Читать книгу Their Father’s Heirs - Cynthia Ekoh - Страница 8

4

Back in their tent Zelophehad’s wife was feeding her baby Milcah and singing as she did so. Her three daughters surrounded her to listen and learn as she sang the song of deliverance. “I will sing unto the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously, the horse and the rider thrown into the sea . . .” Noah, clinging to her mother’s side, asked her to tell them again the story behind the song. The song was popularly known among the Israelites as the song of Moses and Miriam. It was first sung at the crossing of the Red Sea, spontaneously composed by Miriam and Moses as they led the people to give thanks to YHWH for their deliverance. Even though she had no clear recollection of what had happened at the Red Sea because she had been about Noah’s age then, Zelophehad’s wife like many Israelite knew every detail of the great testimony of their deliverance from Egypt. She began her story with the time when Moses fearlessly went to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to demand the release of all the Israelites. She recounted how the king of Egypt had proved stubborn, playing tricks on Moses. She recounted all the different plagues YHWH rained down on the Egyptians as punishment for Pharaoh’s stubbornness. She explained carefully the last plague that broke Pharaoh, not wanting to terrify her daughters. The girls all laughed and clapped their hands in delight as their mother ended the story and their baby sister belched at the same time. “But Imah, how did our fathers get to Egypt and why did they have to go to such a mean place in the first place?” Noah asked. “Abbah told me that it was because YHWH planned it to be so,” Mahlah, the firstborn, quickly responded before their mother could gather her thoughts. Wiser than her sisters by virtue of her age, plus having heard the story more times than they had, Mahlah looked to their mother for confirmation. Her mother looked at her with pride and smiled and started another chapter of the story. Zelophehad’s wife, who was a pious woman, loved telling these stories not only to entertain her daughters but to remind herself time and time again of the greatness of the God they served. It gave her strength and hope for the future. “Well girls, you know that Abraham our father had Isaac, and Isaac had Jacob, who became the father of the twelve patriarchs. Now because the patriarchs were jealous of their little brother Joseph being their father’s favorite, they sold him as a slave into Egypt.” Noah, who was always trailing her sister in a bid to outdo, again interrupted her, exclaiming, “Now I know why our fathers became slaves in Egypt. It was because Joseph, the first Israelite to get to Egypt, went there as a slave!” Their mother smiled and continued her story, marveling at this interesting show of intelligent reasoning by her eight-year-old daughter. “Well, my lamb, I am not sure about that, but God was with him and rescued him from all the troubles and challenges he faced in Egypt. Joseph found favor with people everywhere he went, even with Pharaoh the king of Egypt. The king made him a ruler in Egypt, his second in command. Somewhere along the line, a great famine struck all Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering, and our people could not find food.” Mahlah looking confused asked, “You said Egypt and Canaan, where did Jacob and his sons live?” “Oh they used to live in the land of Canaan, but as foreigners before they migrated to Egypt. Anyway, under the rule of Joseph, Egypt was able to conserve a large reserve of food, and all the surrounding nations went to Egypt for food. When Jacob, Joseph’s father, heard that there was food in Egypt, he sent his sons down to Egypt to buy food. So the patriarchs visited Egypt, bought the food they needed without realizing that the man in charge was their own very brother Joseph. On their second visit, Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph’s family. After this, Joseph sent for his father and his whole family, seventy-five in all. And so Jacob and the twelve patriarchs lived and died in Egypt, though they were not buried there but at Shechem. Our people continued to live in Egypt and increased greatly in number and were very prosperous until another king who knew nothing about Joseph became the ruler of Egypt. The new Pharaoh was a wicked man, oppressing our people and making them his slaves. He was so evil that he ordered for every newborn male baby belonging to the Israelites to be killed.” At this the girls gasped. Hoglah, the youngest of the three, began to cry, while Mahlah burst out vehemently, “That is so evil! Imagine if we had to lose our baby Milcah.” Their mother held on tightly to her baby and shuddered. “Well we know that YHWH is faithful in making ways of escape for his people at all times. The story gets better. It was at this time that Moses was born and his mother was able to hide him for three months in his father’s house until she devised a plan to keep her baby safe. She put Moses in a basket into the river Nile where Pharaoh’s daughter was having a bath. The princess heard the baby cry and sent her servants to pick him up. She adopted him as her son and she raised him as her own. Moses was brought up and educated as an Egyptian prince. He learned the art of medicine, literature, art, and architecture. He