Moses, Man of the Mountain (23 page)

So the Lord told him, “I’ll always be there, Moses, because I love you and I know you by your name.”

“Thank you, Lord. One favor more I want to ask you while I am still on pleading terms with mercy.”

“What is it, Moses?”

“Lord, I done seen your pillar of fire and your pillar of cloud and heard your voice in rumbling thunder. I done seen the cloudy cloak that hides your glory, but I ain’t never seen your glory itself. Lord, be so pleased in your tender mercy as to show me your glory.”

The Lord answered Moses and told him, “Moses, I will make all My goodness pass before you. And I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and show mercy unto whom I will
show mercy, but, Moses, you just can’t see My face, for no man can see My face and live. But, Moses, since it is you that ask me, look, see there is a place by Me and you go and stand upon that certain rock and when My Glory passes by, I’ll take you and put you in a crack in the rock, and I will cover you with My hand while I pass by, then I will move My hand and you shall see the back parts of My Glory, but My face you shall never see.”

So Moses thanked the Lord for letting him see that much and God told him, “Moses, get you two more nice smooth pieces of stone and bring it up to the top of the mountain so I can put those same laws that you broke upon that golden calf down again. These people need laws and rules to go by.”

Moses got up early next morning and took the stones and went up to the top of the mountain and kept company with God again. And when he came down with the law in his hands, the skin of his face was iridescent and shining, but Moses didn’t know it himself, that is, until the people gazed at him in awe and talked about his shining face. So they knew that God had covered Moses with His hand in the cleft of the rock and passed His Glory by Moses.

And Moses took the tablets of testimony into the tabernacle and the pillar of cloud went in behind Moses and rested on the altar. So that was the first time that God had come inside the house to live with people.

A
nd how is the black Mrs. Pharaoh making out this morning?”

“Who are you talking about, Miss Miriam?”

“Oh, you know I’m talking about that dark-complected woman that Moses done brought here trying to make out she’s a lordgod sitting on a bygod. All dressed up every day like King Pharaoh’s horse. She needn’t think because her papa is some kind of a chief in Midian and she’s married to Moses that she can come dictating to me.”

“Is she done took to dictating, Miss Miriam? I didn’t never hear of her saying nothing to nobody.”

“She don’t have to. But you seen her flourishing herself all over the place trying to get the influence of people’s minds.”

“You reckon?”

“No! I know it. She come here with the idea of getting control of the womenfolks and to root me out as a leader—after I done worked like a fool to get us free. Her idea is to get you all back into slavery again. You just swapped one Pharaoh for another one, to my notion. You don’t want to go back into slavery, do you?”

“I sure don’t. I used to get so tired of kneading dough for them rich Egyptians to eat. My knees was all wore out from kneeling down all day and half the night over them bread
troughs. No, sir! I sure don’t want no more slavery. Though I sure would love a loaf of that good old Egyptian bread.”

“Well, you women better get together and do something or you will find that Ethiopian woman and that Moses will have us all out here in the woods using us for slaves.”

“What can we do to head it off?”

“Get together as many women as you can and go stand around the tent of Moses and holler for him to get rid of that Ethiopian wife of his.”

“Thought you said she was a Midianite?”

“Oh, don’t try to take me up on every little point. Even if she was born and raised in Midian her folks could still come from Ethiopia, couldn’t they? Tell me! Look how dark her skin is. We don’t want people like that among us mixing up our blood and all. That woman has got to go. Go get up some people to protest. When enough of you all get around this tent, my brother Aaron and me will go see Moses and demand him to get her off the place. Got us round here looking like her servants.”

Miriam walked and talked all day so that by three o’clock that afternoon two or three thousand women were milling around the tent of Moses and muttering. Finally Moses sent Joshua out to demand what was wrong out there. Aaron and Miriam stepped out of the crowd and answered him. “It’s no wonder the people is dissatisfied,” they told Moses. “You got that strange woman around here—”

“What strange woman you talking about?” Moses asked shortly.

“That one in your tent,” Miriam said perversely.

