"These are the names of the children of Israel that retreated from the Exodus begun by Moses and returned to the land of the Pharoahs, leaving their kindred to ultimately perish in the wilderness..." -- First words of a text stencilled in ancient Hebrew on beaten silver, rolled on string and tied as an amulet around the neck of a child. The artifact was discovered in a typical Jewish grave in the tel at Pithom in, the northern Nile delta, Egypt and is believed to be the work of a high ranking servant of Khumhotep, a provincial governor around 1200 B.C.

"Come, Jachin, Moses has returned and has called a meeting. Word is that he is furious again about our heresy."

Merari leaned into the open flap of the goat hair tent to summon his friend. The crude tent offered little protection from the sun. The air inside was stifling. Jachin sat in the middle of the tent, unmoving. The two men, short and bearded, wore dark, woollen dress. Although they were of different tribes and skills they had been friends since boyhood.

"I don’t care what the old man wants and I don’t care much for Levites much at all."

"Have you forgotten I am a Levite too? Moses must have more word from on high."

"From God you mean? I doubt it."

"Don’t speak his name aloud, aren’t we in enough trouble."

"Not me, I didn’t give the old man’s brother the last of my gold to buy food from the city dwellers in Moses’ absence."

"No, but I gave Aaron what little I had and the way Moses is carrying on you’d think we had made it all into one of his accursed, forbidden false idols."

"You might just as well have, the food was bad and didn’t last long. The city dwellers are happy to accept our cheese and skins but give us stony flour in return. If we had travelled up the coast we could have traded for food with the Philistines instead of starving in the desert."

"What is wrong with you old friend?"

"I’m tired Merari, tired of wandering aimlessly around this desert, of living in a smelly tent of goat skins. I’m tired of living on mutton and what we can steal from the Caananites. What will happen if the next spring is dry or the next? Where we would get water then for ourselves and the flocks?"

"But the Lord commanded, led us out of Egypt, gave us the Commandments and the Laws. We must obey." Merari was a shepherd and worried constantly about water for his sheep but was too afraid of Moses and his God to do more than grumble.

"No, Moses did, he just said they were from God and that God had commanded him."

"How can you say that? Didn’t he save us from Pharoh’s army smashing them in the sea."

"We crossed safely and some of them drowned. We knew where to cross, they didn’t and then they gave up and went home. Home to their houses, good food, wine and feasting. They only wanted us to come back."

"To work like slaves and for their gods don’t forget."

"I haven’t, but they never gave me any trouble until Moses and Aaron started stirring." Jachin leapt up and seized Merari by the arm. "Listen. I had a good life in Egypt, a position. I’m a good smith, didn’t I fashion the silver parts for the Tabernacle exactly the way Moses described, cherubim and all. Didn’t my son, Beselel spend weeks making the wooden parts from this supposedly incorruptible setim wood that’s all you find in this wilderness."

"That’s true, you are an artist my friend and Beselel a fine carpenter, none better."

Merari did not think it would be prudent to mention to his friend that while the parts for tabernacle and altar had been made nobody had yet taken the time to assemble them.

"Exactly and there is work for us back home. We’re not all poor labourers moving stones. My family would live well." Jachin looked directly into his friend’s eyes in the dim of the hot tent. "My family and others..."

"What do mean others?"

"Others that want to give up on this mad trek."

"How many? None of my tribe."

"No, you would be the first."

"To incur the wrath of Moses, you know how powerful he is you saw the snake."

"I was told about it I did not see it with my own eyes."

"And the blood in the river?"

"The red sediment I saw but it went away."

"We couldn’t drink the water for days! And what about the flies and the frogs and the hail."

"All came and went with that one high flood."

"A flood the like of which no man had ever seen. Did the flood kill all the beasts, the Egyptian ones and none of ours."

"We take better care of our animals. Our ancestors, the Habiru nomads relied on donkeys and sheep they knew how to look after them, so do we."

"And the locusts?"

"You know more about that than I my friend."

Merari remained silent, many knew that he and others had disturbed the locusts with sticks and fire to swarm onto the crops of the Egyptian farmers. It was Aaron’s idea and his tribe’s secret.

"Our ancestors were welcome in Egypt, it is only in the last few years as we grew in numbers that the Egyptians have begun to fear us. A small number could return unharmed."

