 | LETTER X. The pillar of fire, or, Israel in bondage |  |
10. LETTER X.
Scarcely had I reached the confines of Goshen,
after the threatened judgment of God upon Pharaoh,
when I heard, as it were in the air, a voice speaking,
which I knew to be the voice of Moses; and behind me
I heard, instantly, loud thunders uttering their voices,
and the earth shook beneath my chariot-wheels. To the
right of me, at the same moment, I beheld Moses and
Aaron standing, side by side, on the tower of the ruined
fountain of Jacob, beneath which I was driving; the
former stretching forth his hands, and his rod therein,
northward towards the city of Pharaoh, upon the obelisks
of which the sun was then brilliantly shining, and
was also reflected in splendor from the shield of gold
upon the lofty tower of the temple of Osiris. Leaping
from my chariot, and leaving it with my servants, whom
I commanded to hasten further into the land of the
Hebrews, I drew reverently near the men of God, feeling
greatly awed by their presence, but assured that
near them was safety,—though they were the visible
sources of God's terrible wrath upon Egypt. I stood
not far off, and beheld, with expectation. Moses, his
rod extended, and waving eastward, and northward,
his eyes raised to the heavens, which were already answering
his voice by far-off thunderings. He continued,
as I drew near, in these words:
“And let thunder, and hail, and fire, O Egypt, descend
out of heaven from God upon thee, and let the
fire mingle with the hail, and smite throughout all the
land of Egypt, all that is in the field, both man and
beast, and every herb in the field, and break every tree!
Only in the land of Goshen let there be no hail.”
No language, my dear father, can convey to you any
idea of the terrible power and godlike authority with
which he spake. To his words, Aaron pronounced a
loud “A-men,”—the Hebrew word for expressing full
assent and confirmation.
Then I looked, with expectant awe, towards the land
of Egypt, over which the thunders rolled without a
cloud; when, lo! from the north came rolling onward a
black wall of darkness, which I perceived was a mighty
cloud from the great sea. It advanced with the swiftness
and roar of ten thousand war-chariots rushing to
battle. Out of it shot forth lightnings, and its increasing
thunders shook Egypt. In a moment it had filled half
the heavens, and still onward it rolled. Beneath it moved
its shadow, dark as itself, extinguishing the light upon
obelisk, tower, and pylon. I am told that Pharaoh,
from the top of his palace, witnessed this scene also.
Directly the sun was blotted out, and the city of On
became invisible. Then I saw fire pour down upon the
earth out of the cloud, as if lightnings could not fast
enough exhaust its angry power; and I heard the voice
of falling hail like the voice of the sea when lashed by
Goshen, stood and beheld what I did. The roads, the
fields, the plain were covered with people flying from
the terror towards Goshen.
Onward marched this awful servant of the Almighty,
more terrible than an army with banners. Fire ran
along the ground before it, and red forked lightnings
shot far out beyond its advancing edge athwart the
blue sky, while, in a moment afterwards, the cloud of
blackness rolled beneath, like the sulphurous smoke
that the priests of Egypt say forever rolls above the
fiery regions of Typhon!
Each instant it enlarged its compass, until from east to
west it enveloped Egypt, while fire, mingled with hail,
ran along the earth beneath it. Now behold, my father,
the power of God! The vast pall which Jehovah had
thus begun to draw over Egypt, no sooner had reached
in the height of heaven over the borders of Goshen,
casting its very shadow, and pouring its stones of hail,
and sending its tongues of fire almost to the foot of the
tower whereon Moses stood, than it ceased to move! It
became stationary in the air a mile high, and there
hung beetling over the verge of Goshen like a crag, its
edge working and agitated by the wildest commotion,
and shooting its lightnings into the blue calm sky over
Goshen, but restrained from advancing further by the
power of Him who commandeth the heavens, who
maketh the clouds His chariot, and who keepeth the
lightnings in His quiver!
