Moses wrote down the words of the Lord and caused them to be read again to the people, and again, until all had heard and knew the covenant they were about to take. And when Moses asked them, they declared with one voice, “We will do all that the Lord has said.”

  Moses called young men to bring the animals for sacrifice, and upon altars they killed the beasts and burnt them to the Lord, and Moses took half the blood and put it in basins, and half the blood he sprinkled on the altars. And with the book of the law in his hand, he walked among the people and sprinkled on them the blood from the basins, saying, “Here is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you concerning all these words.”

  With the blood of the covenant fresh on the people, Moses and Aaron took Aaron’s two eldest sons, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and led them into the cloud. There with their own eyes they glimpsed the God of Israel, the terrible bright beauty of his loving face, his body as clear and pure as heaven, and it seemed to them that the ground under his feet was paved with sapphires. And when the elders returned to the people and told them what they had seen, the people wept and rejoiced at the mercy of God.

  “This is only the beginning,” said Moses. “The Lord has called me to go up into the mountain again, and receive from him a higher law and commandments, written on stone by the hand of God, to bring down to you, and teach to you.”

  And this time he took with him only Joshua, leaving Aaron behind him to govern the people, to be their judge and teacher and priest until Moses returned.

  * * *

  “Why me?” Joshua asked, as he followed Moses along the steep and challenging path up the mountain.

  “I don’t know,” said Moses. “Why not you?”

  Wavering between the thrill of having been chosen and terror at what might be expected of him, Joshua could have listed hundreds of reasons, but he distilled them all into one. “I’ve sinned.”

  Moses answered with laughter. “If the Lord used only perfect men as his servants, he would go unserved.”

  It was strange to Joshua, to hear the prophet laugh here in the midst of the cloud of the presence of the Lord. Ahead and behind they could see no more than a few yards, though the cloud also was light, and illuminated the rocks where they placed their hands and feet. “The Lord doesn’t laugh at sin,” said Joshua.

  “Every sin is grief to the Lord,” said Moses. “I laughed at your thought that your sin made it impossible for the Lord to choose you as his servant. Do you recognize that your sins were sins, or do you try to make them into virtues?”

  “No, I name them for what they are.”

  “And do you pretend to others that you are not sinful?”

  “I’ve never tried to pretend such a thing.”

  “And when the law was placed before you, and I called on Israel to make the covenant, did you reject your sins and put them behind you and promise to commit no more of them?”

  “I did, Moses, but I fear that I won’t have the strength to obey all the commandments!”

  “And yet did you overcome that fear and follow me into the cloud? Do you even now obey the Lord and climb this stony path, rather than hang back and let fear rule you?”

  “How could I say no to the Lord?”

  “And how could the Lord say no to you? Your heart is pure at this moment, and as for the sins in your past, the price will be placed upon a willing sacrifice and paid for you, as long as you hold fast to your repentance.”

  “Then I owe every step I take up this mountain to that sacrifice,” said Joshua.

  “As do I,” answered Moses.

  * * *

  Joshua? He took Joshua with him? Aaron was stunned. What could this mean?

  Miriam, of course, had an answer at once, when he made the mistake of asking her that question. “You’ve already seen God,” she said. “Joshua didn’t.”

  “So why didn’t the Lord include him among the seventy elders?”

  “The Lord didn’t include me then, and he didn’t include me now, either,” said Miriam. “But that doesn’t undo all the gifts the Lord has given me up to now.”

  “And you don’t feel even a trace of . . . surprise?”

  “I’m always surprised by the Lord,” said Miriam, “and so I’m never surprised at being surprised.”

  “I don’t resent it,” said Aaron. “I’m just puzzled.”