lived a privileged life while all our people suffered greatly at the hands of the Egyptians.” Mahlah, with a dreamy look on her little face, interrupted her mother wanting to know if Moses’ wife was an Egyptian. She believed that Zipporah was the most beautiful woman that she had ever seen in her young life. “Well Mother, is she an Egyptian?” “No, my sweet lamb. Zipporah is from Midian, though they are all called Cushites. The Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Midianites originated from Cush. And you, my dove, are more beautiful. Now one day when Moses was all grown, he decided to visit Goshen, in Lower Egypt, where the Israelites resided. On his first visit to his people, he met an ugly scene. He saw an Egyptian man beating a helpless Israelite to the point of death. Moses was so enraged at the injustice that he killed the Egyptian and buried him secretly. Of course the news went round and a lot of our people were happy and proud of him for standing up for his true kinsmen, but some of them however did not appreciate Moses. Not too long afterward on another day, Moses came upon two Israelites fighting and tried to reconcile them. But to his surprise, the man who had initiated the fight was horrible to Moses. He pushed him aside, asking who had made him their ruler and judge. He accused Moses of wanting to kill him like he did the Egyptian. When Moses heard that, he was so disappointed and of course was afraid. He feared that the news would get to Pharaoh if people continued to talk about it so publicly, so he fled from Egypt. He had thought the people would accept and appreciate him for being on their side but they did not. So he fled to Midian where he met his wife Zipporah. He settled there as a shepherd working with his father-in-law Jethro and he started his family. Moses was in Midian for forty years, a completely different man from the young Egyptian prince that fled from Egypt. Well one day while he was minding his routine business as a shepherd, YHWH stopped him in his tracks. YHWH sent him back to Egypt to rescue us.” “Imah, is it true that Moses sees YHWH all the time?” Noah the inquisitive one asked. “Oh yes, my lamb. How do you think we made it so far? Moses is a holy man and a great prophet, without him there will be no Israel. . .” Her voice faded as she became emotional at this point. So many things she could not explain to her daughters because of their age. Even for an adult, it was difficult to understand it all. YHWH has revealed himself to them in many ways, yet they really did not know him like Moses did. At Mount Sinai they had come that close to seeing him when he requested to meet with them for the first time. Moses had prepared them and took them to the foot of the mountain. It had been the most terrifying experience. The mountain had trembled so violently when a great fire suddenly descended on it. Moses had announced that as the presence of the Lord, but all they had seen was smoke erupting from a furnace from the top of the mountain. And they had heard a thundering when he spoke to Moses, who had been the only person who had gone closer. He had disappeared into the smoke on top of the mountain. On another occasion, when Moses went to receive the tablets of law, Aaron and his sons with the seventy elders were given another chance to see him. This time they saw only a part of him, underneath his feet. What they have described as a pavement of sapphire stone covered with the most brilliant blue sky. There had been so much brilliant light from it that they could not gaze directly. Only Moses again had seen him close up. No one, including Moses, had been able to describe what he looks like exactly. But one thing had been made clear to them when Moses returned from that meeting, with his face radiating blinding light so that he had to wear a veil for days: no one can behold him because he is covered in blinding light.

Zelophehad’s wife returned from her reverie to conclude her story but was interrupted this time by the sound of a footstep approaching their tent. “I can hear your father approaching. It is time for you girls to settle down and prepare for the evening.” She waived them to their corner of the room. She went behind a curtain to put Milcah, who was fast asleep, in her crib at their corner of the room, which was a good distance from the girls. She looked in the far corner south of their sizeable tent and was pleased to see that her mother-in-law looked settled in for the night. She needed all the privacy tonight to talk with her husband, especially after what had transpired between him and his mother earlier. As she thought of what her mother-in-law must have said to him, she began to wonder if she was not being selfish. Yes, she would rather remain her husband’s only wife, but how about him. How long could he stand the pressure and his mother’s taunting. It was a different thing when the taunting came from outsiders, but when it comes from an insider, how does one escape. Since she had Milcah, there had not been a day gone by that her mother-in-law had not make a reference to their lack of a male child in the house. She could never bring herself to despise her mother-in-law no matter how her acrid comments hurt. She was more concerned about her husband’s state of mind. If he is unhappy, she is miserable. It had always been like that for her since the day she married him.