Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets

After that all had disappeared, Moses took the serpent, and it became a rod in his hand again, but all the rods of the magicians had vanished.

And when the magicians saw the miracle that Moses had wrought, they were converted, and worshipped the true God. But Pharaoh cut off their hands and feet, and crucified them; and they died. Pharaoh’s own daughter Maschita believed; and the king in his rage did not spare her, but cast her into a fire, and she was burnt. Bithia was also denounced to him, and she was condemned to the flames, but the angel Gabriel delivered her. The Mussulmans say that he consoled her by telling her that she would become the wife of Mohammed in Paradise, after which he gave her to drink, and when she had tasted, she died without pain.

Then Moses and Aaron met Pharaoh in the morning as he went by the side of the river, and Moses said to the king, “The Lord of the Hebrews hath sent me unto thee, saying, Let My people go, that they may serve Me in the wilderness.”

But Pharaoh would not hearken to him. Then Aaron stretched out his rod over the river, and it became blood.

All the water that was in the vessels also became blood, even the spittle that was in the mouth of the Egyptians. The Rabbi Levi said that by this means the Israelites realized large fortunes; for if an Israelite and an Egyptian went together to the Nile to fetch water, the vessel of the Egyptian was found to contain blood, but that of the Israelite pure water; but if an Israelite brought water to the house of an Egyptian and sold it, it remained water.497

But Pharaoh’s heart was hard; and seven days passed, after that the Lord had smitten the river.

Then went Moses and Aaron to him. But the four hundred doors of the palace were guarded by bears, lions, and other savage beasts, so that none might pass, till they were satisfied with flesh. But Moses and Aaron came up, collected them together, drew a circle round them with the sacred staff, and the wild beasts licked the feet of the prophets and followed them into the presence of Pharaoh.498

Moses and Aaron repeated this message to Pharaoh, but he would not hearken to them, but drove them from his presence. Aaron smote the river; but Moses on no occasion smote the Nile, for he respected the river which had saved his life as a babe.499 Then the Lord brought frogs upon the land, and filled all the houses; they were in the beds, on the tables, in the cups. And the king sent for Moses and said: “Intreat the Lord, that He may take the frogs from me and from my people.” So the Lord sent a great rain, and it washed the frogs into the Red Sea.

The next plague was lice.500

The fourth plague was wild beasts.

The fifth was murrain.

The sixth was boils and blains upon man and beast.501

The seventh was hail and tempest. Now Job regarded the word of Moses, and he brought his cattle within doors, and they were saved; but Balaam regarded it not, and all his cattle were destroyed.502

The eighth was locusts; these the Egyptians fried, and laid by in store to serve them for food; but when the west wind came to blow the locusts away, it blew away also those that had been pickled and laid by for future consumption.503

The ninth plague was darkness.

The tenth was the death of the first-born.

The Book of Jasher says that, the Egyptians having closed their doors and windows against the plagues of flies, and locusts, and lice, God sent the sea-monster Silinoth, a huge polypus with arms ten cubits long, and the beast climbed upon the roofs and broke them up, and let down its slimy arms, and unlatched all the doors and windows, and threw them open for the flies and locusts and lice to enter.504

But the Mohammedans gave a different order to the signs: – (1) the rod changed into a serpent; (2) the whitened hand; (3) the famine; (4) a deluge, the Nile rose over the land so that every man stood in water up to his neck; (5) locusts; (6) anommals – these are two-legged animals smaller than locusts; (7) blood; (8) frogs; (9) every green thing throughout the land, all fruit, all grain, eggs, and every thing in the houses were turned to stone.505

After the plague of the darkness, Pharaoh resolved on a general massacre of all the children of the Hebrews. The Mussulmans put the temporary petrifaction of all in the land in the place of the darkness. The Book of Exodus says that during the darkness “they saw not one another, neither rose any from his place;” but the Arabs say that they were turned to stone. Here might be seen a petrified man with a balance in his hand sitting in the bazaar; there, another stone man counting out money; and the porters at the palace were congealed to marble with their swords in their hands.506 But others say that this was a separate plague, and that the darkness followed it.

And now Gabriel took on him the form of a servant of the king, and he went before him and asked him what was his desire.

