Moses
Authors: Howard Fast
Moses
The Epic Story of His Rebellion in the Court of Egypt
Howard Fast
For
Bette, Rachel & Jonathan
Introduction
To think of either Judaism or Christianity without Moses is impossible; and even Islam rests on this mighty, towering, half-mythical figure. I am a Bible student, and have been one since my teens, reading it for its beauty and literature, for its magnificent cadences, and for its wonderful, ruthless history. Of all people, only the Jews wrote their history without apology, putting down their worst moments, their best moments, and every violation of the law and code that had been given to them by Moses. They worshipped a God that rewarded the good and punished the evil.
What follows is the biblical introduction to Moses, taken from the beginning of the Book of Exodus:
“And there went a man from the house of Levi,
and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman
conceived, and bore him a son; and when she saw him
that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months.”
(Pharaoh had ordered that male children of the Jews be put to death.)
“And when she could no longer hide him, she took for
him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime
and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she
laid it in the flags by the river's brink. And his sister
stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.”
“And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself
at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river's
side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she
sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened
it, she saw the child; and, behold, the babe wept. And
she had compassion on him, and said, âThis is one of the
Hebrews' children.'”
“Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, âShall I go and
call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may
nurse the child for thee?'
And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, âGo!'
And the maid went and called the child's mother,
And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, âTake this child
away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages.'
And the woman took the child, and nursed it. And the
child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter,
and he became her son. And she called him Moses; and
she said, âBecause I drew him out of the water.'”
The next thing we hear about Moses, in Exodus, is this:
“And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was
grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked
on their burdensâ¦.”
Thus, from his birth to that moment when he strikes down an Egyptian overseer and is forced to flee Egypt, we know absolutely nothing of Moses, of his childhood, his youth, and his young manhood.
Forty years ago, when I wrote this book, I steeped myself in Egyptian history and ancient Egyptology; but that was forty years ago. Much of the incident was suggested by the large mythology created for Moses by those Rabbis who wrote of him in the Talmud, but I have no notion of what this is worth as history.
I am far from sure that the Rabbis of a thousand years later knew much about the life of an Egyptian prince, but their tales are enchanting and I made full use of them, particularly those related to Southern Egypt, the Nile, and the mysterious land of Kush. Other parts of the book are fictional inventions, but I tried to stay as close to what was reasonable as I could.
Of all my historical fiction, this book, I feel, is the richest and most colorful. When I wrote it, I envisioned a second narrative to cover the years of Moses, the liberator, but I never got to it, and now, at the age of eighty-five, it is not likely that I ever will.
So here it is at the millennium. Read it slowly and savor it, and be with me in ancient Egyptâa fabulous, colorful civilization where monotheism began and where a man called Moses searched for God.
Howard Fast
December 1999
Note
Ancient Egyptian writing was
hieroglyphic
, that is, picture writing developed to a point where it could record the spoken language completely and exactly. In order to accomplish this, the pictures or signs had to be employed in three different ways: first, as direct pictures of an object, an idea or word; second, syllabically, representing part of a word as direct picture or parallel sound; and third, as a limitation of a word already pictured.
While this method of writing was later modified to what is known as the
hieratic
, and still later the
demotic
, for most of the ancient era and for the time of which I write, the
hieroglyphic
was dominant. While these pictures defied translation for many centuries, the key to them was finally discovered, as most people know, through the Rosetta Stone; and today scholars in this field read Egyptian as well and completely as Latin scholars read Latin.
Nevertheless, there is a difference; for many questions of pronunciation are still unresolved, and the transliteration from pictures to our alphabet is chaotic, many scholars developing their own system of transliteration independently. For example, Amen-Hotep, the king who introduced Aton worship and changed his name to Akh-en-Aton, is so rendered by the eminent authority, John A. Wilson; another scholar of equal importance renders the names thus: Amenophis and Ikhnaton. Being unable to read heiroglyphics, I have taken the liberty of choosing those forms which appear to be most pronounceable and therefore most readable. I have tried to be both exact and consistent in rendering texts that exist in translation, but since I feel that modern usage best expresses the feeling of a time, I have eliminated
thee
and
thou
in speech.