“She might be strange to you, but she sure ain’t no stranger to me. She’s been my wife more than twenty years. I hope you don’t aim to tell me that I can’t have my wife with me. I hope you ain’t messing in my business to that extent.”

“I mind my own business and I let other folks’ business alone. Anybody that knows me can tell you that.” Miriam evaded for the moment.

“Well, what do you think you got to do with my wife being here?” Moses insisted.

“Tell him, Aaron.”

“That’s right, Aaron, you tell me. I know you two ain’t using up my time to try to break into my arrangements. Go on, Aaron, and tell me what you got to say about my wife.”

“It ain’t so much her being your wife as it is who she is.”

“Jethro’s daughter is good enough for anybody and any place. In fact, it is hard to find a place good enough for her. I could draw some harsh comparisons between you, but I won’t do you that bad.”

“It’s her color, Moses. She’s too dark to be around here.”

“Why?”

“Well, you see the people, that is, the ladyfolks, don’t want her ruling over them, dark as she is.”

“In the first place she ain’t ruling over nobody and in the second place she’s my wife and nobody ain’t got nothing to do with how dark or how white she is but me.”

“Oh, yes, we have. That’s the very thing we don’t like. You act like you’re the boss of everything. God didn’t call you, and you only, you know.”

“Who else did He call, then?”

“He called me and Miriam too. All three of us is supposed to be on a equal balance.”

“He didn’t call you and you can’t balance equal with me, but even if you could how come you think you got leave to stick your bill into my private business?”

“It’s not us, it’s the people. We don’t care if she was black as tar. But the people come crying in our ears and we have to look out for what they want.”

“That’s a lie, Aaron. Nobody didn’t come to neither one of you to complain about my wife’s color. I got eyes in my head and ears on other people’s heads. You two been proaging this camp over all day long working this thing up. Nobody here don’t care anything about my wife’s color. Haven’t we had the mixed multitudes with us ever since we started from Egypt? Didn’t they march out with us and not one soul in Israel has
ever mentioned the subject. I know exactly what’s the matter with you two. You want to stand in my shoes which they are much too big for your feet. The women all are making admiration over my wife and now Miriam is jealous and spiteful. I’ve given up everything else I wanted in life for the sake of this mission I have, but I mean to protect her against your littleness and malice.”

“You wrong there, Moses. We ain’t got no feeling against your wife. But we can’t afford to look over the wants of the people, Moses. We got to consider the people.”

“Aaron, you got ambition to be a leader without having anything else to go with it. I been noticing you tipping around and plotting and conniving. But you’ll never be a leader. You are much too sensitive to the wishes of the people but you are too unconscious of their needs. And then again, you got a big idea of your own importance. I wish I could buy you for what you are really worth and sell you for what you think you’re worth. I sure would make money on the deal.”

“Don’t let him holler you down, Aaron,” Miriam jumped in. “The Lord did call us just as much as He did Moses and it’s about time we took our stand in front of the people. I was a prophetess in Israel while he was herding sheep in Midian. And that woman he done brought here to lord it over us, that black Mrs. Pharaoh got to leave here right now. She ain’t going to lord it over me, after I done done all the hard part of it.”

“Miss Miriam, your case is pitiful. The trouble with you is that nobody ever married you. And when a woman ain’t got no man to look after, she takes on the world in place of the man she missed. You are one of those people who learn nothing in the long turnings and twistings of experience. But you better keep my wife’s name out of your mouth. That’s all I got to say.”

Miriam lifted up her voice so all the women on the outside could hear what she said.

“Who you talking to, Moses? I know you ain’t trying to tell me to shut up. The Lord don’t speak through your mouth
alone. He speaks through my mouth and Aaron’s mouth just as much as He speaks through yours.”

Moses rose in fury. “Come on over to the tabernacle, both of you, and we’ll see who the Lord called and who He didn’t. We might as well settle this thing in front of everybody once and for all.”

