Sons of Encouragement

by Francine Rivers

  “I pleaded with the Lord to send someone else, Aaron. I said who am I to go to Pharaoh? I said my own people will not believe me. I told him I have never been eloquent, that I’m slow of speech and tongue.” He let out his breath slowly and faced Aaron. “And the Lord whose name is I AM THE ONE WHO ALWAYS IS said you will be my spokesman.”

  Aaron felt a sudden rush of fear, but it subsided in the answer of a lifetime prayer. The Lord had heard the cry of His people. Deliverance was at hand. The Lord had seen their misery and was about to put an end to it. Aaron was too filled with emotion to speak.

  “Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Aaron? I’m afraid of Pharaoh. I’m afraid of my own people. So the Lord has sent you to stand with me and be my spokesman.”

  The question hung unspoken between them. Was he willing to stand with Moses?

  “I am your older brother. Who better to speak for you than I?”

  “Are you not afraid, Brother?”

  “What does a slave’s life matter in Egypt, Moses? What has my life ever mattered? Yes, I’m afraid. I have been afraid all my life. I’ve bent my back to taskmasters, and felt the lash when I dared look up. I speak boldly enough in the privacy of my own house and among my brethren, but it comes to naught. Nothing changes. My words are but wind, and I thought my prayers were, too. Now, I know better. This time will be different. It won’t be the words of a slave that are heard from my lips, but the Word of the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob!”

  “If they don’t believe us, the Lord has given me signs to show them.” Moses told him how his staff had become a snake and his hand had become leprous. “And if that is not enough, when I pour water from the Nile, it will become blood.”

  Aaron didn’t ask for a demonstration. “They will believe, just as I believe.”

  “You believe me because you are my brother, and because God sent you to me. You believe because God has changed your heart toward me. You have not always looked at me as you do now, Aaron.”

  “Yes, because I thought you were free when I wasn’t.”

  “I never felt at home in Pharaoh’s house. I wanted to be among my own people.”

  “And we scorned and rejected you.” Perhaps it was living among two separate peoples and being accepted by neither that made Moses so humble. But he must do as God commanded, or the Hebrews would go on as before, toiling in the mud pits and dying with their faces in the dust. “God has chosen you to deliver us, Moses. And so you shall. Whatever God tells you, I will speak. If I have to shout, I will make the people hear.”

  Moses looked up at the mountain of God. “We will start for Egypt in the morning. We will gather the elders of Israel and tell them what the Lord has said. Then we will all go before Pharaoh and tell him to let God’s people go into the wilderness to sacrifice to the Lord our God.” He shut his eyes as though in pain.

  “What is it, Moses? What’s wrong?”

  “The Lord will harden Pharaoh’s heart and strike Egypt with signs and wonders so that when we leave, we will not go empty-handed, but with many gifts of silver, gold, and clothing.”

  Aaron laughed bitterly. “And so God will plunder Egypt as Egypt plundered us! I never thought to see justice prevail in my lifetime. It will be a joyous sight!”

  “Do not be eager to see their destruction, Aaron. They are people like us.”

  “Not like us.”

  “Pharaoh will not relent until his own firstborn son is dead. Then he will let us go.”

  Aaron had been beneath the heel of Egyptian slave drivers too long and had felt the lash too many times to feel pity for any Egyptian, but he saw Moses did.

  They set off at daylight, Zipporah taking charge of the donkey carrying provisions and pulling a litter. Eliezer was improved, but not well enough to walk with his mother and his brother. Aaron and Moses walked ahead, each with a shepherd’s staff in hand.

  Heading north, they took the trade route between Egypt and southern Canaan, traveling by way of Shur. It was more direct than traveling south and west and then north through the desert. Aaron wanted to hear everything the Lord had said to Moses. “Tell me everything again. From the beginning.” How he wished he had been with Moses and seen the burning bush for himself! He knew what it was to hear the sound of God’s voice, but to stand in His presence was beyond imagining.