  “Do you have to have it all?” asked Miriam. “He brought your two eldest sons with you to see the face of God. Isn’t it plain he intends to give you gifts that you will pass on to your children? You went with Moses to receive the law and came back and the two of you taught the words of the covenant side by side, because your ears heard the same things that Moses’ ears heard. He set you beside the prophet and made you his equal in giving the law to the people. And when the Lord called Moses to the mount again, he left you to govern the people. Explain to me how Joshua’s going with Moses somehow hurts or diminishes you.”

  “It doesn’t, it doesn’t,” protested Aaron. “I don’t know why it worried me. But I heard that Joshua was going and it made me afraid.”

  “I’ll tell you why,” said Miriam.

  “Oh, you know why I feel what I feel?”

  “You’re afraid that the Lord will notice that you’re unworthy after all.”

  “The Lord is perfect. He already knows my weakness.”

  “Ah,” said Miriam. “But do you?”

  “And what does that mean?” Aaron demanded.

  But she was already walking away from him. Elisheba took her place at Aaron’s side. “I don’t know why you even listen to her. She just resents you because at last the Lord has lifted you up to put you beside Moses where you belong, and now you govern the camp of Israel, and the Lord hasn’t given her any of the authority she so obviously craves.”

  “I don’t need to hear this, Elisheba,” he said.

  “Yes you do,” she said. “You are finally in your rightful place, as the leader of the Israelites.”

  “Moses is still the leader, Elisheba.”

  “Moses is up on the mountain. You’re the judge who rules Israel here on the ground.” She squeezed his arm. “I’m proud of you, Aaron.”

  Elisheba could not know it, but her words stung Aaron deeply. He did not want her to be proud of him because he was judge. He wanted her to be proud of him because he was righteous and strong and good. Why should he be proud of being judge? He was terrified. Until now, he had had Moses beside him, and everything he said and did, he knew Moses could correct it if he was wrong. And while he resented the corrections when they came, he also felt safe knowing that when his best efforts fell short, Moses would keep his mistakes from doing harm. Who was there now to fall back on? Moses was with the Lord.

  And Joshua was with Moses. That ambitious boy had somehow hurtled over Aaron and now he was alone with Moses as he went to get whatever it was the Lord intended to engrave on stone tables. Why did the Lord choose Joshua over Aaron at this moment? Having made Aaron a judge in Israel, were Moses and Joshua going to be raised higher yet, leaving Aaron behind? Had he been judged and found, if not unworthy, then less worthy?

  How could Elisheba be proud of Aaron when the Lord placed him no higher than third among the children of Israel?

  No, that was an unworthy thought. The Lord loved this people and had placed them in Aaron’s hand. And that was what should worry him, that he might do something wrong and lose them. To be in a position of leadership, with all the Israelites looking to him, that was what Aaron had longed for in his heart of hearts for all these years. Now he had that position, and he had no idea what to do with it. Was he expected to do no more than handle judgment from day to day, and mark time until Moses returned? Would Moses then return and look at him in disappointment and say, You were given the trust of the Lord, and this is all you did? Or worse, Moses would look at him in horror and say, Aaron, didn’t you understand anything? How could you fail so miserably? And Aaron would look around him and have no idea what he had done wrong. His humiliation would be complete.

  I can’t be the leader of Israel, he realized. I have no idea what I’m doing.

  And yet, within the hour, he found himself sitting in the judgment seat, speaking calmly and making decisions in the cases that had been appealed from the tribal courts. Later in the day, he taught the elders and judges, and found that he knew the answers to their questions, or knew when he should say, Let’s ask Moses that one when he returns. And in the evening, when, with knife in hand and his sons beside him, he slit the throat of a sacrificial goat and led the people in prayer, he realized that yes, he could do these things, and if they were enough to meet the needs of the people, then he must be good enough to lead them.

  * * *

  Moses stopped abruptly. “Joshua,” he said.

  “I’m here.”

  “This is where the Lord wants you to wait.”

  Wait? Joshua had thought that, like Aaron, he would participate in the entire experience. But he was going to be set aside, at the last moment! Why, then, was he brought? “How long?” asked Joshua.