At length the darkness became so dense, that it seemed
a wall, between Egypt and Goshen, from the ground
up to the cloud. Over the latter the sun,—oh, what a
winds slept peacefully, the fields waved with the ripened
flax and full-eared barley, the birds sang their songs
of gladness, and the children of God dwelt in security,
under the protection of His gentle love and terrible power.
Surely Pharaoh must perish if he dare any longer
madly to resist the God of the Hebrews, who has now
shown that He is God of heaven as well as of the earth,
and that He is God alone, and there is none else! If,
my dear father, your early instructions had not made
known to me the God of Noah, who is the God of the
Hebrews, I should, ere this last manifestation of His
awful majesty and terror, have prostrated myself before
Him and acknowledged Him as my God. Wonderful
that He, who dwells in heaven, should stoop to behold
things on the earth, and make such displays of His
glory, and majesty, and strength, for the sake of a poor,
enslaved people like the Hebrews. But, as the holy
Moses taught me the other day, when I was humbly
sitting at his feet, and hearing him discourse on these
mighty events (for which he takes to himself no honor
or merit, but only seems the more meek and lowly the
more he is intrusted with power by God), these displays
of God's majesty have a threefold end: first, to prove
to the trembling and heart-crushed Israelites that He
who is so terrible in power, doing wonders, is their God,
as He was the God of Abraham, and has power to deliver
them from Pharaoh; as well as to teach them that
if He can so punish the Egyptians, He can punish them
also, with equal judgments, if they rebel and do wickedly:
secondly, to punish Pharaoh for the oppression of
His people, to afflict the land upon which they have
that He alone is God, that their gods are as stubble in
His hand, “that there is none like Him in all the earth;”
and thus bring them to acknowledge Him, and to fear
and worship Him: and, thirdly, that the word of His
mighty deeds and wonders done in Egypt, going abroad
to the ears of kings and princes, priests and lords, and
people of all nations upon the earth, may give them the
knowledge of the true God, prove to them the impotency
of their idols, and the supremacy of the God of the
Hebrews, in heaven, and on earth, and over kings and
people. “Therefore, and for these ends,” continued the
divine Moses, “that He might not leave Himself without
a witness before men, and that He might declare His
power to all His creatures, and His care for the oppressed,
and His judgment upon kings who reign by cruelty,
has He permitted, not only the bondage of our nation,
but raised up such a man as Pharaoh, in whom to show
forth His power and judgments, as He said to this king,
`And in very deed, for this cause have I raised thee up,
to show in thee my power, and that my Name may be
declared throughout all the earth.' Therefore did the
Lord God say to me in the beginning, when He sent me
before Pharaoh, `I am sure that the king of Egypt will
not let you go, no not until I stretch out my hand with
mighty power, and smite Egypt with all my wonders
which I will do; and after that he will let you go!' I
did not understand this all at the first,” said Moses;
“but now I perceive the mind of God, and that He will
do His will upon Pharaoh, and send yet more terrible
punishments; after which, humbled, and acknowledging
God to be the Lord, he will let the people go!”
What a wonderful mystery is passing before us, O
my father! How dreadful is this God! How wonderful,
how glorious is His majesty! In His presence, and
before Him, what is man but dust, breath, vanity? I
humble myself before Him, and feel that I am a worm,
and no man! Yet Thothmeses, like a madman, stands
and defies this living God!
Not all the horror of the plague of hail and fire, of
the lightnings and thunderings, moved him to let Israel
depart. When the judgment of God was at its height
driven to the interior of his palace,—from the tower upon
which he had ascended “to see what Moses and Aaron
would do,” as he said,—he remained there three days,
until, unable longer to bear the terrors of the scene, and
the cries of his people, he sent for Moses and Aaron.