  When they reached Egypt, Aaron took Moses, Zipporah, Gershom, and Eliezer into his house. Moses was overcome with emotion when Miriam threw her arms around him and Aaron’s sons surrounded him. Aaron almost pitied Moses, for he saw that Hebrew words still did not come easily to his brother, so he spoke for him. “God has called Moses to deliver our people from slavery. The Lord Himself will perform great signs and wonders so that Pharaoh will let us go.”

  “Our mother prayed you were the promised one of God.” Miriam embraced Moses again. “She was certain when Pharaoh’s daughter saved you that God was protecting you for some great purpose.”

  Zipporah sat with her sons, watching from the corner of the room, dark-eyed and troubled.

  Aaron’s sons went back and forth through Goshen, the region of Egypt that had been given to the Hebrews centuries earlier and in which they now lived in captivity. The men carried the message to the elders of Israel that God had sent them a deliverer and the elders were to gather and hear his message from God.

  Meanwhile, Aaron talked and prayed with his brother. He could see him struggling against fear of Pharaoh and the people and the call of God on him. Moses had little appetite. And he looked more tired when he rose in the morning than when he had retired to bed the evening before. Aaron did his best to encourage him. Surely that was why God had sent him to find Moses. He loved his brother. He was strengthened at his presence and eager to serve.

  “You give me the words God speaks to you, Moses, and I will speak them. You will not go alone before Pharaoh. We go together. And surely the Lord Himself will be with us.”

  “How is it you have no fear?”

  No fear? Less perhaps. Moses had not grown up suffering physical oppression. He hadn’t lived longing for the promise of God’s intervention. Nor had he been surrounded by fellow slaves and family members who relied on each other for strength just to survive each day. Had Moses ever known love other than those first few years at his mother’s breast? Had Pharaoh’s daughter regretted adopting him? In what position had her rebellion against Pharaoh placed her, and what repercussions had it caused Moses?

  It occurred to Aaron that he had never thought of these things before, too caught up in his own feelings, petty resentments, and childish jealousies. Unlike Moses, he hadn’t grown up as the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter among people who despised him. Had Moses learned to keep out of sight and say little in order to survive? Aaron hadn’t been caught between two worlds and accepted in neither. He hadn’t sought to align himself with his people, only to find they hated him as well. Nor had he needed to run away from Egyptian and Hebrew alike and seek refuge among foreigners in order to stay alive. Nor had he spent years alone in the desert tending sheep.

  Why had he never thought of these things before? Was it only now that his mind and heart were open to consider what Moses’ life must have been like? Aaron was filled with compassion for his brother. He ached to help him, to press him forward to the task God had given him. For the Lord Himself said Moses was to be Israel’s deliverer, and Aaron knew God had sent him to stand beside his brother and do whatever Moses could not do.

  Lord, You have heard our cry!

  “Ah, Moses, I’ve spent my life in fear, bowing and scraping before overseers and taskmasters, and still getting the lash when I failed to work fast enough for them. And now, for the first time in my life, I have hope.” Tears came in a flood. “Hope casts out fear, Brother. We have God’s promise that the day of our salvation is at hand! The people will rejoice when they hear, and Pharaoh will cower before the Lord.”

  Moses’ eyes were filled with sorrow. “He won’t listen.”

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nbsp; “How can he not listen when he sees the signs and wonders?”

  “I grew up with Raamses. He is arrogant and cruel. And now that he sits on the throne, he believes he is god. He won’t listen, Aaron, and many will suffer because of him. Our people will suffer and so will his.”

  “Pharaoh will see the truth, Moses. Pharaoh will come to know that the Lord is God. And that truth will set us free.”

  Moses wept.

  Israel gathered, and Aaron spoke all the words the Lord gave to Moses. The crowd was dubious, some outspoken and some derisive. “This is your brother who murdered the Egyptian and ran away, and he is to deliver us from Egypt? Are you out of your mind? God would not use a man such as he!”

  “What’s he doing back here? He’s more Egyptian than Hebrew!”

  “He’s a Midianite now!”

  Some laughed.

  Aaron felt the rush of hot blood. “Show them, Moses. Give them a sign!”