  “Until I come back.”

  How long is that, Joshua wanted to ask. But he did not ask. He merely nodded and sat down in the midst of the fog and watched Moses as he climbed on out of sight.

  * * *

  “What have I done to offend Elisheba?” asked Zeforah.

  “Nothing, as far as I know,” said Miriam. “Why?”

  “She avoids me. When she can’t, she speaks to me quite abruptly, as if we had quarreled and not made up yet. But we didn’t quarrel. I only just met her.”

  Miriam chuckled, and it sounded as though there were malice in it. “Believe me, Zeforah, you and Elisheba have quarreled. Only you never knew it, and Elisheba knows the wrong is entirely on her side. So she’s waiting for you to forgive her.”

  “But how can I forgive her, when I don’t know that she’s done me any wrong?”

  “That is a quandary, isn’t it?” said Miriam. “From my experience, this is how it will go. Right now she still feels guilty when she sees you, which makes her surly. Her surliness will make you shy. Your shyness will seem to her like aloofness, pride, even arrogance. This will make her resent you, and so her guilt will turn into anger. Thus, before more than a few days have passed, it will be all your fault. So my advice to you is to wait a few days, and then apologize to her.”

  Zeforah listened to all this in silence. But then, after a few moments, she burst out laughing.

  “So you see the humor in it?”

  “You’ve just described my life with my sisters.”

  Miriam sighed and smiled wanly. “I wish I had had some sisters.”

  “Will you take volunteers?”

  “What, a shepherd girl like you, entangled with babies, who doesn’t even speak Egyptian?” asked Miriam.

  Zeforah’s shock only lasted until Miriam roared with laughter. “Oh, my. Is that how sisters do it? Tease each other?”

  “Only if they’re willing to get doused over the head with a bucket of water. Or worse.”

  “Oh.” Miriam grew a little more sober. “So there are physical retaliations?”

  “Beware the insects in the blankets.”

  “Mud in the underwear?” asked Miriam.

  “That might be popular near the Nile, but in my country we wouldn’t dare waste the water.”

  “Isn’t it a shame we have to pretend to be adults?”

  “Still, don’t you wish more people would?”

  Miriam smiled at that. “Nice to know Moses didn’t marry a fool.”

  “Apparently you weren’t willing to, either,” said Zeforah.

  “Actually, the men who were interested in me weren’t fools,” said Miriam. “They just weren’t prophets.”

  “Neither was Moses, when I married him.”

  “There you are,” said Miriam. “I had brothers, so I had no illusions about men. You had illusions, and so, by the grace of God, your dream of him actually became true.”

  “Moses suggested that you might want to learn to read Hebrew.”

  “You really do know how?” asked Miriam.

  “I learned out of the scriptures, with my father’s help.”

  “Teach me from the same books,” said Miriam. “I’m getting old, but I’d like to read the scriptures for myself before I die.”

  * * *

  Moses.

  “Lord, how is it I can see your face without dying?”

  My glory is upon you and sustains your life. I am the Lord your God, and Endless is my name, for I am without beginning of days or end of years. You are my son.

  Your life has been shaped to be a shadow, a harbinger of the life of my Only Begotten Son. A child prophesied, a son under sentence of death, born to be at once a king and a servant, who grew to manhood and went out into the wilderness to meet his God and accept the mantle of his authority. A man who returns to his people and brings the power of God to bear against all the powers of the world, and delivers the children of God from the hands of the enemy by bringing them through the water to a safe place. A man who saved them from death by the blood of the lamb, a lawgiver, a just and merciful judge, a high priest, a prophet, at whose command water and bread are given to the people. Because of your work, there will be a people ready to recognize the Only Begotten of the Father when he comes, and obedient enough to receive the higher law that he will bring. For my Only Begotten is and shall be the Savior, full of grace and truth.

  “The son in the nameless book. In whose name Zeforah prays. The sacrifice for sin.”

