 | LETTER VIII. The pillar of fire, or, Israel in bondage |  |
8. LETTER VIII.
Many days have passed since I wrote to you.
You will wish to hear the ultimate issue of the command
of Pharaoh, to increase the burdens of the
Hebrews, and its effects upon them.
In obedience to this command, the taskmasters and
officers of this unhappy people went out and strictly fulfilled
it. The poor Hebrew brickmakers, in whose work
coarse straw of wheat cut fine is necessary to make the
clay cohere, as they are only dried in the sun, are now
distributed all over Egypt seeking straw, which hitherto
the Egyptian laborers brought to them in carts and
laden barges. Thus dispersed, they gather stubble, and
dry bulrushes, and grass, and every thing they can in
their haste find on the surface of the ground; for if
night comes and their tale of bricks falls short, they are
beaten. As, therefore, one half of the time of many is
consumed in searching the highways and fields, instead
of being all the time, as heretofore, engaged only in
making brick, the task put upon them is an impossible
one; and everywhere the sound of the rod and whip,
and the cry of sufferers, goes up from the land. At
own people are often made their taskmasters, who also
had to account to their Egyptian captains for their fulfillment
of the king's command), got courage from despair,
and meeting the king as he was abroad in his
chariot, cast themselves before him, crying, “Wherefore
hast thou dealt thus with us? It is not our fault that
we cannot make up the number of bricks, as heretofore,
seeing straw is not given us; and thy servants are
beaten; but the fault is in thine own officers.”
Pharaoh angrily answered, “Ye are idle! Ye are
idle! Ye have not enough to do, or ye would not think
ye had time to go into the desert to sacrifice to your
God. Go, therefore, and do your tasks, for there shall
no straw be given you.”
“And shall we deliver the tale of bricks?” they cried.
“To the last one of them!” answered the king; and
with an impatient sign for them to stand aside from his
chariot-wheels, he dashed forward on his way, attended
by his brilliant retinue. The unhappy men then perceived
“that they were in evil case,” as one of them
said to me in relating this interview; and meeting Moses
and Aaron in the fields not long afterwards, one of their
number said, indignantly, and with grief—
“The Lord look upon you, Moses and Aaron, and
judge you, because by your interference with the king,
thou hast put a sword into the hand of Pharaoh to
slay us.”
Moses looked sorrowfully and troubled, and raising
his eyes heavenward as he left them without a reply,
for he wot not how to answer, they heard him cry unto
his God, and say—
“Lord, wherefore hast Thou so evil entreated this Thy
people? Why is it that Thou didst send me? For since
I came to Pharaoh to speak in Thy name, he hath done
evil to this people; neither, O Lord God, hast Thou delivered
Thy people at all!”
Then came a voice from heaven, which they heard,
and said—
“Thou shalt see what I will do to Pharaoh; for he
shall let you go, and drive you out of his land. I am
the Lord who spake to thee in Horeb, out of the burning
bush; and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac,
and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty. But
by my name Jehovah was I not known to them. I
have heard the groaning of the children of Israel.
Wherefore say unto them, `I am the Lord, and I will
bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians,
and I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to
you a God; and ye shall know that I am the Lord your
God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of
the Egyptians. And I will bring you in unto the land
which I did swear to give to Abraham, and to Isaac,
and to Jacob, and I will give it to you for an heritage.
I am the Lord!”'
With these words, Moses sought to comfort the Hebrews,
his brethren, going to them and proclaiming it
to them in their ears; but for an anguish of spirit, and
the great pressure of their cruel bondage upon their
minds, they did not hearken unto him. Hope in their
bosoms was utterly dead. Moreover, many of them
looked on him with eyes of hatred, as the author of this
increase of their wretchedness.
What a situation was this for the servant of God!
not reconcile therewith this increase of the power of
Pharaoh. Perhaps, at times, his own faith was severely
tried.
Since then, a month has passed, during which period
I saw Moses often in Goshen, where he passed his time
in encouraging those of his brethren who would give
heed to him.
In the mean while, Pharaoh, as if in contempt or defiance
of the God of the Hebrews, has been engaged
in extraordinary religious rites; and every day the streets
have resounded with the music of instruments and choral
songs of processions to the gods. I witnessed all of
these ceremonies, and will describe some of them that
are not mentioned by you in your letters from Egypt,
my dear father.
On the seventh day after Moses and Aaron left him,
Thothmeses went in state to the black marble temple of
the sacred serpent, Uræus, to offer sacrifice and oblation
to its great image of gold with jewelled eyes and hideous
head. He addressed it as the god of wisdom and sagacity,
and presented offerings of flowers, and a necklace
of emeralds; while, for the living serpents, held
sacred by the Egyptians, he left gifts of money to purchase
food for their repletion.
The next day he proceeded, at the head of the priests
and the most magnificent religious procession I have
seen in Egypt, from his palace along the sphinx-lined
avenue to the terrace of the Nile, opposite the Island of
Rhoda, where stands a brazen statue of the god Nilus,
with those of Osiris and Thoth on either side of its pedestal.
Descending from his chariot, he advanced to the
river, and poured from a goblet, set with diamonds, a libation
of wine into its waves, and invoked the river itself
as a deity, concluding his prayer with a curse upon the
God of the Hebrews. Then, at his command, the chief
sacrificer advanced, leading a Hebrew boy four years
old, whom he laid upon the altar before the statue of the
god, and, at a stroke of his sacrificial knife, sacrificed
there. I could scarcely refrain from a cry of horror. I
knew that the Egyptians, on certain occasions, sacrificed
human beings to the gods; but I never expected to behold
an immolation like this. The palpitating form of
the child was then taken up by two assistants, and the
blood of its heart was poured forth into the Nile, as a
libation to the god. The empurpled wave then received
the inanimate form, amid a crash of instrumental music.