So they three went to the Tent of Testimony with a great crowd following behind them and set the ceremony. And the Voice spoke out of the cloud and was angry with Miriam and Aaron. Then the cloud lifted and everybody saw that Miriam was a leper. Aaron fell on his knees and called Moses by all the praise-giving names, and begged for both of them. God! Miriam was a horrible sight in her leprous whiteness! Everybody shrank away from her in terror and disgust. So Moses put her outside of the camp as unclean for seven days. The camp remained stationary until she was healed again. All the rest of her days, Miriam was very silent. Whole days passed by at times in which she never uttered a word. Those seven days outside the camp seemed to put a veil between her and the world which never lifted. Now and then she would whisper to whoever happened to be close around. “He lifted his right hand. I saw him do it. He lifted his right hand and the thing come upon me. I felt it when it come. His right hand was clothed in light.”

T
he months and years went by. Moses had long ago sent his wife back home to Jethro, not because he no longer cared, but because this great thing that had grabbed hold of his life was doing things to their life together. Both of them changed under it. Moses became even less talkative than he had always been, and he had never had too many words to say. He lived in deep thought and reflection. He spent whole nights in the mountains alone except when Joshua followed him without his consent. Several times he crossed the mountain and spent a day or two with Jethro to talk things over and he always found help and comfort in the old man. The visits never failed to benefit both Moses and Israel.

Zipporah changed too. She was born the daughter of a powerful chief and though the fortunes of her father’s house had gone down for a while, this was changed with the coming of Moses, and the wealth and prestige of Jethro’s house was as great as any in all Midian. So she was used to ruling and seeing ruling done. To her, the most natural thing in the world would have been for Moses to assume the crown of Israel. She felt that the people expected it. And in fact they would have preferred it. They were used to Kings and rulers and felt lonesome and defenseless under this light pressure of leadership that Moses exerted. But Moses was stubborn on that
point. He had no wish to impose his will on others and he said so every time the subject arose. So she looked towards what had been in men’s relations to each other, and he faced towards what was to be, and a whole world stood between their two horizons. So after a while she was glad to leave the meager, hard fare of the camp and return to Jethro’s tent. She understood herself there and felt that she knew the Moses who snatched a few days from Israel now and then to spend with her and Jethro. She took her younger son back with her to be company for her and to help Jethro, now that he was getting feeble with age. The oldest boy, Gershom, had stayed in the camp with Moses, and had become a Prince of Israel in the new order which Moses had set up, as a sop to certain Elders in Israel. The hosts of the Hebrews were growing rich as they moved on by war and plunder, and the heads of families wanted some excuse to show their wealth. So titles and ranks had come to be, with the Levites outranking every other tribe. And Zipporah’s son had become a Prince even though she never became a Queen. On the whole, however, Zipporah’s mood lacked light.

But still Moses led the people. He thought and led. He prayed and led. He wrote and had his moments of philosophy and led, even when he knew that he would have been better loved as a King and more popular as a politician. But he chose to be a leader and he was. He stood in his high, lonely place and led. Jethro and Joshua glimpsed through the clouds that hid the peak where he stood from the common herd, but that was all. Joshua was so attached to him that he continued to serve about his person as often as he could despite his own leadership in the army. That pleased Moses and helped Joshua, for Moses spent hours at times teaching the younger man strategy and discipline of men.

This was not just sentiment on the part of Moses. Israel was going to have to fight and fight hard many times before the sons of Jacob should find and possess the place that was to be their home. So they needed military men to lead. Jethro had warned Moses that he must not take the risk of getting killed.
Military officers could be made at any time, but the genius of Moses could never be replaced. So Moses taught Joshua and let him lead the army. It was easy to teach him, for Joshua had those things in him that make a great man of war.

There was something else about Joshua that encouraged Moses besides his unfailing loyalty to his chief and the cause. He had all those big virtues that command respect, and all those commonplace vices that make men understood. Men congregated about him. They respected his virtues and admired his vices. So he became the left hand of Moses, and Moses confided in him freely about his plans and afterthoughts. Joshua knew all of his hopes and disillusionments. All Israel had heard of the Promised Land, but only Joshua had heard the name of Canaan coupled with it.