“That vile liar Moses deserves death,” said Pharaoh.

“How shall I slay him?” asked Gabriel.

“Let him be cast into the water.”

“Give me a written order,” said the angel. Pharaoh did so.

Then Gabriel went to Moses and told him that the time was come when he was to leave Egypt with all the people, for the measure of the iniquity of Pharoah was filled up, and the Lord would destroy him with a signal overthrow.

5. THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA

The Israelites had made their preparations to depart out of Egypt a month before the call came to escape.

And when all was ready, Moses called together the elders of the people and said to them, “When Joseph died, he ordered his descendants to take up his bones, or ever they went out of the land, and to bear them to the cave of Machpelah, where lie the bones of his father Jacob. Where are the bones of Joseph?”

The elders answered him, “We do not know.”

Now there was an old Egyptian woman, named Miriam, and she believed in the Lord. She said to Moses, “I will show thee where is the tomb of Joseph, if thou wilt swear unto me that thou wilt take me with thee from Egypt, and that thou wilt ask the Most High to admit me into Paradise.”

Moses said, “I will do these things that thou askest.”

Then the woman said, “The tomb of Joseph is in the middle of the river Nile, which flows through Memphis, at such a spot.”

Moses prayed to God, and the water fell till the bed of the river was left dry; and then he and the women went into it, and came on the tomb of Joseph; it was a sarcophagus of marble without joints.507

Moses made preparations for departure, and said to the children of Israel, “God will destroy the Egyptians, and will give you their precious things.”

Then every one among the Hebrews who had an Egyptian neighbor said to him, if he was rich: “I am going to a feast in the country, I pray thee lend me jewels of gold and silver to adorn my wife and children.”

The Egyptians lent their precious things, and the Israelites by this means found themselves possessed of borrowed jewels in great abundance. Then Moses said, “We will leave Egypt this night when the Egyptians are asleep. Let every housekeeper softly desert his house, and bring with him his precious things, and meet outside the town. And let every one slay a lamb, and sprinkle with the blood the lintel and door-posts of the house, that the neighbors may know, when they see the blood, that the house is empty.”

When the middle of the night was passed, the Israelites were assembled outside Memphis, at the place which Moses had appointed. Then the host was numbered, and it contained six hundred thousand horsemen, not including those who were on foot, the women, the children, and the aged. All who were under twenty were accounted infants, and all who were over sixty were accounted aged.

After that, Moses placed Aaron in command of the first battalion, and he said to him, “March in the direction of the sea, for Gabriel has promised to meet me on its shores.” At that time one branch of the Nile (the Pelusiac branch) flowed into the Red Sea, which extended over where is now sandy desert to Migdol.

Moses made the host follow Aaron, troop by troop, and tribe by tribe; and he brought up the rear with a strong guard of picked men.

It was dawning towards the first day of the week when Israel escaped out of Egypt.

And when day broke, behold, they were gone away. Then the Egyptians came and told Pharaoh. He sent to search all the houses of the Israelites, but they were all empty, only their lamps were left burning. Pharaoh said, “We will pursue them.” The Egyptians said, “They have borrowed our jewels; we must follow after them, and recover what is our own.”

Now Moses had used craft touching these ornaments, in order that the Egyptians might be constrained to follow. For if the Israelites had gone without these, the Egyptians would have rejoiced at their departure. But because they had borrowed of the Egyptians, therefore the Egyptians went after them to recover their ornaments, and by this means rushed into destruction.

And Israel marched all day through the wilderness protected by seven clouds of glory on their four sides: one above them, that neither hail nor rain might fall upon them, nor that they should be burned by the heat of the sun; one beneath them, that they might not be hurt by thorns, serpents, or scorpions; and one went before them, to make the valleys even, and the mountains low, and to prepare them a place of habitation.508

Also, when the morning dawned, there was not a house in all Egypt in which there was not a first-born dead. And this delayed the people from pursuing after the Israelites; for they were engaged in bewailing their dead, and in digging graves for them. Thus they were not at leisure to follow after their former slaves, till they had escaped clean away.

