University of Virginia Library

9. LETTER IX.
REMESES OF DAMASCUS TO SESOSTRIS.

You will read what I am about to write, with the
profoundest interest. The two mighty Hebrews again
sought an audience of the king, and boldly demanded
the freedom of Israel.

This meeting did not take place in the palace of On,
but in that at Memphis, on the avenue of the Pyramids.
Pharaoh was seated in the court of the palace, giving
audience to the governors of the thirty-nine nomes,
which now constitute the number of his provinces.
When he had ended his instructions to them, Moses and
Aaron were announced. I stood near him conversing
with the prince; for I knew that the two men of God
purposed to seek the king's presence.

“How darest thou announce these Hebrews?” cried
the king, sharply, to his trembling grand-chamberlain.

“I could not forbid them, O king! I fled instinctively
and without power of resistance before the majesty
of their presence. Behold them advancing!”

Pharaoh turned pale. He essayed to give some fierce
order to those about him, but his tongue failed him.

“Who will slay me these men?” cried the Prince
Amunophis, seeing the king's troubled looks.

Not a man moved. Awe and curiosity took the place
of all other feelings. Side by side the two brothers
came unfalteringly forward till they stood before the
monarch,—fixing their regards only upon him.

“What are ye come for, Moses and Aaron?” at
length he uttered, in a thick voice. “Have I spared
your lives, that you might come again to mock me in
my palace?”

“We are come, O king,” answered Moses with dignity,
and looking far more kingly than he whom he
addressed—“we are come in the name of the God of
the Hebrews. He hath heard their cry from all the
land of Egypt, by reason of their taskmasters, and I am
sent to command thee, in His name, to send the children
of Israel out of thy land!”

“Have I knowledge of your God? What is His
power? Let Him make Himself known! Or, if He
hath sent thee to me, where are thy credentials from His
hand? I listen to no ambassadors from God or man,
unless they show me that they are sent. By what sign
wilt thou declare thy mission? If a king sent thee,
show me his handwriting; if a god, show me a miracle!”

Aaron held the rod of Moses in his hand, and casting
it upon the marble pavement of the court, it became a
serpent, slowly gliding along the floor and flashing fire
from its eyes. The servants of Pharaoh fled before it.
The king upon his throne, at first, became alarmed, but
seeing the monster inflate its throat and stretch lazily
and innocuously along the lion-skin before his footstool,
he smiled contemptuously and said—

“Thy Arabian life has given thee great skill, O
Moses. Ho! call my magicians! I have magi that
can equal thy art!”

All was expectation, until at length two stately personages
solemnly entered, each with his acacia rod. They
were Jambres and Jannes, the royal and chief magicians
of Egypt, of whose fame other lands have heard. They
were dark-featured, Arabic-looking men, and dressed
with great magnificence, wearing robes blazing with gold
and jewels. Their bearing was haughty and imperious,
and they looked about them with disdain, as if
they were beings of a better order than the Egyptians,
who stood awed, or prostrated themselves in their
presence.

“Seest thou this serpent?” demanded Pharaoh, directing
the attention of Jambres to the monster, which
lay coiled upon the lion-skin before the steps of the
throne; while several of the guard with spears stood
near, to thrust it through, should it approach the king.
The magicians regarded it with surprise, and then looked
fixedly at Moses and Aaron. They had evidently heard
by the messengers, what had passed. “Half an hour
since, he was a rod in the hand of that Hebrew
magician!” said the king. “Show him thy art, and
that we have gods whose servants can do as great miracles
as this!”

The magicians advanced and said—

“O king, beloved of the sun, live forever! Behold
the power of thy own magicians!” Thus speaking, they
cast their rods upon the ground, when they became serpents
also, after a few moments had transpired. Pharaoh
then said, addressing the Hebrew brothers—

“Ye are but impostors, and have done your miracle
by the gods of Egypt, as my magicians do.”

“If the god of Egypt be strongest, let his serpents
destroy my serpent: but if the God of the Hebrews be
the greatest and the only God, let my serpent devour
his!” Thus quietly spake Aaron.

“So be it,” answered Pharaoh.