“It’s a mighty fine place for a homeland, Joshua,” Moses confided to him, “but I don’t know yet whether the people have got back enough of what Pharaoh took out of them to go take it. We got the outside stuff to take it, but I ain’t positively sure we got the insides yet.”

“The way I see it, Moses, we ought to have it now. I’m ready if you’re ready to tell me.”

“No, we got to feel our way along, son. We got to go slow,” Moses said, sliding into the mood and the expressions of the people as he liked to do at times. “You done seen how they blow up for nothing at all and fight against their own selves and all. I done found out from this that people can do an awful lot of feeling without doing a lick of thinking. And you and I know that we have some folks around here that loves to stir up feelings for their own benefit. I ain’t naming no names. I’m letting things ride for a while longer till I see further.”

“Well, Moses, I’ll tell you like you told me once. Silence is all the genius a fool has and it is one of the things a smart man knows how to use when he needs it. You know what to do and how to do it better than anybody else but God.”

“Thank you, Joshua, for your words and what I know is behind ’em. But, Joshua, with that other ear that I don’t use for everyday listening, I hear a crowd coming here to talk. Go
round the bend of the road there and meet whoever it is and see can’t you straighten out the business they coming after. That will give me a chance to go on with my writing. I’m a week behind on my journal right now.”

Joshua hurried on out and disappeared around the bend in the road and came face to face with the committee of seventy Elders on the way to confer with Moses. As soon as they saw Joshua, they hurried up to him and asked, “Is that man Moses in his quarters now or is he off hiding out in the mountain like he always does when we got something important to take up with him?”

“Don’t waste up your time lying up some nerve to say what you ain’t got guts enough to say otherwise. Tell me what you want and maybe I can get it for you.”

“We didn’t come to talk with Little Moses, we got business with the real thing. If we wanted to talk with substitutes we got Aaron right along here with us, and we wouldn’t need you with him along.”

“I ain’t no Little Moses, even if you all done give me that nickname for spite. But just the same you better tell me what you want with the chief or else you won’t see him at all. There’s a few things I can do to save him some work and worry. Maybe if you’ll tell me I can do you some good.”

“All right, little leader, you go get us something to eat. We want plenty of everything and we want it right now. We want fresh meat and vegetables and fish and fruit and if we don’t get it, we can get another leader that can take us back to Egypt. We ain’t the helpless people we used to be.”

“This talk is too serious for me to listen to.”

“We thought so in the first place, but you just would dip in.”

Joshua singled out Aaron and talked to him. “Aaron,” he told him, “You know that Moses ain’t got no provisions stored away nowhere. He eats the same as all the rest of us. Why don’t you explain to these people so they can be satisfied and not worry Moses for nothing?”

Aaron stroked his long beard with a smug hand gesture and
generally settled his priestly robes before he spoke.

“Oh, I can’t say I know that much about the way Moses is running things. He don’t count me enough to tell me nothing. How am I going to tell people something I don’t know my own self?”

Joshua stood there for a minute feeling them stoning him with evil thoughts. Then he turned to go.

“Well, I’ll go tell Moses that you are coming. But you all got the wrong idea about things.”

Joshua re-entered the tent of Moses and stood and waited for Moses to recognize him, the way he always did. Moses looked up from his writing. “What’s the matter, Joshua?” he asked.

“My people! My people!”

“What’s wrong this time, Joshua?”

“I reckon you’re going to have to take your rod and do something for ’em or something to ’em, one. My people just won’t do. That complaint committee is outside to see you. The people are grumbling again.”

“Over what?” Moses asked with a touch of impatience.

“Excuse me, chief, for talking with my mouth wide open. The people is mumbling and grumbling about something to eat.”

“Tell them seventy Elders to come on in, Joshua. Maybe I can make ’em understand why we are out here, but sometimes I doubt it.”

The committee of seventy filed into the tent and stood gloomily behind Moses. He turned his chair to face them.

“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.”