No messenger could be found to go but Israelisis, your
former page, who, since he returned to Egypt, is a servant
of the king, greatly devoted to him, and from
whom I have obtained much interesting information of
the effects of these divine judgments upon him. Three
couriers, one after the other, had been struck down by
the hail. But the Hebrew walked forth fearlessly and
unharmed, and moved through the showers of ice, as if
he bore a charmed life. This alone should have proved
the power of God to be with the Hebrew servant, and
against Pharaoh and his servants.
Moving through the darkness, amid the fire upon the
ground, and the hail and scalding rain, the man arrived,
and told Moses and Aaron that the king had repented,
and prayed them both to hasten to him, for he knew
their God would defend them from injury on the way.
The king is represented as having received the Hebrew
around him, his face ghastly with fear, and anxiety, and
an indefinable dread. It is also said that his manner
was servile rather than humble, and that his speech was
mingled with lamentations and accusations. When they
entered, he said:
“It is enough, O men of God, it is enough! Entreat
the Lord your God for me, that there be no more mighty
thunderings and hail, and I will let you go, and without
any longer delay.”
As he spoke, the palace shook to its foundations, and
the water in the fountain swayed to and fro with violence,
as in an earthquake, while the hail, descending
with a great noise into the outer courts, was piled many
cubits in height against the columns, the sculptured
work of which, struck off in every exposed part, fell to
the earth mingled with the hail-stones.
“As soon as I am gone out of the city I will spread
abroad my hands unto the Lord,” said Moses, “and the
thunder shall cease, and the hail, that thou mayest know
how that the earth is the Lord's. But, O king, as for
thee and thy lords, I know that ye will not yet fear the
Lord God. Has He not mocked the power of your pretended
goddess, Isis, over the heavens, and seasons, and
winds? Who hath known a rain and hail in Egypt in
this month? or hath seen the winds blowing clouds
from the sea? God is God, and Isis is no god; or if a
god, where is her power? Entreat her to remove this
chamsin of heaven, such as earth never before felt upon
her bosom.”
“God is God, and entreat Him for me,” answered the
king, with a feeble gesture of impatience, doubtless
to lose six hundred thousand working-men from the
mines and great works he is carrying on; for though he
fears the number of the Hebrews, he would rather retain
them, keeping them under by increased oppression,
than release them, and thereby be relieved from the
apprehensions to which their unparalleled increase has
given rise.
When Moses had left the city of On behind him, he
spread abroad his hands towards heaven unto his God;
and the thunders, and rain, and hail, and lightnings
ceased.
Anticipating the removal of the judgment, I had been
standing for some hours by the tower and fountain of
Jacob. Suddenly the awful mass of ebony-black cloud,
which, for three days, had never ceased to utter its voices
of thunder, and send forth its lightnings, hail, and fire
upon the earth beneath, began to roll itself up, like a
seroll, towards the north. The thunder ceased. The
lightnings were no more visible. The hail fell no more.
And, as the cloud receded, the shadows upon the land—
now smitten and desolate—moved with it. Gradually
the whole landscape reappeared; first I saw the walls
of On, then its towers, then the obelisks caught the
light, and all at once the effulgent sun poured, from the
clear sky above it, the splendor of his beams, which the
shield of Osiris caught and again reflected with its former
brilliancy. Slowly, but with awful majesty, the
cloud of God's anger descended the horizon, and finally
disappeared in the north. And I thought that mayhap
its dark volume would be seen passing over the sea,
even from Tyre, to your consternation and wonder.
What a scene of desolation the land presented when,
the next day, I returned to On! The fields of flax and
barley were smitten and consumed; the trees were
broken and stripped of their leaves, either by the five or
hail; the houses and villages of the plain were devastated;
in all the fields were dead corpses; and cattle
and horses which had escaped the former plague, or
been purchased from the Hebrews, were lying dead
everywhere with their herdsmen. Chariots and their
riders, overtaken in flight from On, lay upon the highways;
and death, desolation, and horror reigned!