In a moment, the serpent of Moses uncoiled himself,
and fiercely seizing, one after another, the two serpents
of the magicians, swallowed them. At this there was
an outcry among the people; and, greatly terrified,
Pharaoh half-rose from his throne; but Aaron catching
up the serpent, it became a rod as before. Instead of
acknowledging the God of Moses, the king became exceedingly
enraged against his own magicians, and drove
them from him, and ordered Moses and Aaron to depart,
saying that they were only more skilful sorcerers than
the others, and must show him greater signs than these
ere he would let Israel go. I have since learned, that
these magicians brought with them real serpents, which
they have the power of stiffening, and holding at arm's
length by pressing upon their throats: that they came
with these, which could not be detected in the obscurity
of the shadows where they stood, and casting them
down they resumed their natural motions. That the
rod of Moses should devour them, and return to a rod
again, ought to have shown Pharaoh that it was a
miracle, and not sorcery. But his heart seems to be
hardened against all impressions of this nature.

The following morning, the governor of the nilometer
having reported to the king that the Nile had
commenced to rise, Pharaoh, according to custom, proceeded

to the river, where the statue of Nilus stands,
and where he had caused the Hebrew boy to be sacrificed
and his blood poured as a libation into the stream.
Here, with great pomp, he was about to celebrate the
festivities of the happy event, when, lo! Moses and
Aaron stood before him by the river's brink,—the latter
with the rod, which had been turned into a serpent, in
his hand.

“The Lord God of the Hebrews,” cried Moses in a
loud voice, “hath sent me unto thee, saying, `Let My
people go.' Lo! hitherto thou wouldst not hear. Now
thus saith the Lord—`In this thou shalt know that I am
the Lord!' Behold, O king, at His command, I will
smite with the rod that is in mine hand upon the waters
which are in the river, and they shall be turned into
blood!”

“I defy you and your God, and both of ye shall die!”
answered Pharaoh, pale with anger.

Then Moses, turning calmly to Aaron, his brother,
said, in my hearing, and in that of the king and all his
people, “Take this rod of God, and stretch out thine
hand upon the waters of Egypt, that there may be blood
throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of
wood and vessels of stone.”

Aaron, obeying, stretched forth his hand with the rod
and smote the water at his feet, in the sight of Pharaoh,
and in the sight of the thousands of Egyptians present,
and in a moment the Nile ran blood instead of water;
the fish in hundreds rose to the surface and died, and
the smell of blood filled all the atmosphere. The people
uttered a great cry, and Pharaoh looked petrified with
horror. From the galleys on the river, from the women

on the opposite shore, from avenues, terraces, and plains,
from every side, rose a loud and terrible wail, such as
was never before heard. The king sought his chariot,
and fled from the face of Moses and Aaron, and all was
wild dismay. These two servants of the God, whose
words had wrought this great wonder, then walked
calmly away. I felt too much awed to come near them,
and in my chariot sought my own palace. On the way,
I saw that the canals were red with blood, also the standing
pools, the lakes, and every body of water. Men
were running in every direction seeking for water; women
wrung their hands, and despair and fear were impressed
upon every countenance. As I passed the fountains
in the court of Pharaoh's palace, I saw that they
also spouted forth blood; and in the corridor and porticos,
the water in the vases for guests, in the earthen
jars for filtering, and in those which stood in the cisterns,
was of the same crimson hue. When I reached
my own apartments, lo! there also the water in the
vases and ewers was of the color of blood. The voice
of Moses, empowered by his God, had indeed turned
all the waters of Egypt into blood. Surely, I said, now
will the king let Israel go. In the afternoon I went
forth, and saw the Egyptians digging everywhere for
fresh water, along the canals and river. I drove out of
the city towards Goshen, and saw all the people in motion
and terror, for but few knew the cause of the awful
visitation. After an hour I reached Goshen, the fair
plain where Prince Jacob once dwelt, and where now
the children of Israel dwell by hundreds of thousands.
With joyful surprise I beheld, as I entered the province,
that the canal was free from blood, the pools sparkling
with clear water, and the fountains bright as crystal. As
I rode on in the direction of the dwelling of Moses, I
perceived that the plague of blood had not fallen upon
the land where the Hebrews dwelt—only upon the Egyptians.
This was a twofold miracle.

When Pharaoh found that water could be obtained
by digging shallow wells, and also that Goshen was free
from the plague, he sent for Jambres and Jannes, and
offered to pardon them if they could turn water into
blood. They commenced their incantations upon water
dug up from his gardens—for the miracle of the rod
covered only the waters at the time on the surface,
whether in the river or in houses. After art had for
some time been practised upon the water, to my surprise
it was turned to the semblance of blood.

