by Cliff Graham
Avaris looked as the rest of Egypt had looked throughout my journey: a scorched, barren, scarred, rotting, fly-infested underworld.
But . . . Goshen.
Goshen was so green and lush that it may have been a woven and dyed linen tablecloth that had been draped over everything. Dense tree canopies hung heavy with fruit-filled boughs. Water gleamed and sparkled from a thousand small waterfalls and dribbles of irrigation ditches.
I turned and looked behind me, and then gazed back toward Goshen. Then I did it again to make sure I was not seeing a false hope, so common in the desert.
All of Egypt that I could see, except for Goshen, was a waste of a land, rotting and putrid. Goshen was a swollen garden. A very clear line of green was visible at what I could only assume was the border. The hand of their god had spared them Egypt’s fate.
My only thought was, Inconceivable power.
What kind of God was able to do that? Destroy utterly an entire kingdom, but cover a tiny portion of it with his hand?
It was a while before I could goad the horses back onto the trail to finish the journey. I guessed that there was another hour of the journey until I made it to the green line I had seen in the distance.
But there was no reason in it. No purpose. I had no home in the land of Goshen. So I turned the chariot away and made my route back toward the south.
All that night I rode, taking an overland route near where the Amalekites had been to avoid them. By dawn I had reached the river again close to Memphis.
The sunrise was spectacular that morning. I remember it so brilliantly because of what came next.
I did not see it at first. Maybe because it was below the horizon where I could not see it approaching, but I sensed that I needed to look up again, that whatever I was running from was coming.
Then I saw it.
A wall of black, growing taller even as I watched it, climbing higher and erasing the blue sky from existence.
I squinted, trying to make sense of it, but I could not, even when I heard the distant roar of what sounded like the wind.
Perhaps it was another storm, like the nightmare of hail and fire we had before? It resembled a storm in its approach, yet the blackness was too full and complete. It was not the angry purple-and-blue hue of clouds that signaled a storm; it was nothing at all that could be seen but only a wall of pure black nothingness that extended from my left all the way to my right and was growing taller and faster every second that passed.
The palm trees nearby, their fronds stripped bare by the locusts, suddenly bent over under a great wind, and I only had time to jump from my chariot and roll to the ground as the wave of shock and pressure picked me up and threw me dozens of cubits into the dust.
Trees snapped. My chariot was tossed like a straw toy into the air, the horses with it, and I felt a stab of sorrow in spite of myself to hear their cries as they were hurled to certain death. I was pinned down, clinging to the earth with my fingers, trying with all my strength to keep my grip, grasping at roots in the soil for any kind of purchase to prevent my body from being picked up again.
The sucking, all-powerful wind seemed to speed up time itself, then stop it, speed it up again, and then the wall of black was upon me.
My world was nothing but darkness. Every thought, every sense brought darkness. I could taste it, feel it crawling on my skin. It was as if someone had thrown a soaked, heavy wool blanket on top of me, and I had to take panicked, small breaths through the fibers of that blanket in order to get the air I needed because it was too thick to allow me to take a full breath.
The air had died around me. No sound, no puff of breeze, where just a moment before had been a gale so strong that it picked up my entire chariot and team and thrown it.
I sat up. Opened my eyelids as widely as possible. Nothing.
I waved my hand in front of my face to try to at least see the movement. Still nothing.
I opened my mouth to cry out, by my throat was filled with the darkness as well, so potent that its tendrils snaked down into my lungs. I gagged and coughed like I never had in my life, even after the lice and the flies and everything that had come before.
Suffocation was all I could think about. All I could fear.
So this was the next terror. A plague of darkness.
Ra, the sun god, the one that Great Egypt’s greatest sorcerers and magicians and priests and even Pharaoh himself believed would finally answer power with power, had been swallowed by Yahweh.
The silence was pierced at last by an unearthly screaming. Not made by the lungs of man, for the sound was too loud. I listened as best I could, for the darkness had clogged my ears too.
It was my horses, singing their death song. It was not a noble sound.
I listened to the powerful team of army horses paw at each other and whinny in terror and pain. They were either suffering from shattered legs or had been impaled when they were thrown, and now they knew the same darkness I did and could not contain their fright.
What should I do? I could not even see to the end of my nose.
I decided to crawl. Kneeling down, I felt along the ground in the direction that I thought the road had been, searching for the grooves in the dirt cut by carts. I found them and turned to my right, which was my best guess for south.
Hours and hours I crawled. My only companion was the sound of the horses shrieking while they died in the blackness.
It was the most bizarre form of suffering I had yet known. There was no pain, nothing that directly harmed me. Imagine having to fight for breath while trapped underwater, and you are allowed to expose your lips and nostrils for one count to suck in a quick breath before you are pulled under again, and then repeating that for hours upon hours. For that was some of the panic we knew.
It seemed as though I could wipe the black mist from my face, so I kept swiping at my eyes and forehead. But nothing helped. I knew only darkness, felt only darkness.