I have not used the word
Pharaoh
as it is commonly used, since at the time of Ramses II,
Pharaoh
quite literally was the name of the enormous palace he built. Ramses was usually called the
God Ramses
, of the
God-King
. The literal meaning of
Pharaoh
is
Great House
, and it is only after the time of Ramses that it came into common usage as the king's title.
Most scholars in the field seem to agree that Moses is an Egyptian word, meaning
a child is given
. Connected with a prefix, it would mean
has given a child
. It should be remembered that Moses is an Anglicization; in Hebrew the name is pronounced
Mosheh;
in ancient Egyptian the pronunciation of
Mose
was probably identical. Just as
Mosheh
is Anglicized to Moses, so is the Egyptian “has given a child” most often rendered
Mose
, as in
Ka-Mose
and
Thut-Mose
. In order to avoid confusion and to strike a specific chord in my readers, I have spelled the word
Moses
in all cases.
The “Hymn to Aton” has been slightly changed for purposes of style.
Kosen
is rendered
Goshen
, both to avoid confusion and because the latter rendition is common to our literature; both are, of course, references to the same place. The substitution of modern measurements for the
royal cubit
and modern time measurements, as well, for the Egyptian terms has been done for the convenience of the reader. Because the word is still current, and because it has so much color of the time, I use as a measure of weight the
shekelâthen
â
common to all the countries of the ancient Near East.
A List of the Main Characters in the Book
MOSES
ENEKHAS-AMON: The sister of Ramses II
RAMSES II: God-King of Egypt
AMON-TEPH: A priest in the Great House
SETI: Enekhas-Amon's physician
SETI-HOP: Chief arms instructor in the Great House
RAMSES-EM-SETI: One of the sons of Ramses
NEPH: An engineer in the service of Ramses
RE-KOPHAR: Priest in charge of surgery in the Great House
SETI-MOSES: Chief steward of the Great House
SETI-KEPH: Captain of Hosts under Ramses
HETEP-RE: A Captain of Chariots
NUN: Servant of Moses, a Levite
SOKAR-MOSES: Second in command of the expedition to Kush
ATON-MOSES: A physician of Karnak
MERIT-ATON: The daughter of Aton-Moses
IRGEBAYN: King of Kush
IRGA: One of the daughters of the King of Kush
MIRIAM: The sister of Moses
DOOGANA: A witch doctor
PART ONE
The Prince of Egypt
[1]
W
ITH HIS TENTH year, on the day of his birth, his royal uncle agreed to receive him, look at him, lay a hand upon his head, and perhaps even say a word or two to him.
He was afraid. When his mother told him what was in store for him, he stared at her fixedly, his dark eyes wide and open, and she realized that he was very much afraid; but she was in no mood to offer sympathy. She was too much concerned for herself, and for months now this concern had deepened. The truth of it was that she had difficulty in remembering the old days when her health was good. If it wasn't a headache, it was a pain in the stomach; if it was neither, it was a general feeling of fatigue, an ache in her joints, a drawing sensation in her groin. “You're getting no younger,” her physician had remarked, and she replied peevishly that thirty-nine was not old, not in a man and not in a woman, and that she paid him not for philosophical observation but for the practice of medicine. But her petty lie, born out of annoyance and anxiety-she was forty-two, a year younger than her royal brother-brought just a shade of a smile to the doctor's lips.
Afterward, she had looked in the mirror and wept for herself. Others had specified this or that tragedy in her life; but the truth of it was that she was a vain and selfish woman, and the only tragedy she had ever felt truly was the loss of her beauty; not even her illness, not even the pain and fatigue, but the loss of the beauty that had been held more dazzling than even the beauty of Nefertiti of the cursed name and memory. Because of this, there had been a period of months now during which her pity for herself had become an obsession. Who would ever know the agony of the long, dark nights when time stretched out for ever, and when alternately she wept and prayed? And what of the hours she spent with unguents, salves, creams, medications and magic preparations, and with obscene spells directed at the whore goddesses of Kadash and Arzawa and other distant and savage places? Who was to be pitied more than herself? When her doctor bad come, earlier this very day, she said to him, more pleadingly than bitterly,
“Look at me! Look at my, skin, my arms! And my face! Black pouches under my eyesâlines, wrinkles, bags! Please ⦠Please,” she begged him. “Help me!”