“See,” cried Pharaoh with great joy, “the servants of
Pharaoh are equal to the servants of the Hebrew God!”

“And O king,” said Jambres vainly, “had the Hebrew
juggler left us the Nile, we could have turned
that also by our enchantments.”

Then Pharaoh rewarded him with a chain of gold,
and hardened his heart, and defied Moses and his God.
But in three days afterwards all the fish died in the
lakes, and river of Lower Egypt, and a stench of their
flesh and of crocodiles and reptiles that perished by the
blood in the river, and the difficulty of getting water,
rendered Egypt almost uninhabitable. Thousands fled
to the pure air and water of Goshen, where also I remained.
Every hour I expected to behold a royal courier
coming for Moses and Aaron, ordering them to
appear before the king, to receive permission to lead the
Hebrews out of Egypt. At the end of seven days the

river and waters of Egypt resumed their natural color
and purity, by God's permission, lest all the people of
Egypt should die for Pharaoh's hardness of heart.

Then God appeared again unto Moses, and commanded
him to go before Pharaoh with the same message as before.
But the king, in great fury, ordered them from
his presence, when Aaron stretched forth his hand over
the streams, the river, the canals, lakes, and fountains,
and in a moment myriads of frogs appeared on the
shores, in the fields, in the streets, squares, corridors,
terraces, gardens, groves, and porticos of the temples.
They leaped upon every place, upon the people, upon
the stairways. They found their way by hundreds into
the houses and bedchambers, and upon the beds, tables,
chairs of palaces and huts; leaped into the ovens and
kneading-troughs, and occupied every place. In horror
the priests closed all the temples, lest they should enter,
and dying there, defile them. Even Pharaoh was obliged
to shut himself up in the recesses of his palace to escape
their loathsome presence.

In great alarm, he was about to send for Moses, when
Jambres, his chief sorcerer, stood before him, and said:

“O king, believe not that the God of this Hebrew is
greater than the gods of Egypt. Thy servants also can
do this enchantment.”

“Do so, and thou shalt have a rod of gold,” answered
the king.

Then descending into a fountain, inclosed by a high
wall of the palace, where the frogs had not yet appeared,
the magicians caused frogs also to appear. “At first,”
said the chief butler, who spoke to me of this deed, “the
king was greatly pleased, but suddenly said:

“`What thou hast produced by thy enchantments, remove
by thy enchantments. Command them to disappear
from the fountain.'

“This the two magicians not being able to do, the
next day, the frogs rendering every habitation uninhabitable,
and the lords of Egypt appealing to Pharaoh, he
sent for Moses and Aaron. It had become time to do
so. Every part of my rooms was filled with these animals;
they got into the plates and cups, and defiled
every place—while by night their combined roar filled
all Egypt with a deafening and terrible noise, so that if
a bed could be found to sleep in, sleep was nowhere
possible; and by day we could tread nowhere but upon
frogs.”

When the two Hebrew brothers again stood in the
presence of Pharaoh, he said, with mingled shame and
displeasure—

“Entreat your God to take away this plague of frogs
from me, my people, and the land of Egypt; and if
thou canst free the land from them, I will acknowledge
that it is the power of the God of the Hebrews, and will
let the people go to do sacrifice unto the Lord, who
hath commanded and sent for them.”

Then Moses answered the king—

“The Lord shall be entreated as thou desirest; and
thou, O king, shalt set the time, lest thou shouldst say I
consulted a favorable aspect of the stars. Choose when
I shall entreat for thee to remove this plague from the
land, the people, and their houses.”

“To-morrow,” answered Thothmeses.

“Be it according to thy word,” answered Moses;
“and when thou seest the plague removed at the time

appointed by thee, know it is God's gracious act, and
not our sorcery. To-morrow the frogs in all the land of
Egypt shall be found in the river only.”

What a scene did Egypt present the next morning!
The land was covered with dead frogs; and it took all
the people of Egypt that day and night to gather them
into heaps and cast them into the river: for they threatened
a pestilence.

When Pharaoh saw that his wish was granted at the
time he named, and that there was a respite, he said—
“This was by my voice and my power, and not by their
God, that the frogs died on the morrow I named! The
glory over Moses shall indeed be mine, as he hath
said!” Ceasing to speak, he sent orders to the taskmasters
to increase the burdens of the Hebrews, refusing to
keep his promise to Moses and Aaron.