Also that night was every metal image in Egypt molten, and every idol of stone was broken, and every idol of clay was shattered, and every idol of wood was dissolved to dust.509

The same day Pharaoh sent into all the cities of Egypt and collected an army. When even was come the whole army was assembled about the king, and Pharaoh said to Dathan and Abiram, who had remained behind,510 “The Israelites are few in number, they are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in.” For all the way was full of marshes and canals of water and desert tracts. “They have acted wrongly by us, for they have carried away the ornaments and jewels of our people; and Moses, by magic, has slain all our first-born, so that there is not a house in which there is not one dead.”

On the morrow – it was the second day of the week – the army was reviewed, and Pharaoh numbered the host, and he had six hundred chosen chariots, and two million foot soldiers, and five million horsemen, and, in addition, there were one million seven hundred thousand horses, and on these horses were black men.

When the sun rose on the third day, Pharaoh marched out of Memphis, and he pursued for half a day with forced marches. At noon, Pharaoh had come up with Moses, and the fore-front of Pharaoh’s army thrust the rear-guard of the army of Moses. Then the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, and they said to Moses, “Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? Wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt?”

They were divided into four opinions. One set said, “Let us fling ourselves into the sea.” Another set said, “Let us return and surrender ourselves.” The third set said, “Let us array battle against the Egyptians.” The fourth recommended, “Let us shout against them, and frighten them away with our clamor.”511

And Moses said unto the people, “Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.”512

Then Moses raised his rod over the sea, and it divided, and let twelve channels of dry land appear traversing it, one for each of the twelve tribes. “When Moses had smitten,” says the Koran, “the sea divided into twelve heaps, and left twelve ways through it, and each heap was as a great mountain.”513

The Israelites hesitated to enter; for they said, “O Moses! the bottom of this sea is black mud, and when we place our feet on it we shall sink in and be swallowed up.”

But Moses prayed to God, and he sent a wind and the rays of the sun, and the wind and the sun dried the mud, and it became as sand.

Then Gabriel and Michael appeared to Moses and said, “Pass on, and lead the people through. As for us, we have orders to tarry for Pharaoh.” So Moses galloped forward into the sea, crying, “In the name of the merciful and glorious God!” and all the people went in after him. But as they marched by twelve ways, and there were walls of water between, they could not see each other, and they were in fear; therefore Moses prayed to the Lord, and the Lord made the water-heaps rise and arch over them like bowers, and shelter them from the fire of the sun; and He made the watery walls so clear they were as sheets of glass, and through them the columns of the advancing army were visible to each other.

Moses traversed the sea in two hours, and he came forth with all the people on the other side.

Then Pharoah and his host came to the water’s side, but he feared to enter in. Now Pharaoh was mounted on an entire horse of great beauty. He reined in his steed and would not go forward, for he thought that this was part of the enchantment of Moses.

But now Gabriel appeared mounted on a mare, and this was the cherub Ramka.514 And when the horse of Pharaoh saw the mare of Gabriel, he plunged forward and followed the mare into the sea. Then, when the Egyptian army saw their king enter fearlessly into one of the channels, they also precipitated themselves into the ways through the deep.

They advanced till they reached the middle of the Red Sea, and then Gabriel reined in and turned and unfurled before Pharaoh the order he had given for the destruction of Moses in the water, and it was signed by Pharoah and sealed with his own signet.

“See!” exclaimed the angel, “What thou wouldest do to Moses, that shall be done to thee; for thou art but a man, thou who fightest against God.”

Then the twelve heaps of water overwhelmed the host. But Pharaoh’s horse was so fleet of foot that he outfled the returning waters, and he brought the king to the shore. He would have been saved, had not Gabriel smitten him on the face, and he fell back into the sea and perished with the rest. Then said Miriam, as he sank, “Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea.”515

Another curious incident is related by Tabari. When the water reached Pharaoh, and he knew that he must perish, he cried out, “I believe in the God of Israel!” Gabriel, fearing lest Pharaoh should repeat these words, and that God in His mercy should accept his profession of faith, and pardon him, passed his wing over the bottom of the sea, raised the earth, and threw it into the mouth of Pharaoh so as to prevent him from swallowing again, and said, “Now thou believest, but before thou wast rebellious; nevertheless, thou art numbered with the wicked.”516

It was the ninth hour of the day when the children of Israel stood on dry land on the further side of the sea.