  I will show you what I have created. Not all, for you could not receive it or understand it, but I will show you the world you dwell in. See how it began.

  * * *

  “You have no idea how hard it is on the people to wait, not knowing what will happen. If anything will happen.”

  Aaron smiled wanly. “Harubel, you seem to forget that I am also waiting, and I also don’t know what will happen.”

  “Every other time Moses went up the mountain, he came back in the same day. Now it’s been three. How do we know he didn’t fall and break a leg? Or his neck?”

  “God wouldn’t let that happen.”

  “Do you know that, Aaron? The people need something to distract them. Something to comfort them, to take their minds off the long waiting, the fear.”

  “The presence of the Lord is comfort enough for anyone.”

  “For you, perhaps. Maybe no one will tell you the truth about what they feel. That’s the loneliness of the ruler, that he never knows what anyone truly thinks.”

  “Please, Harubel, I’m not Pharaoh, I’m just an Israelite like any other.”

  “You saw the face of God, Aaron!”

  “Harubel, you obviously have something in mind, so what is it?”

  “I was trying to help you understand the mood of the people. I could come up with some kind of plan, I suppose, if you wanted.”

  “Plan for what?”

  “To keep them from quarreling with each other. From fleeing the thunder and lightning from the mount.”

  “Their faith in God should be enough.”

  “Most of them haven’t seen him.”

  “They don’t need to see him to have faith!”

  “They’re not as strong as you. Don’t you have any compassion, Aaron? Don’t you understand what it’s like for them? They’re like children.”

  “And you and I are not?”

  “Perhaps we are too, but slightly older children. We have to look out for them.”

  “Harubel, the plan we have is to teach the law to the people.”

  “And what do they do the rest of the day? Sit around and fret!”

  “No, they have you to do that for them.”

  “Ah. Humor. I’m glad to see you still have your wit.”

  “Harubel, you don’t represent the people. You represent your own scheme, and whatever it is, I don’t want any part of it.”

  “But you have to be part of it! Aaron, you’re the only one who can help them.”

  “Help them what?”

  “No, I can see you aren’t ready. Talk to me later, when you see chaos and terror among the people. When you see quarreling and stealing, oath-breaking and adultery, all because they live in constant fear and without a leader who is willing to fill them with joy and hope.”

  “Go on, get out of my tent. The people have made covenants and I expect them to be kept, which means no stealing, no oath-breaking, no adultery, and I’ll thank you not to try to drum any up just to prove yourself right.”

  “Time will prove me right, Aaron. Moses will come down the mount, find the people fighting or fled, and he’ll look at you and say, Couldn’t you have done something?”

  “Not another word, Harubel. Out.”

  * * *

  The whole sweep of the world’s past moved past his eyes. So much of it made little sense to him. The plants arising from the ground, the animals appearing, first the lesser ones, then the greater, and finally the coming of human beings, and through it all the constant awareness of the will of God, speaking, calling forth the future out of the present. Let me hold onto some part of this, let it remain in my memory, let me have some understanding, he prayed, and prayed again, and even as the prayer was granted he cried in his heart, More! Let me hold more of this in my mind!

  All your mind can hold, it will have, said the Lord.

  The sweep of human history, the wanderings upon the earth, Moses saw them man by man, woman by woman, child by child. He saw them as God saw them, as individuals, each infinitely precious to the Lord, yet each burdened by his or her own contrary desires. And he felt God’s agony of love, as his children, offered so much, kept turning away from the inheritance of joy in order to pursue the life of animals or the pride of rule over one another.

  “O Lord, how do you keep your patience with us?”

  In answer, the Lord showed him the prophets, each given as much of the truth as his mind could hold, his language could express, or his people could hear. They all knew more than they could say, and all said more than their listeners could understand or obey. Yet even among those who understood, there were always more than a few who saw the faithful as a flock to be sheared. These were not the weak and fallen children of the Lord, these were the willful rebels against the power of God.