Then the Lord again sent them before Pharaoh, and
in his presence Aaron stretched forth his rod, and smote
the dust of the earth, when all the dust of the earth became
alive, and rested upon man and beast in the form
of lice!

Then, in a rage, Pharaoh called his enchanters, but
they could not perform this miracle, and said plainly to
the king—

“This is beyond our power. This is the finger of
their God.”

Upon hearing this, Pharaoh drove both his magicians,
and Moses and Aaron forth from his palace. The next
day no sacrifice was offered, no temple open in all
Egypt; for on the priests were lice, and no one could
perform an official act with any insect upon his person,
being thereby made unclean. The Egyptians were

enraged, both with the Hebrews and with their king—
but, shut up in his palace, he refused to consent to the
demands of Moses.

Three days afterwards, by the command of God,
given at the well of Jacob,—where, in a bright cloud
like a pillar of fire, He descended to speak with Moses,
and seemed to be now every day present in Egypt, in
communion with his holy servant,—the two brothers
again sought the presence of the king, as he was entering
his galley. Reiterating their usual demand, Moses
continued—

“The Lord hath said unto me, `Stand before Pharaoh
when he comes forth to the water, and say unto him,
thus saith the Lord, `Let my people go; else, if thou
wilt not let my people go, I will send swarms of flies
upon thee and thy servants, and upon thy people, and
the houses of the Egyptians shall be filled with them,
and also the ground; and I will sever in that day the
land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no
swarms of flies shall be there; to the end that thou
mayest know that I am the Lord in the midst of the
earth. And I will put a division between my people
and thy people; and to-morrow shall this sign be!”'

Pharaoh, in fear and anger, commanded his galley to
leave the shore, heeding none of the words spoken by
Moses. The next day when I awoke, lo! the air was
darkened with flies. They covered the city like a
cloud, and their noise was like the roar of the sea after
a storm. When the sun was well risen, they descended
and alighted upon the dwellings, and soon filled the
houses, and rooms, and every place they could penetrate.
It was impossible to hear for their hum, or to

see for their number, as they would alight upon the face,
seek the corners of the eyes and the edges of the eyelids,
and inflict their bite. In a few hours the Egyptians
became frantic under the plague, as it was impossible
to keep them off; and if driven away, they would pertinaciously
return to the attack. All employment in
Egypt ceased. Eating and sleeping were impracticable.
I fled in my chariot towards Goshen! My horses, stung
to madness, flew like the wind. Hundreds of women,
and children, and men were pressing in the same direction,
for safety and relief. I crossed the great canal
which divides the province, and not a fly followed me
nor my horses across the aerial and invisible barrier God
had set as their bounds. All Goshen was free from the
plague, and the Hebrews were extending favors to the
Egyptians who sought shelter among them.

The next day, Pharaoh, unable to endure the plague,
and finding his magicians could neither remove nor
cause it, sent for Moses and Aaron, who immediately
answered his summons.

“Go,” he cried, when he beheld them,—“go, sacrifice
to thy God in this land; for He is a mighty God, and
may not be mocked!”

“It is not meet, O king,” answered Moses, “that we
should sacrifice to our God in the land of Egypt. We
Hebrews sacrifice bulls and rams, sacrifices abominable
to the Egyptians, who call them their gods! Lo! shall
we sacrifice the gods of the Egyptians to our God,
before their eyes, and will they not stone us? If we
sacrifice, we will go three days' journey into the wilderness,
and sacrifice to the Lord our God as He shall command
us.”

Seeing the resolute purpose of the terrible Hebrew,
Pharaoh consented to his demand, only adding, “Ye
shall not go very far away! Now go and entreat your
God for me, for the removal of these flies!”

While this discourse was passing between them, the
fan-bearers of the king, with all their diligence, could
not protect his face from the stings of the flies, which
plagued him sorely; while upon Aaron and Moses not
one alighted.

“To-morrow,” answered Moses, as he went out, “the
Lord, whom I will entreat for thee, shall remove this
plague also. But deal not deceitfully, O king, any
more, in not letting the people go.”

When, the next day, Pharaoh saw that the flies were
removed, so that not one remained, he repented that he
had given his promise, and resolved not to keep it with
Moses.

