teach them to fly as the hawk flieth."
Raise storks like hawks? It’s a bizarre request, isn't it? And what exactly was the point? Why risk death for failing to procure a baby stork? What was Moses up to?
The text doesn't immediately tell us. We are left to ponder the strangeness of this command. Was it a test of loyalty? A divinely inspired strategy that only Moses understood? A symbolic act with a deeper meaning? We can only speculate, relying on other stories and commentaries to shed some light on this odd episode in Moses's life.
Perhaps the very act of caring for these creatures, teaching them to fly, fostered a sense of unity and purpose among the people. Or perhaps, in the grand tapestry of Jewish legend, this seemingly strange episode serves to highlight the multifaceted nature of Moses: not just a prophet and lawgiver, but also a shrewd leader capable of unconventional strategies.
Whatever the reason, it's a reminder that the stories we think we know often hold hidden depths and surprising twists, inviting us to look beyond the familiar and embrace the wonder of the unknown.