  Moses threw his staff on the ground and it became a huge cobra. The people cried out and scattered. Moses reached down and took the snake by the tail and it became his staff again. The people closed in around him. “There are other signs! Show them, Moses.” Moses put his hand inside his cloak and drew it out, leprous. The people gasped and recoiled from him. When he tucked his hand inside his cloak and drew it out as clean as a newborn child’s, they cried out in jubilation.

  There was no need for Moses to touch his staff to the Nile and turn it to blood, for the people were already shouting with joy. “Moses! Moses!”

  Aaron raised his arms, his staff in one hand and shouted, “Praise be to God who has heard our prayers for deliverance! All praise be to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob!”

  The people cried out with him and fell to their knees, bowing low and worshiping the Lord.

  But when asked, the elders of Israel refused to go before Pharaoh. It was left to Aaron and Moses to go alone.

  Aaron felt smaller and weaker with each step inside Thebes, Pharaoh’s city. He had never had reason to come here amid the bustle of markets and crowded streets that stood in the shadow of the immense stone buildings that housed Pharaoh, his counselors, and the gods of Egypt. He had spent his life in Goshen, toiling beneath overseers and toiling to eke out his own existence through crops and a small flock of sheep and goats. Who was he to think he could stand before mighty Pharaoh and speak for Moses? Everyone said that even as a small boy, Raamses had shown the arrogance and cruelty of his predecessors. Who dared thwart the ruling god of all Egypt? Especially an old man of eighty-three, as he was, and his younger brother of eighty!

  I am sending you to Pharaoh. You will lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.

  Lord, give me courage, Aaron prayed silently. You have said that I am to be Moses’ spokesman, but all I can see are the enemies around me, the wealth and power everywhere I look. Oh, God, Moses and I are like two old grasshoppers come to the court of a king. Pharaoh has the power to crush us beneath his heel. How can I give Moses courage when my own fails me?

  He could smell the rankness of Moses’ sweat. It was the smell of terror. His brother had hardly slept for fear of standing before his own people. Now he was inside the city with its thousands of inhabitants, its enormous buildings and magnificent statues of Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt. He had come to speak to Pharaoh!

  “Do you know where to go?”

  “We are almost there.” Moses said nothing more.

  Aaron wanted to encourage him, but how, when he was fighting the fear threatening to overwhelm him? Oh, God, will I be able to speak when my brother, who knows so much more than I do, is shaking like a bruised reed beside me? Don’t let any man crush him, Lord. Whatever comes, please give me breath to speak and the spine to stand firm.

  He smelled smoke laden with incense and remembered Moses talking about the fire that burned without consuming the bush, and the Voice that had spoken to him from the fire. Aaron remembered the Voice. He thought of it now and his fear lessened. Had not Moses’ staff turned to a snake before his eyes and his hand shriveled with leprosy, only to be healed as well? Such was God’s power! He thought of the cries of the people, cries of thanksgiving and jubilation that the Lord had seen their affliction and had sent Moses to deliver them from slavery.

  Still . . .

  Aaron looked up at the enormous buildings with their massive pillars and wondered at the power of those who had designed and built them.

  Moses paused before a huge stone gate. On each side were carved beasts—twenty times the size of Aaron—standing guard.

  Oh, Lord, I am but a man. I believe. I do! Rid me of my doubts!

  Aaron tried not to stare around him as he walked beside Moses to the entrance of the great building where Pharaoh held court. Aaron spoke to one of the guards and they were brought inside. The hum of many voices rose like bees amid the huge columns. The walls and ceilings were resplendent with colorful scenes of the gods of Egypt. Men stared at him and Moses, frowning in distaste and drawing back, whispering.

  Aaron’s palm sweated as he held tight to his staff. He felt conspicuous in his long robe and woven sash, the woven shawl that covered his head dusty from their journey. He and his brother looked strange among these other men in their short fitted tunics and elaborate wigs. Some wore long tunics, ornate robes, and gold amulets. Such wealth! Such beauty! Aaron had never imagined anything like this.