Before Merari could renew the argument a great cry swept over the camp from the meeting place. There were shouts and cries of terror and pain. Jachin joined Merari outside as a man ran by covered in blood, he shouted at the two men standing outside the tent.

"Moses had ordered all unbelievers slain. Aaron and his men have turned on the others."

"Merari you must flee, hide. I will not fight you my friend just because we are different tribes."

"Differing beliefs too."

"I keep the laws."

"Not all, just the ones that suit you."

The fighting did not last long, there were few of the powerful bows of laminated wood and horn, and Aaron’s men had the most. Jachin had buried his son, the carpenter, his name engraved on a silver medallion still hung around his neck. Soon Moses, Aaron and their followers had gathered with their rolled tents and flocks ready to push deeper in to the wilderness. Jachin stood with his remaining family and those that were not following Moses on the rise across the valley. He had not seen Merari since the first day of fighting. He could see that the numbers of the people had been reduced and that those that stood with him greatly out numbered those that stood on the other side. A hand waved from the herds around Moses. Merari the shepherd turned and began moving his flock deeper into the desert. Jachin the smith turned his back and began walking the other way, back to Egypt.

Aliah woke in the cold just before dawn the small stone hut was dark. She had been awakened by the dream again but did not mind being awake early, not on this special day. Today Ansolom would come to ask her father if they could be wed and Adrini had already privately agreed to the proposal. Aliah lay thinking of her betrothed, he was a good man though not tall in the Philistine way and none would call him handsome. He was a good carpenter though and he earned much more than the average male who worked in the fields like her father.

Adrini was lazy and a dreamer he claimed to be descended from the Philistine traders that had sailed here across the sea. Despite their tiny village of Nasareth being only twenty miles from the great port of Accho, Aliah had never even seen the sea. Her father also claimed the hero Goliath as an ancestor and attributed his above normal height to him. It was true that Adrini was taller than most men but Aliah doubted that Goliath was part of their family. She did not believe that the warrior, who had defeated the wandering menace of the Hebrews finally slaughtering all but a handful with his mighty iron tipped spear, was anything but a legend. She had little interest in history and battles that had taken place a thousand years ago.

Her father only repeated the stories told to him by his father, did so at any opportunity and inaccurately as far as she cared to remember her grandfather’s versions. According to her grandfather the Hebrews had been small in number compared to the amount of trouble they caused any way. Their small tribes had never been united enough to cause any thing but minor annoyance to the giant Philistines who were paid warriors. The tribes had come from their mountain fortresses reluctantly only to be easily beaten at the final battle at Megiddo. But this was not how her father told the tales.

She was reluctant to rise to face the day when it was still so cold. She lay in bed fingering the medallion with its strange, unintelligible inscription. Her father claimed he had found it on a battle field. Aliah just like the feel and shine of its silver face. It was the only thing she could really say was hers alone. She fingered it now wanting to shake off the feeling of the dream. When she first began experiencing the dream it had been meaningless just a bright, white light. Later she heard words but did not understand them. Last night the dream had become clear and the words still sang unbelieved in her head.

The light claimed to be an angel of god though it had not said which one. It also told that she had been chosen to bear a child that would be the son of god. This child would do great things and she should rejoice at being chosen as his mother. She had tried to explain to the voice that she could not have child because she was not yet even married, still a virgin. But the voice had ignored her. How would simple Ansolom react to knowing his first born was fathered by a god? Would he think her unfaithful? Her father would have new tales to tell or more likely think her mad.

When she put these questions aside and rose she felt sick to her stomach. Aliah ate a little goat cheese with yesterday's bread and then felt a little better. She began laying out the clothes she would wear, a dress made from the purple cloth of the Dor weavers and her best sandals. Today the men would drink wine from the glass jug from Siddon not the normal rough pot. As she began preparing breakfast, adding a bowl of olive oil to the bread already on the table, the sun god rose in the sky bringing his light into the world and into the hut. As her father stirred, Aliah thanked the god with a small prayer, a new day had begun.

Derek migrated to Oz from England alone at 17. Derek married and after spending 30 years working for the Aus DOD began writing fulltime in 1996. He has several shorts published in offline zines. Sam, Derek's eldest daughter, edits and improves his work. Derek currently lives in Canberra.

E-mail: clipstone@optusnet.com.au

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