On the morrow, the children of Israel assembled around Moses, and said to him, “We do not believe that Pharaoh is drowned, for he had peculiar power. He never suffered from headache, nor from fever, nor from any sickness, and was internally moved but once a week.”

Then Moses clave the sea asunder with his rod, and they saw Pharaoh and all his host dead at the bottom of the sea. The bodies of the Egyptians were covered with armor and much gold and silver, and on the corpse of Pharaoh were chains and bracelets of gold. The children of Israel would have spoiled the dead, but Moses forbade them, for he said, “It is lawful to spoil the living, but it is robbery to strip the dead.” Nevertheless many of the Hebrews went in and took from the Egyptians all that was valuable. Then God was wroth, because they had disobeyed Moses, and the sea was troubled, and for ten days it raged with fury, and even to this day the water is not at rest where the Israelites committed this sin. And the name of that place at this day is “Bab el Taquath.”517

6. THE GIVING OF THE LAW

As long as Moses was with them, the Israelites did not venture to make idols, but when God summoned Moses into the Mount to talk with Him face to face, then they spake to Aaron that he should make a molten god to go before them.

Aaron bade them break off their earrings and bracelets and give them to him, for he thought that they would be reluctant to part with their jewels. Nevertheless the people brought their ornaments to him in great abundance, and one named Micah cast them into a copper vessel; and when the gold was melted, he threw in a handful of the sand which had been under the hoof of Gabriel’s horse, and there came forth a calf, which ran about like a living beast, and bellowed; for Sammael (Satan) had entered into it. “Here is your god that shall go before you,” cried Micah; and all the people fell down and worshipped the golden calf.518

And when Moses came down from the Mount and drew near to the camp, and saw the calf, and the instruments of music in the hands of the wicked, who were dancing and bowing before it, and Satan among them dancing and leaping before the people, the wrath of Moses was suddenly kindled, and he cast the tables of the Commandments, which he had received from God on the Mount, out of his hand and brake them at the foot of the mountain; but the holy writing that was on them flew, and was carried away into the heavens; and he cried and said, “Woe upon the people who have heard from the mouth of the Holy One, ‘Thou shalt not make to thyself any image, a figure, or any likeness;’ and yet at the end of forty days make a useless molten calf!”

And he took the calf which they had made, and burned it with fire, and crushed it to powder, and cast it upon the face of the water of the stream, and made the sons of Israel drink; and whoever had given thereto any trinket of gold, the sign of it came forth upon his nostrils.519

Of all the children of Israel only twelve thousand were found who had not worshipped the calf.520

The Mussulmans say that the Tables borne by Moses were from ten to twelve cubits in length, and were made, say some, of cedar wood, but others say of ruby, others of carbuncle; but the general opinion is that they were of sapphire or emerald;521 and the letters were graven within them, not on the surface, so that the words could be read on either side. When the golden calf had been pounded to dust, Moses made the Israelites drink water in which was the dust, and those who had kissed the idol were marked with gilt lips. Thus the Levites were able to distinguish them; and they slew of them twenty and three thousand.522

It is a common tradition among the Jews that the red hair which is by no means infrequently met with in the Hebrew race is derived from this period; all those who had sinned and drank of the water lost their black hair and it became red, and they transmitted the color to their posterity.

Another version of the story is as follows. Samiri (Micah), who had fashioned the golden calf, was of the tribe of Levi. When Moses came down from the Mount, he would have beaten Aaron, but his brother said, “It is not I, it is Samiri who made the calf.” Then Moses would have slain Samiri, but God forbade him, and ordered him instead to place him under ban.

From that time till now, the man wanders, like a wild beast, from one end of the earth to the other; every man avoids him, and cleanses the earth on which his feet have rested; and when he comes near any man, he cries out, “Touch me not!”

But before Moses drave Samiri out of the camp, he ground the calf to powder, and made Samiri pollute it; then he mixed it with the water, and gave it to the Israelites to drink. After Samiri had departed, Moses interceded with God for the people. But God answered, “I cannot pardon them, for their sin is yet in them, and it will only be purged out by the draught they have drunk.”