  When Aaron saw Pharaoh sitting on a throne flanked by two huge statues of Osiris and Isis, he could only stare at the man’s magnificence. Everything about him announced his power and wealth. He glanced disdainfully at Aaron and Moses and said something to his guard. The guard straightened and spoke. “Why have you come before mighty Pharaoh?”

  Moses lowered his eyes, trembling, and said nothing.

  Aaron heard someone whisper, “What are these stinking old Hebrew slaves doing here?” Heat filled him at their contempt. Uncovering his head, he stepped forward. “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Let My people go, for they must go out into the wilderness to hold a religious festival in My honor.’”

  Pharaoh laughed. “Is that so?” Others joined in. “Look at these two old slaves standing before me, demanding that their people be released.” The officials laughed. Pharaoh waved his hand as though brushing aside a minor irritation. “And who is the Lord that I should listen to Him and let Israel go? Let you go? Why would I do that? Who would do the work you were born to do?” He smiled coldly. “I don’t know the Lord, and I will not let Israel go.”

  Aaron felt the anger rise in him. “The God of the Hebrews has met with us,” he declared. “Let us take a three-day trip into the wilderness so we can offer sacrifices to the Lord our God. If we don’t, we will surely die by disease or the sword.”

  “What does it matter to me if a few slaves die? Hebrews reproduce like rabbits. There will be more to replace those who die of pestilence.” Counselors and visitors laughed as Pharaoh continued to mock them.

  Aaron’s face burned, his heart thundered.

  Pharaoh’s eyes narrowed as Aaron stared up at him. “I have heard about you, Aaron and Moses.” The ruler of Egypt spoke quietly, his tone filled with threat.

  Aaron felt chilled that Pharaoh knew him by name.

  “Who do you think you are,” Pharaoh shouted, “distracting the people from their tasks? Get back to work! Look, there are many people here in Egypt, and you are stopping them from doing their work.”

  As the guards moved closer, Aaron’s hand clenched his shepherd’s staff. If any man tried to take hold of Moses, he would receive a clubbing.

  “We must go, Aaron,” Moses said under his breath. Aaron obeyed.

  Standing in the hot Egyptian sun once again, Aaron shook his head. “I thought he would listen.”

  “I told you he wouldn’t.” Moses let out his breath slowly and bowed his head. “This is only the beginning of our tribulation.”

  An order came quickly from the taskmasters that straw would no long
er be given them to make bricks, but that they would have to scrounge for their own. And the quota of bricks would not be lessened! They were told Pharaoh’s reason. The ruler of Egypt thought them lazy because Moses and Aaron had cried out to let them go and sacrifice to their god.

  “We thought you were going to deliver us, and all you asked was that we be allowed to go for a few days and sacrifice!”

  “Away with you!”

  “You have made our lives even more unbearable!”

  When the foremen among the sons of Israel were beaten for not completing their required number of bricks, they went to Pharaoh to beg for justice and mercy. Moses and Aaron went to meet them. When they came out, the foremen were bloodied and worse off than before.

  “Because of you Pharaoh believes we are lazy! You have caused us nothing but trouble! May the Lord judge you for getting us into this terrible situation with Pharaoh and his officials. You have given them an excuse to kill us!”

  Aaron was appalled at their accusations. “The Lord will deliver us!”

  “Oh, yes, He will deliver us. Right into Pharaoh’s hands!”

  Some spit at Moses as they walked away.

  Aaron despaired. He believed the Lord had spoken to Moses and promised to deliver the people. “What do we do now?” He had thought it would be easy. One word from the Lord and the chains of slavery would fall away. Why was God punishing them again? Hadn’t they been punished enough all these long years in Egypt?

  “I must pray.” Moses spoke quietly. He looked so old and confused, Aaron was afraid. “I must ask the Lord why He ever sent me to Pharaoh to speak in His name, for He has only done harm to this people and not delivered them at all.”

  The people Aaron had known all his life glared at him and whispered as he walked by. “You should have kept your mouth shut, Aaron. Your brother was out in the desert too long.”

  “Speaking to God! Who does he think he is?”

  “He’s mad. You should’ve known better, Aaron!”