Once more God sent his servants, the two Hebrews,
to the king, demanding the release of the children
of Jacob from their yoke of bondage, menacing him
with a murrain upon all the cattle, horses, camels, and
beasts of Egypt, if he resolved to hold them still in the
land. The king, however, who seemed after every demand
to grow more obstinate when the evil had passed,
refused, and sent them away with threats of vengeance.
Indeed, it is surprising, my dear father, that he hath not
slain them before this; and I have no doubt he is miraculously
restrained from doing so, by the Almighty
God, whose faithful and holy servants they are.

On the morrow, according to the word of Moses, a fatal
pestilence seized upon the oxen, the bulls, and cows of
Egypt, so that all the cattle in the land died. When

the priests of the sacred ox, Mnevis, came rushing
from their temple to the palace, crying that their god
was dead with the murrain; when at midnight came
before him the priests of Apis, exclaiming that the
sacred bull was also dead, then Pharaoh began to know
and feel that the God of the Hebrews was greater than
the gods of Egypt. Early in the morning, when he
rose, hearing that not one of the cattle of the Israelites
was dead, instead of repenting and trembling, he became
enraged, acting like a man blinded by the gods,
when they would destroy him by his own acts.

Judge, my dear father, of the patience and forbearance
of the God of the Hebrews towards him who still
refused to acknowledge His power. Behold the firmness
and steadiness of purpose of Moses and Aaron,—their
courage and independence! What a sublime spectacle!—two
private men contending successfully with
the most powerful king on the earth! What a painful
sight to see this most powerful king of the earth measuring
the strength of his feeble will against the power
of the God of the universe!

Upon the refusal of Pharaoh to let Jehovah have His
people, that they might serve Him, God commanded
Moses in a vision of the night, beside the fountain of
Jacob, where He talked with him as in the burning
bush, to take the ashes of a human sacrifice, to be
immolated by Pharaoh the next day, and sprinkle it
towards heaven upon the winds. He did so; and instead
of protecting the places wheresoever its atoms
were carried, they broke out in boils upon man and
beast, breaking forth with painful blains. The magicians
and sorcerers, essaying to recover their credit with

the king, attempted to do the same miracle; but the boil
broke forth upon them also so heavily, that they could
not stand before Moses, and fled with pain and cries
from his presence. Yet Pharaoh remained obdurate,
and grew more hardened and defiant; for the boils
touched not his own flesh.

That night, the Lord appeared unto Moses, and commanded
him again to make his demand upon Pharaoh
for His people. Then stood Moses and Aaron in the
morning before the king, who was walking up and down
in the corridor of his palace, ill at ease; for all his public
works were stopped by the sufferings of the Egyptians;
and his soldiers in the fourscore garrisons at On, and
Memphis, and Bubastis, and Migdol, were unfit for military
duty. There was not a well man in all Egypt, save
in Goshen.

“What now, ye disturbers of Egypt and enemies of
the gods?” he called aloud, as he saw them approach
and stand before him.

“Thus saith the Lord god of the Hebrews,” answered
Moses: “`Let my people go, that they may serve me.”'

“The same words! Thou shalt never have thy wish,
—thou nor thy God! Who is the Lord? Will no man
rid me of this Moses and Aaron? Speak! What more?”

“Thus saith the Lord, `If thou, O king, refusest to
let Israel go, I will send all my plagues upon thy heart,
and upon thy people, that thou mayest know that there
is none like me in all the earth! For this cause, O
Pharaoh, have I created thee and raised thee up on the
throne of Egypt, that in thee I may show my power;
and that by my dealings with thee, My name may be
declared throughout all the earth. All nations shall

behold My works with thee, and My vengeance on thy
gods, and shall know that I am the Lord, and God of all
gods! Thou art My servant to show forth My glory!
Thy proud heart exaltest thyself above Me, and against
My people, and thou wouldst contend with Me! Thou
shalt know I am God, ere thou shalt be cut off from the
earth; and that the heavens are My throne, and the
earth is My footstool, and none can say, What doest Thou?
Behold, to-morrow I will darken the heavens with clouds,
and send hail upon the earth, and every man and beast
in the field shall die by the hail.' If thou regardest the
life of thy servants,” continued Moses, “send, therefore,
for all thou hast in the field.”

This threat was made known everywhere in a few
hours, and those who fear the word of the Lord have
made their servants and cattle flee into the houses prepared
for them; but those who regard not the warning
have left them in the field. What will to-morrow bring
forth?

Farewell, dear father.

Warned by Aaron, I depart at once for the sheltering
skies of Goshen.