Entering the city, I saw soldiers that had been struck
dead at their posts by the hail, still lying where they
fell; and the streets filled with the dead and wounded,
and with heaps of hail; while the sun shone down upon
a scene of universal wailing and woe!
I passed on to the palace of Pharaoh, my position and
rank having at all times given me free access to his presence.
I found him at a banquet, as for three days and
nights he had scarcely tasted food for terror and confusion,
neither he, nor his lords, nor servants. They were
feasting and drinking wine, and the king's face was
flushed with strong drink; for, seizing the present
moment of security, he revelled, striving to forget the
past terrors. As I entered, his singers were singing a
hymn to his gods; and when it was ended, Pharaoh,
with his cup in his hand, cursed the God of the Hebrews
who had sent such terrors upon his land, for hitherto
he had said it was the gods of Egypt who had done
these things, forced thereto by the powerful enchantments
of the Hebrew brothers.
I turned away from his hall, refusing to go in, when
Upon seeing them, Pharaoh's heart was hardened against
them and their God, and he and his lords rose up in fear
and anger.
“Are ye come again before me, ye Hebrews?” he
cried, in his wrath and wine. “I will not let Israel go!
Not a foot nor hoof shall stir from the land! I have
sworn it by the life of Pharaoh, and by the gods of
Egypt!”
Then Moses answered the king, and said—
“Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, O Pharaoh:
`Let my people go! How long wilt thou refuse
to humble thyself before me? Let my people go, that
they may serve me; else on the morrow will I bring the
locusts into thy coasts, and they shall cover the face of
the earth, and devour what remaineth in the field, and
shall fill thy houses, and the houses of all the Egyptians,
even as hath not been upon the earth unto this day!”'
“We have seen locusts in Egypt, O Hebrew, and fear
them not,” answered Pharaoh, with a laugh of derision.
“Go tell your God that Pharaoh and his gods defy Him
and His locusts!”
Then Moses turned himself, and went out from Pharaoh.
But the lords of Egypt feared, and said unto
their king—
“How long shall this man be a snare unto us and the
evil destiny of Egypt? Let the men of the Hebrews
go, that they may serve their mighty and dreadful God,
as He commandeth them. Knowest thou not, O king,
that Egypt is destroyed; and the locusts will destroy the
wheat and the rye which are just bursting out of the
ground, and the leaves that are putting forth?”
Then Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron, who had
not yet reached the gate of the palace, and when they
again stood before him, he said—
“For the sake of these, and for Egypt's sake, which
thy sorcery has nearly destroyed, I yield to thy demand,
not because I fear thy God. Go, serve the Lord your
God; but who are they that shall go?”
And Moses answered, and said firmly and fearlessly—
“We will go with our young and with our old, with
our sons and with our daughters; with our flocks and
with our herds will we go; for we must hold a feast unto
the Lord, and a sacrifice unto our God.”
Then Pharaoh answered, in great anger—
“Let the Lord look to you, not to me, for his sacrifices,
as if I will let you go, and your little ones, that
you may feast to Him! Look to it! Provoke not my
wrath, for evil is before you! Ask not so. Go now, ye
that are men and serve the Lord, since that is what ye
ask! Now leave my presence! Ye are become the
curse of Egypt. What! Do ye linger to ask more?
Drive the men forth from the palace!”