Despair finally overwhelmed me. I could not move another handbreadth. My muscles locked into place. I could only press my face to the ground and hold still. The deepest terror of a nightmare, that’s what it was. And soon I was asleep and the nightmare came back to me.
I was on the ship draped in black, sailing through murky water. Was it a vision I had been given, those many years before? When I was strong and brave and invincible? When I worshiped the strength of my arm and the adulation of the masses? Had the Hebrew god sent me the vision to warn me of what was to come, and then when it arrived, show how utterly helpless I was before him?
There I was, curled up like a baby in its birth cloths. The darkness hung on me, pressing down on my back. I drifted in and out of a fretful sleep. Every time I succumbed I was on the ship, and another one of the terrors was in front of me. The frogs. The lice gnats. The fire hail.
I do not know how long I lay there. Hours? A day or two? But I, brave Caleb the Kenazzite, winner of the Gold of Honor, who thought himself among the greatest warriors of Egypt, was curled up in the darkness and unable to do anything but whimper.
What do you think of me now, Othniel? Is it not more frequently that I describe my cowardice than my heroism? Every man has cowardice in him. Yahweh exposed mine.
May it be a lesson. A man can be brave and accomplish much, but his fate is only ever in the hand of Yahweh.
Finally, when I was close to going mad from the despair, I heard a shuffling of footsteps behind me. I looked around wildly but saw only darkness. Yet I could still hear them. Footsteps.
Dimly, as though an ember had suddenly breathed back to life with an unexpected gust of wind, I saw the orange glow of a lantern emerge from the darkness. It cast a ring of light as wide as the road. Two men approached, carrying staffs. I knew the staffs. I certainly knew the men.
Moses and Aaron.
I tensed myself. The light had sparked in me my last desire to fight, to do something about my fate besides lie in the dirt.
The ring of light halted as soon as it hit
my prostrate form.
Aaron held the lantern out and squinted at me. Moses tilted his head. “You,” he said, and I realized it was the first time I had heard him speak.
“What . . . ?” was the only thing I could muster to say. It must have been ridiculous to them, but in my hungry, paranoid condition I could say nothing else yet.
“Have you been in this spot since the darkness came?” Moses asked.
I nodded weakly.
“What is the personal guard of Pharaoh doing this far away from his master?”
I searched for a response. “I . . . do not know if he is my master anymore.”
“You are an Egyptian.”
I shook my head. “No. I am from the Kenaz.”
Moses glanced at Aaron, then back at me. “That is on the way to where we seek. Yahweh has promised it to us.”
I nodded. “It does appear that Yahweh is intent on helping you leave.”
Their eyes wrinkled up. They were old men, and I could not tell if they were laughing at my comment or annoyed with it. But Moses’s voice was lighthearted when he said, “Come with us when we leave, Kenazzite.”
I ignored this. “I wanted to see for myself whether it was true. Whether your god spared Goshen and his people our sufferings.”
Moses nodded. “He spares any who fear him. Aaron and I can see by the light of this lamp, but every flame in Egypt is useless. Fire burns but it casts no light. There is great suffering.”
“There has been great suffering for a long time, and yet your god does not relent.”
“Your king has chosen an unwise path.”
I had no reply to that. It was true. But I did not want him to have the pleasure of hearing me say it.
“What is your name?” Moses asked.
“Caleb, the son of Jephunneh.”
“How long have you been a soldier here?”
“Seventeen years.”
“Do you have any other skills?”
“I . . . carve. And draw.”
Moses frowned. “That is useless to me. But a soldier will be of help on the frontier.”
“You assume I would go with you,” I said.
“You may stay here,” Moses said, gesturing around. “But I do not advise it.”
He was a mystery, this man. There was sorrow in his eyes, but also laughter. I had many questions for him, and naturally I could not think of a single one in that moment. I did ask him, “How long will this one last?”
“Three days,” Moses said. “Then Pharaoh will beg us to remove it.”
“You know what he will do?”
Moses smiled. “The Lord our God controls even Pharaoh’s heart. Not just his light or his cattle.”
They sat down and began building up their fire for the night. Aaron unwrapped several date and fig cakes and offered me one.
I realized I was at the place where they had been camping along the river. Was I truly so close to the city? Why could I hear nothing at all of people crying out for help? The blackness had even muffled all sound.
“Is the darkness in Goshen?” I asked.
Moses nodded. “It is. But our people have light. Their flames work.”
“What is the meaning of this plague?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.
“Yahweh detests the sun god of the Egyptians,” Moses answered patiently. “So he has struck him down with his fist.”
We talked into the night. I had many conversations over the years with Moses, but that first one remained my favorite. He explained for me what he knew of Yahweh. He told me that when he had fled Egypt he had served as a herdsman in Midian, a desolate place I was not aware had been inhabited by anyone but snakes. He told me of the bush that burned, which you know of. All of our people know those parts of his story, so I will not belabor them here.
But I was hearing them for the first time, so when he told me that the voice of Yahweh had first come to him from a bush that burned, I stopped him.
“What do you mean, burned? A voice? No idol carved? No offerings given?”
