Amethyst- by LaBruyere May 2008
Setting: South Sinai Peninsula, 1446 B.C.
Characters, by order of appearance:
Iscah
Leah
Samlah
Carmi
Adah
Reumah
Moses
Three Youths
Bezalel
Part One
Iscah took three more steps until she stood right next to the rock, and then sat herself upon it. All around her in an unending mass, the freed slaves were walking, unquestioningly following one another, and flowing around the rock on which Iscah sat like a stream flows around a stepping stone.
“Get up, Iscah. We will be lost from Mama and Abba’s sight if you don’t,” Leah implored, tugging on her arm.
Iscah gave her oldest sister a petulant look and let herself sink more comfortably on the rock. She rubbed her eyes in an attempt to rid them of dust, but succeeded only in knocking more dust into them. Then she sneezed. Leah, tired of standing beside her sister when Iscah wouldn’t listen anyway, sat on the rock as well, finding room behind her. With one facing the north and the other facing the south, the two girls watched their nation file past them “as numerous as the stars in the sky.”
Iscah took a deep breath and let it out in a whoosh, and then choked on the dust she had swallowed. After her sister had finished coughing, Leah turned her head to capture Iscah’s face in the corner of her eye.
“Are you tired, Iscah?” She asked gently, no longer angry.
“Yes,” Iscah replied. “I am. We have been walking for too many days.”
“But we have walked even longer than this before,” Leah pointed out.
“Mm. That was months ago. While we were at… what is the name of the last place we camped?”
“Rephidim.”
“Rephidim. While we were at Rephidim I think I got fat and weak. And my feet became soft.”
“It was nice there.” Now Leah sounded wistful. “When that water came from the rock I was so happy. None of the gods of Egypt ever did anything like that.”
“And when the God Who Is helped us fight the Amalekites I was very happy too.” Iscah added. “I think He must be better than all of the gods together to have smitten our masters so harshly.”
“Abba says He is the only god,” Leah pointed out.
“And I’m also glad He has chosen Father Abraham and his people to be His own nation. But why do we have to walk so far to get to our new home? It seems as though the pillar of cloud is always changing its mind.”
Leah commiserated with Iscah for a few more minutes until Iscah gave a muffled shout.
“What is it?” Leah stood and turned around to face the south. Then she saw what Iscah saw: the pillar had come to a stop! She could see it very far ahead, at the base of the tallest of the mountains.
“We are to stop at last!” Iscah sighed with happiness. “I must sing my praises to the God Who Is, for He has heard my lament!” She cried.
Leah smiled in amusement at her little sister, and dragged her to her feet. “Come then. We must catch up to Abba and help him and Carmi pitch the tent.”
It was a long evening, setting up camp. In fact it was more than an evening, for how can you set up camp for an entire nation in just one evening? Iscah did her share of the work with the strong arms that remained from years of making bricks. Her hands, though most of the calluses had gone from them, were still stronger than those of most twelve-year-olds.
She carried firewood, which always seemed to be plentiful wherever Israel camped. As she carried it to the tent where her family dwelled, she glanced up often at the pillar of cloud that was slowly being enveloped in fire as the sun set. She glanced at it so often that four times did she collide with other young girls who had gone in search of firewood.
Leah was watching for her at the entrance to the tent. She cast a shrewd glance at her approaching sister and followed her eyes to the pillar in the distance. Her voice was full of the wisdom of one who is eight seasons older than her sister. “It has begun to envelope the mountain,” she commented. “We are sure to stay long here.”
Iscah nodded and carried the firewood inside to her father Samlah the Naphtalite.
Samlah was a big man, with a booming voice that was hardly ever full of anger. He greeted Iscah with a pinch on the cheek and a twinkle in his eye that had grown brighter and brighter each day since he had led his wife and four children from Egypt.
He had given neither of his daughters away in marriage yet- not while they continued to travel. Besides, only Leah was beginning to turn her thoughts that way. But how could she meet a young man to love in the ever-changing sea of people? No; not until Yahweh had settled them in their land of milk and honey.
Iscah entrusted the firewood into his hands and joined her mother and eight-year-old sister by the fire ten-year-old Carmi had already begun and on which Reumah had begun to roast quail.
“Mama,” little Adah was asking, “Do you think we will rest here long?”
“I have no doubt of it,” Reumah answered. “Yahweh must know how His people are tired and need to rest again. And He chose to rest Himself on a high mountain- that, I suppose, is why we left Rephidim.”
“Well, I liked it in Rephidim,” Carmi broke in. “And how am I supposed to find Kesed in this mess? I told him to ask his family to travel with ours.” Carmi looked stubborn and a bit childish.
For that reason, Reumah reached out for and kissed her son on the forehead. She laughed. “If we really are to rest here for long, you’ll have plenty of time to find him.”
Carmi perked up. “Does that mean you’ll let me search for him, by myself?”
“Why not? You are almost a man. Just be home before dark each night or I will not let you do so again.”