The guards followed for some paces, but drew not
near them for fear; and with calm dignity of demeanor,
the divine brothers went out of the palace, and left the
city. When we had departed from the presence of
Pharaoh—for I had joined their holy companionship—
he stretched forth his rod over the land eastward,
and invoked the new judgment of God that he had
threatened. Immediately a strong east wind arose, and
blew all that day, and all the night, each hour increasing;
and in the morning, when I waked at a great cry
of the people, I looked forth, and beheld the heavens
moving like one, or, rather, like a great ocean-wave rolling
along the sky. It was attended in its approach, which
was from the direction of the Arabian Sea, by a confused
humming, like the wind sweeping through the tall
cedars on Libanus. As it drew near, it covered half the
heavens, and appeared many hundred feet in thickness,
the lower surface being not far from the earth. I soon
perceived, from the cries around me, that it was the
threatened plague of locusts coming upon Egypt, loosed
from the open palm of God's hand. My position was at
a window in the house of Aaron, and not far from the
line between Goshen and the rest of Egypt. I saw them,
as they passed over the plains, and fields, and city, and
villages, descend in showers like flakes of snow, hundreds
and thousands at a time, until the whole earth was
brown with them. Thus the flight continued all that
day, and all night, and all the next day and next night,
—an endless cloud, darkening the sun by day and the
stars by night. The surface of Egypt seemed agitated
and alive like the sea after a storm, restless, and in continual
motion in every part; while the noise made by
the wings of the locusts was incessant,—a monotone
awful to hear, without variation or diminution, till the
ear became weary of hearing, and in vain sought relief
from the deep, angry bass of this voice of vengeance of
the Hebrews' God! In crossing the Nile, myriads fell
into it, and covered its surface,—galleys, barges, men,
and sails; and the water was defiled by their presence.
At noon-day there was a dreadful twilight prevailing,
for the beams of the sun could not penetrate this living
cloud. They covered the whole face of Egypt, and
on the trees, which were just putting out again; or in
the herbs of the field, which had sprung up since
the hail; for much seed was in the ground, which
came up after the hail, only to be destroyed by the
locusts.
Then the people, in despair, besieged the palace of
Pharaoh with great cries. Though the Egyptians regard
their king as their priest, and as a god, and are
proverbially submissive to his will and power, they had
now lost all fear, being driven to despair by this last
plague. Nothing but famine and death were before
them, and their wives, and little ones! Pharaoh also
became alarmed at the endless power of the God of the
Hebrews! He had long since given his magicians,
Jambres and Jannes, to death, because they failed to
keep pace with Moses and Aaron, and he evidently felt
that this was the power of a God he could no longer
compete with. He therefore sent for Moses and Aaron
in haste. When they came into his presence they beheld
him in a closed room, lighted by the seven golden
lamps which Osirtasen captured from the king of Nineveh;
for the locusts made it necessary to close every
shutter, and turn day into night, in every house. He
was reclining upon a lounge covered with Tyrian purple,
and adorned with needle-work; and was surrounded
by the ladies of his palace, who were imploring him, as
the Hebrew brothers entered, to let Israel go! Even
his son, the careless and gay Prince Amunophis, was
kneeling before him, and urging him to abide by his
resolution, to grant the demand of the God of the Hebrews.
When he beheld the tall and majestic persons
cried—
“I have sinned against the Lord your God, and
against you. Now, therefore, O Moses and Aaron, forgive,
I pray thee, my sin only this once, and entreat the
Lord your God that He may take away from me this
death only!”
This confession seemed to be made with a certain
frankness and sincerity, and a show of deep humility;
and Moses answered—
“The Lord forgive thee, according to what is in thy
heart. I will entreat the Lord for thee, and the plague
shall be removed from thee and thy people.”
Then Moses went out from the presence of Pharaoh;
and when he had come into Goshen he ascended the
tower of Jacob, and entreated the Lord for Pharaoh.
Immediately the cloud of locusts became tossed as with
a whirlwind; and the wind, changing from the east to
the west, blew strongly, and pressed back the mass of
locust-clouds, sweeping those that were on the earth into
the air, and rolling the whole body of winged creatures
eastward. This wind blew all night, and all the next
day, and the next night, a mighty wind, and on the following
morning not a living locust was visible in all the
coasts of Egypt.
Moses now sent messengers all through Egypt, calling
upon the children of Israel to leave whatever they might
be occupied in, and assemble themselves in the land of
Goshen, with their wives, and children, and flocks, and
all that they had. He had previously sent men into
Upper Egypt and to the mines; and, what is wonderful,
the Hebrews in the mines were permitted to go
had reached their ears, and they gladly let them go!