When Moses returned to the camp, he heard a piteous cry. Many Israelites with yellow faces and livid bodies cast themselves before him, and cried, “Help! Moses, help! the golden calf consumes our intestines; we will repent and die, if the Lord will pardon us.”

Some, really contrite, were healed. Then a black cloud came down on the camp, and all those who were in it fought with one another and slew one another; but upon the innocent the swords had no power. Seven thousand idolaters had been slain, when Moses, hearing the cry of the women and children, came and prayed; and the cloud vanished, and the sword rested.523

According to some, the complaint caused by swallowing the dust of the calf was jaundice, a complaint which has never ceased from among men since that day. Thus the calf brought two novelties into the world, red hair and jaundice.

And Moses went up again into the Mount, and took with him seventy of the elders. And he besought the Lord, “Suffer me, O Lord, to see Thee!”524 But the Lord answered him, “Thinkest thou that thou canst behold Me and live?” And He said, “Look at this mountain; I will display Myself to this mountain.”

Then the mountain saw God, and it dissolved into fine dust. So Moses knew that it was not for him to see God, and he repented that he had asked this thing.525 After that he went with the seventy elders to Sinai, and a cloud, white and glistening, came down and rested on the head of Moses, and then descended and wholly enveloped him, so that the seventy saw him not; and when he was in the cloud, he received again the Tables of the Commandments, and he came forth out of the cloud. But they murmured that they had not also received the revelation. Then the cloud enveloped them also, and they heard all the words that had been spoken to Moses; and after that they said, “Now we believe, because we have heard with our own ears.”

Then the wrath of God blazed forth, and a thundering was heard so great and terrible that they fainted and died. But Moses feared, and he prayed to God, and God restored the seventy men to life again, and they came down the Mount with him.526

And it was at this time that the face of Moses shone with the splendor which had come upon him from the brightness of the glory of the Lord’s Shekinah in the time of His speaking with him. And Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, and, behold, the glory of his face was dazzling, so that they were afraid to come near to him. And Moses called to them, and Aaron, and all the princes of the congregation; and he taught them all that the Lord had spoken to him on Mount Sinai. And when Moses spoke with them, he had a veil upon his face; and when he went up to speak with the Lord, he removed the veil from his countenance until he came forth.527

This was the reason why the face of Moses shone. He saw the light which God had created, whereby Adam was enabled to see from one end of the earth to the other. God showed this light now to Moses, and thereby he was able to see to Dan.528

When Moses went up into the Mount, a cloud received him, and bore him into heaven. On his way, he met the doorkeeper Kemuel, chief of twelve thousands of angels of destruction; they were angels of fire; and he would have prevented Moses from advancing: then Moses pronounced the Name in twelve letters, revealed to him by God from the Burning Bush, and the angel and his host recoiled before that word twelve thousand leagues. But some say that Moses smote the angel, and wounded him.

A little further, Moses met another angel; this was Hadarniel, who had a terrible voice, and every word he uttered split into twelve thousand lightnings; he reigned six hundred thousand leagues higher than Kemuel. Moses, in fear, wept at his voice, and would have fallen out of the cloud, had not God restrained him. Then the prophet pronounced the Name of seventy-two letters, and the angel fled.

Next he came to the fiery angel Sandalfon, and he would have fallen out of the cloud, but God held him up. Then he reached the river of flame, called Rigjon, which flows from the beasts which are beneath the Throne, and is filled with their sweat; across this God led him.529

It is asserted by the Rabbis that Moses learnt the whole law in the forty days that he was in the Mount, but as he descended from the immediate presence of God, he entered the region where stood the angels guarding the Mount, and when he saw the Angel of Fear, the Angel of Sweat, the Angel of Trembling, and the Angel of Cold Shuddering, he was so filled with consternation, that he forgot all that he had learnt. Then God sent the Angel Jephipha, who brought back all to his remembrance; and, armed with the law, Moses passed the ranks of all the angels, and each gave him some secret or mystery; one the art of mixing simples, one that of reading in the stars, another that of compounding antidotes, a fourth the secret of name, or the Kabalistic mystery.530