Moses shook his head. His features wrinkled and he grew thoughtful. “It was a flame so intense that I knew I would die just by looking at it, and yet I could approach. Then he spoke to me.”
“What did his voice sound like?” I asked, leaning forward.
Moses looked up from the fire and stared at me. “Like the raging of thunder and lightning. Like the roaring of the cataracts of the Nile. Like the gentle cooing of a dove searching for its young. Like the whisper of an eastern breeze when you stand on a mountain. All of those things. All at once.”
“Were you afraid?”
“Terrified. I was even more frightened than when Yahweh told me to come to Egypt, the land of my dark past I had hoped to forget, and proclaim freedom for those in bondage to Pharaoh.”
We went on like this for a while, until it had grown late and the old men expressed their weariness. They invited me to stay at their fire, and as they drifted off I could only lie on my side and watch the flames grow dimmer, fading to glowing coals, the warmth receding until there was only darkness again.
Three days. That was how long the darkness lasted. I stayed with the two of them for the duration. I asked them every question I could think of. What amazed me was how little they actually knew of Yahweh. They knew his name, knew that he was the god of their ancestors, and knew that he would be relentless in his wrath until the king released his people.
But that was all.
I returned with them to the palace at the end of the third day. We stood before Pharaoh, who begged them to drive away the darkness. It was the most pathetic I had seen him yet. How long ago was that day in the Ring of Horus! When our proud young ruler had tasted his first battle and emerged triumphant.
Thutmose said that the Hebrews could leave, but they must depart without their livestock. Moses refused.
With the fury that I had come to know well, Pharaoh shouted at Moses, “Be gone from my presence! If you come before me again, I will have you executed!”
Moses and Aaron, even the rest of us, sensed that this was the last time they would appear before him. They nodded respectfully, for what purpose I do not know, and then departed.
As he left the palace for the last time, Moses raised his staff, and as quickly as it had arrived, a strong west wind pushed the black air away from our land, the sun emerged high above us like the rising of a dead man, and the people rejoiced that the Hebrew god had relented.
And once again, despite his promises and pleading, our proud pharaoh refused to let the Hebrews go.
18
The Destroyer
I have come to the end of the terrors, Othniel. The worst was the last one.
A blood sun had set in the west, as it had so often over the past months. I was on duty in the palace, walking along the rooftop and enjoying the evening breeze that was finally blowing down the Nile after many days of hot, pregnant air. I tried to find some joy in the moment. I failed.
I had no knowledge of what the final plague would be, the one Moses said would release the Hebrews at last. After the nine that had come before, I couldn’t imagine anything could possibly be conjured that would change the mind of the king if nothing else had worked. Our land was devastated in every way, our gods humiliated and defeated, our proud people reduced to begging and searching for scraps.
I replaced the guard for the coming second watch and returned to my quarters. Sleep came to me quickly.
I dreamed the nightmare again, the very night the last plague came. I was on the boat again. The sails were black. Black was draped across it everywhere, as it always was.
But this time a man stood on the bow of the ship. He had immensely broad shoulders, the build of a warrior, and his face was hidden in shadow.
I wanted to approach him to see what his purpose was, for I knew even while I slept that the dream was different from what came before it. I sensed he was looking at me, though I could not see his eyes.
“Who are you
?” I heard myself asking.
He said nothing. Did nothing. Only stood there. The water passed silently all around us as we sailed beneath the river.
Cold, deep fear crept into my soul. The figure did not move, did not say anything, but his presence made me feel such dread as nothing in my life to that point had ever made me feel.
He was death. He was the Destroyer.
I awoke, shivering. Puzzled.
The night was brilliant, I remember. I rose from my mat and looked out the window. It was the clearest night in a long time. The dream had disturbed me deeply. The silence of it. The menace of the man I had seen in shadow.
I went on the roof to cool off from my night sweat. I remember taking a pitcher of water with me as a refreshment while I watched the city twinkle in the night and tried to calm my nerves.
I took a long drink and then put the pitcher down. It was midnight. I could tell by the stars and the moon.
And then the moon disappeared, like someone had suddenly doused it as though it were a campfire. I squinted at the place where it had been. The stars still shone brightly, but the moon was gone.
No, I then realized, feeling my flesh shiver. Something was blocking it.
An outline emerged in the sky, a spreading mass of darkness. At first I thought another darkness plague was coming, but that did not make any sense.
Yet the darkness grew in the sky. Rather than swallow everything as before, the darkness instead stopped its spreading and took on a specific outline I had trouble recognizing at first. But when I did, I felt the last remaining fleck of courage I had after all that had befallen us shrivel away.
It was the outline of the man I had seen, the broad-shouldered warrior. He was as vast as the heavens and was moving toward us. The figure was so impossibly large, Othniel, that it could have picked up the palace itself and tossed it over the hills like a mere stone. And then I saw the outline of the sword of the ages, a sword greater than the mightiest storm that had ever rolled in from the east. The sword rose higher and higher, the Destroyer’s wrath growing eternally.