The messengers whom Moses now sent everywhere,
from Migdol to Syene, were Hebrews, and were nowhere
molested as they went; for a fear and reverence
of them, as the people of the mighty God of Moses, had
taken the place, in the minds of the great body of the
Egyptians, of their former contempt: nay, every one
was willing to do them a kindness.
Now, my dear father, you are prepared to read that
Pharaoh, according to his word, permitted the children
of Israel to depart from his dominions. But Thothmeses
IV. is no ordinary man! Probably, such a character as
his is unknown in the history of kings. Such a union
of opposite qualities is rarely encountered in one individual.
Superstitious, yet sacrilegious! cowardly, yet
braving death! faithful to his oath to his gods, yet a
perjurer of himself to men! tender-hearted as a woman
to his own children and family, yet cruel as a tiger and
relentless as a lion to the Hebrews and their little ones!
Treacherous, sycophantic, malicious, and ironical, he is
twofold in speech, and double-minded in secret intention;
he promises when in danger, and revokes his word
in security! Despising his foes, yet fearing them, he
flatters, smiles upon, and deceives them! Trembling
under judgment, he denies his terrors when they are
past! convinced of the truth, yet opposing it! confessing
the power of God, yet defying it! These qualities,
God, who reads the character in the heart, saw in Pharaoh,
and knew from the beginning what he would do,
and how he would receive Moses, far better than we
can know how our well-known friends would act under
account of the peculiar character of this Pharaoh, that
God chose the time and the man for showing His power,
glory, majesty, and terror to Egypt, to Israel, and to the
world! Under such a queen as Amense, or such a
prince as the mild Thothmeses II., the first miracle of the
serpent swallowing the rods of the magicians, would
have drawn their consent to let Israel go. Where then
would have been the manifestation of the power of God,
that the earth is now witnessing with awe and fear?
God, therefore, knowing what was in the man, chose
this Pharaoh as the person in whom, through the natural
agency of his obdurate heart, He might make manifest
His name as the God of heaven and earth, whose power
neither man nor gods can resist. Thus Pharaoh, unwittingly,
through the perversity of his own will, and
the instability of his character, is actually carrying out
God's ultimate designs, glorifying Him in His greatness,
and drawing forth these stupendous manifestations of
His Almighty power over earth, and air, and skies!
Yet is he no less guilty before God; for he does not
intend His glory, but, on the contrary, denies and defies
Him in its every successive manifestation!
Pharaoh, therefore, did not stand to his word now,
dear father. When left to himself, he forgot all that had
gone before, and sent word to Moses and Aaron not to
attempt to remove the Hebrews, as he would not let
them go; for Egypt was devastated, and nearly ruined
in every part, and he must first have the labors of the
Hebrews to restore the dikes and canals, and the terraces
and gardens of the lakes, and then he would let
them go.
Then Moses and Aaron went at noonday and sought
the Lord as aforetime, in the silence and loneliness of
the well of Jacob, where they ever prayed unto Him,
and where He spake unto them all the words He commanded
them to speak before Pharaoh. And when they
had ended their prayers and supplications before their
great and terrible God, whose name they never spake
but with the profoundest awe, the Lord said unto Moses:
“Stretch forth thine hand towards heaven, that there
may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness
that may be felt.”
Obeying the command, Moses ascended the tower of
Jacob, and stretched forth his hand towards heaven.
Then followed a scene, my dear father, of solemn terror.
The atmosphere became the color of blood. The
sun disappeared as if extinguished. A thick and instant
darkness fell upon the earth. The birds ceased their
songs; the cattle lowed; the wail of Egypt went up
in one great cry! Though On is several miles distant,
the cry of the city reached the ears of the children of
Israel in Goshen. But with them all was light, and joy,
and beauty. The sun shone; there was light in every
dwelling; the birds sang; the green harvests waved in
the joyous sunshine; the verdant fields and leafy trees
danced in the soft breeze; for no plague had come nigh
the Hebrews, their fields, foliage, or dwellings. The
darkness stood, like a great wall of black mist rising
high as heaven, between Goshen and Egypt.
