1,018 myths · Page 24 of 34
The report of Amalek's fall reached two houses. One hardened. Jethro packed in Midian and walked toward the camp that had just been ambushed.
On the mountain's edge Moses watched Jericho's palms, then Deborah under her tree, David crowned, and the righteous strolling in Gan Eden (the Garden of Eden).
At Sinai each divine word knocks Israel's souls out of their bodies until God must soften the light so a people can stand and live.
From the ridge Moses sees the whole land and the final day. He bargains to enter as a commoner or as a corpse. Heaven answers no.
Moses pleaded like a brother. Take heed, he said. Do not stake your souls on a contest you cannot win. They would not hear him.
Joseph saw a sheaf stand upright in a field. The Tikkunim read it as the letter Aleph wearing a crown, the same letter at the top of Jacob's ladder.
Death climbed Nebo for Moses soul and fled empty-handed. Sea and mountain refused his questions until God hid the grave and buried His servant.
Speak, they had been told. They struck. Water ran. After that the Holy One could not pass the place without saying the brothers' names.
Opposite Beth Peor Moses showed Israel the valley their sin had dug, then pointed past his barred road to a God who still receives the penitent.
Jacob heard and did not speak. Reuven stayed in the camp under that silence, and spent the rest of his years trying to deserve his name.
Israel stood at the fence around Sinai and could not climb. Moses went up into the smoke. The tablets in his arms were the only way back.
After the calf thins the camp, God tells Moses to number the tribes by their initials, a shepherd counting sheep after wolves, not a king counting for pride.
At the bush God named a mountain after the rescue. Through every plague Moses kept one private calendar. When the third month arrived, the long watch answered.
Aaron takes the gold before the people can. Better one tutor cut than a nation bleed. Moses sees guilt written, and Levites draw swords.
Young men oiled spearheads and waited for a war they could see. Moses wanted them angry at the trap that had already entered the camp.
The new king ignored the pomp and hunted for judges. Jerusalem's beauty, he knew, was not marble. It was a clean court.
Moses sang of holy myriads and the camp looked up. Fire ranks without number filled the sky. None of them outshone the One who led them.
At Horeb the bush burned and held. Moses stripped the shoe of flesh, gripped the staff of covenant, and sang through Hod until the sea split open.
On Nebo, Moses is one hundred twenty and still sharp. God shows him fields and futures. He dies with Israel's map burning behind his eyes.
Two sons of Aaron decided law with Moses present, and fire answered. A later student learned the same danger when a master timed his death in a week.
Moses told Pharaoh the last plague would make him shove Israel out. At midnight the king hunted the brothers through the dark himself.
Pharaoh's daughter heard a Hebrew cry in the reeds. Years later Dathan told Moses the buried Egyptian was already public knowledge.
Frogs filled the beds and the ovens. Moses would not name the minute they would die. He handed the clock to the king who still called himself a god.
Egyptian fields already reeked of dead livestock. Riders went east to count Hebrew herds and came back with a number the king refused to use.
Moses made the elders pull their hands off Egypt's idols before anyone touched a lamb. Four hundred years leave residue. Blood went on the lintels that night.
Sand in front. Chariots behind. They told Moses they had already chosen Egypt over a death in the open desert.
The men came home with a fever in their eyes and open hands. The wives kept their earrings on. So the men tore the rings from their own ears instead.
The first tablets had been cut by heaven. Moses hewed the next pair himself, then climbed Sinai before dawn with the stones in his hands.
Quarrel followed them from Egypt to every campsite. Only when the nation camped as one body did Heaven open the wedding of Torah.
Kings brought crowns. Moses and Aaron brought nothing. Pharaoh read Edom, Moab, Sidon, then laughed because the Name was not listed.