This unusual libation of blood to the Nile was intended
as an act of defiance to the Hebrew Jehovah.
The following day, Pharaoh made a procession to the
temple of sacred frogs, on the borders of the canal of
Amun. Here libations were poured out before a colossal
sphinx having a frog's head, and offerings made. The
frog is held sacred by the Egyptians, because it is supposed
to purify the waters by feeding on poisons in the
marshes and river.
The succeeding day Pharaoh, as if possessed with a
religious infatuation, that now led him to seek the favor
of gods hitherto neglected by him, in his dread of the
God of the Hebrews, paid a visit, with all his court, to
the temple of the scarabæus, or sacred beetle of Egypt.
This is a marble edifice, adorned with a frieze of scarabæi,
having heads of every variety of animal. The god
head. He is supposed to protect the temples from
vermin, such as lice and fleas; for one of these seen in
a temple, or upon the garments of a priest, causes ceremonial
defilement, and neither priest nor temple may
be made holy again but by purification.
The next day a procession was made by Pharaoh and
his people to the little temple of Baal-Zebel, a deity that
is reverenced as their protector from flies, which sometimes
infest the land in ravenous swarms, and which, it
is believed, this idol only can remove. Can Thothmeses
be so superstitious? Or does he make all this show of
piety merely to humor the superstitions of his people,
and sustain the priests of these shrines? Does he fear
Moses and his power, so as to desire to strengthen himself
in the affections of the priesthood and people?
The day after the visit to the temple of the fly-god,
he went in great state to the temple of the sacred ox of
On, Mnevis. Here he sacrificed, prayed, poured libations,
and offered oblations. It was an imposing scene,
as he was attended by one thousand priests clad in rich
vestments, and wearing shining crowns, the whole waving
censers of gold. Of the god he asked protection to
all the cattle of Egypt, and prosperity to the harvests;
and then solemnly denounced the God of the Hebrews,
as a God not known or honored in Egypt, and who, if
He existed, was but a God of slaves.
The next day of this ten days' ovation, Pharaoh proceeded
to the gloomy temple of Typhon, on the edge of
the desert. Here a Nubian slave was sacrificed to the
Evil Principle, by being bound to the altar and burned
alive. The officiating priests then gathered the ashes
and praying him, that wheresoever an atom of the
ashes was borne on the wind, evil might not visit the
place.
Thothmeses has diligently revived the human sacrifices
which Queen Amense forbade, and the act sufficiently
illustrates the native cruelty and superstition of the
man.
Two days afterwards, having crossed the Nile in great
pomp, he proceeded, in grand procession, to the temple
of Serapis. The god Apis, you are aware, my dear
father, has the peculiar office, besides many others, of
protecting the country from locusts; and at the seasons
when these destructive insects visit Egypt, Apis is invoked
to command them to retire from the land.
The rites performed by the king before the god were
imposing and gorgeous. He invoked him, not against
locusts, but against the God of Moses!
Does not all this show a secret dread of the God he
defies? Yet he knows nothing of His power, and has
witnessed no act of wonder performed by Him. Doubtless
he felt, that a servant who dared to be so bold and
confident, must have a divine Master, who is great and
powerful. Perhaps he had heard of the God of the
Hebrews in times past;—of the dream of Prince Joseph
and the seven years' famine;—of the destruction of the
vale of Sodom, with its cities, by fire from heaven at
God's command;—of the dispersion of the nations at the
pyramid of Babylon;—of the mighty deluge which He
caused to overflow the mountains and drown the world!
Perhaps, for he is learned and intelligent enough, when
Aaron spoke to him of the God of the Hebrews, he remembered
hear His name again.
Three days afterwards the king visited the shrine of
Isis, and poured libations, and made thanksgivings; and
invoked her, as the moon, and controller of the seasons
and weather, to send abundant rains upon the mountains
of Ethiopia, and the sources of the Nile, so that the
annual overflow, now near at hand, may not fail, nor
the land be deprived of its fertility.
Two days later, with a procession of all the priests of
all the temples, and with chariots, and horsemen, and
footmen,—a vast array,—he visited the great temple of
Osiris, or the sun; and, after august ceremonies, himself
acting as high-priest, with the high-priest of On for
his assistant, he presented the statue of the god with a
new crown of gold, and a crook and flail of ivory inlaid
with jewels. He invoked him, by the appellation of
the god of light, the dispeller of darkness, the terror of
clouds, and the foe of lightnings and storms. And he
implored clear skies, and serene weather for the harvests,
as heretofore.
Thus the piety of Thothmeses has been quickened into
unwonted activity by the dread of the God of Israel, as
if he would secure his gods' faithfulness should the God
of Moses be too strong for him. In the mean while the
children of Israel are groaning under the weight of their
increased oppression. I have seen Aaron to-day. He
informed me, with looks of holy faith in his God, that
Moses and he were, to-morrow, by God's command, to
appear again before Pharaoh, and demand the release
of the Hebrews.
What a scene will be enacted! Will these two
for the result. They are firm and resolved, being strong
in the strength of their God. I shall be sure to be at
the palace to-morrow, that I may behold these servants
of Jehovah meet, once more, face to face, this cruel
Pharaoh and his gods.
| LETTER VIII. The pillar of fire, or, Israel in bondage | |