Its sudden descent upon Egypt caught the Egyptians
on the road, in the fields, upon the Nile, in the streets,
temples, and palaces, as they chanced to be; and where
it fell upon them, there they were compelled to remain
slimy to the touch. I would have entered it for a moment
after touching it, but Aaron warned me not to
tempt God; that safety was alone in the sunlight of
Goshen. Out from the black abyss came, now and then,
a fearful cry of some desolate wayfarer, and the Hebrews
answered kindly back, and so by their shouts
directed the wanderer in the darkness how to move towards
the light. During this darkness, the Hebrews,
by the command of Moses, were collecting their flocks,
and preparing to depart to sacrifice to their God: also,
those who had not been circumcised now received the
rite.
This horrible night continued without change—without
moon or star to lend it a ray—until the third day,
when Pharaoh, unable longer to hold out in this unequal
combat against God, sent two Hebrews, born in his
house, to Moses; for only the Hebrew could walk
through this night of God as in the light. Without a
word of impatience or doubt, Moses and Aaron rose up
and disappeared in the awful veil of darkness, in response
to the summons of the king. No sooner did Pharaoh
behold them, than he cried out, in a voice of mingled
complaint and condescension—
“Go ye, Moses and Aaron, ye and yours, only let
your flocks and herds stay in the land; for hast thou
not destroyed,” he added with bitterness, “whatsoever
parteth the hoof in all the land of Egypt? Your little
ones may also go with you.” This was spoken in a tone
of condescension.
And Moses answered and said:
“Thou must suffer our flocks and herds to go with us,
wherewith to sacrifice unto the Lord our God. Our
cattle, therefore, must also go with us. There shall not a
hoof be left behind.”
When Pharaoh heard Moses speak thus firmly and
boldly to him, abating nothing from his first demand,
he seemed to lose his reason with rage. Casting his
sceptre from his hand at the two brothers, he cried—
“Get ye from me, ye destroyers and curse of Egypt!
Take heed to thyself, O Moses, and see my face no more,
for in that day thou seest my face thou shalt die!”
Then Moses answered, with calm and severe majesty:
“Thou hast spoken well, O Pharaoh. I will see thy
face no more. But hear thou the word of the Lord,
which, knowing thy heart, He hath spoken unto me to
say now before thee: `I will bring yet one plague more
upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. About midnight will
I go out into the midst of Egypt, and all the first-born
in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of
Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the first-born
of the maid-servant that is behind the mill; and all
the first-born of beasts: and all these thy servants shall
bow down themselves unto me, saying—“Get thee out,
and all the people that follow thee; and thy lords, and
high captains, and governors, and great men, and all who
serve thee, shall come down to me, to urge me to go
forth out of Egypt: after that I will go out.”' These,
O king, are the words of the Lord against thee. Thou
hast cast thy sceptre at my feet. As I step my foot
upon it, so shall the Lord place his foot upon Egypt!”
Thus speaking, Moses went out from Pharaoh in great
anger. As he left the palace, the Egyptians prostrated
cried, “He is a god! Let this god, who is mightier
than Osiris and greater than Serapis, be our god!”
“But Moses sternly rebuked them,” said Aaron, who
related to me all that had passed, “and felt deeply
grieved and humbled at so great a sin, and called upon
them to worship God in heaven, whose servant only he
was, with no power in himself to do these wonders
which they had witnessed.”
Farewell, my dear father. My next letter, without
doubt, will convey to you the victory of the Lord God
over Pharaoh and his gods, and the deliverance of the
Hebrows from their bondage.
| LETTER X. The pillar of fire, or, Israel in bondage | |