Iscah listened to this conversation in silence, as she and Adah tore the manna into pieces and put it in a clay pot. Tonight they were going to soften it in the juice of pomegranates to change the flavor just a bit. Iscah, however, did not really tire of the manna, no matter how others complained. Perhaps it was just her youth.
Iscah herself had no friends. She was content with the company of her sisters. But she could understand Carmi’s desire to laugh with the other boys. Perhaps, in the land flowing with milk and honey, perhaps there she would find friends.
Friends. What was it like to have them? When she made bricks some months ago, that was all she ever did. At night she would carry her aching bones home and dine lightly with her aching, reticent family and then sleep a little before the dawn brought the undying smell of bricks and straw.
And so, as her mother often told her, it had gone for her people for centuries. That is, until Yahweh had heard their cries and sent the man Moses, with his big grey beard and mouth that stammered a little when he uttered his commanding words, and had been Yahweh’s tool to lead them all to freedom.
Iscah paused in her ripping of manna and let her chest swell with gladness that it had happened in her lifetime. Perhaps Yahweh had his reasons for that. Perhaps he had a plan for her- just for her.
“What is in your head, Iscah?” Reumah asked of her, for Iscah’s mind had indeed wandered and the manna lay whole in her hand.
Without answering, she continued the task and got lost in silence again.
That night Iscah lay awake between Leah and Adah and could hear their soft breathing mingled with the sound of the wind between the tents. It was completely dark, but as it so often is in the desert, it was also an empty, stale darkness.
The barest starlight filtered through the hole in the roof where the smoke exited the tent. But to Iscah’s wakeful delight, the orange glow from Yahweh’s burning pillar fell through the hole onto her own face. Warmth spread through her as though she were standing right next to it.
She reached in the pocket of her tunic where she always kept the one possession she could call her own. She brought it out and it was set ablaze by the light from outside. She’d never told anyone about it, for it was her own amethyst, given to her the day she left Egypt. She loved the way it sparkled tonight, but only briefly- the light was barely enough to catch deep in the center of the stone. But when it did, it took her breath away.
She knew it was beautiful, but she didn’t know what it was worth. It was very big, though, and exquisitely cut. She could tell by the look on the Egyptian woman’s face that it was very precious the day-
Suddenly, Leah stirred next to her and Iscah hid the amethyst in the folds of her tunic. She didn’t know why she wanted to hide it- perhaps it was because it made her feel unique among her sisters, and richly blessed.
Overhead, the pillar of fire undulated so softly that one could almost not imagine that any fierce power raged within it. In fact, it looked to Iscah as if it were winking at her.
She fell asleep with a smile on her lips and the amethyst warm in her pocket.
There was never any need for Iscah to worry. After four days passed and still the cloud had not moved, Iscah’s family, as well as the rest of the nation began to settle comfortably in hopes that the stay would be even longer than the one at Rephidim.
Most of them did, that is.
As always, there were some who complained among themselves and insisted that the sooner they reached the land of promise, the better. But when Moses came to the people and announced that they were to consecrate themselves in preparation for Yahweh to enter the cloud on top of the mountain, the grumbling ceased, and the people became afraid.
Iscah stood at the entrance to her family’s tent and listened as Moses’ voice somehow boomed out loud enough for everyone to hear, “Be careful that you do not go up to the mountain or touch the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death.”
Iscah’s arms filled with goose bumps at the excitement that was filling the camp. She hardly heard the rest of the instructions because her heart had begun to hammer in her chest at the though that Yahweh, who made her, was going to come and sit on top of the mountain.
Suddenly she felt Leah’s hand on her arm. “Perhaps those that grumbled about the water at Marah, who had forgotten what Yahweh did at the Red Sea, will see Him again and will not be afraid anymore,” she whispered, excitement in her own voice.
Iscah nodded, silently agreeing. It was something they often discussed, wondering at how the grown-ups forgot all the miracles so easily. But not their parents. Perhaps it was because Samlah and Reumah saw Yahweh’s wonders through the eyes of their impressionable children. Whatever the case, Iscah’s family considered Yahweh with the greatest of awe, especially when the manna arrived every morning but the seventh and the quail every evening.
Leah then pulled her sister back into the tent at Reumah’s call, and they all began to wash their clothes in the water Carmi had brought, as Yahweh had asked.
On the third day after the purification of the camp, Iscah awoke to a dark sky full of thunder and lightning. She saw Adah curled into a ball on the ground beside her, eyes full of fear. “What is it?” Iscah asked, unable to see the rest of her family in the darkness.
“It is Yahweh on the mountain,” Leah said in an awed whisper.
Just then Carmi, who had awoken earlier, peeked his head inside the tent flap and squinted toward his family in the shadows.
“Carmi, come inside!” Reumah implored, striding forward.
“Wait Mama,” he said. “There’s nothing to fear. Moses is assembling the people and is to lead us near the foot of the mountain!”
Just then a trumpet blast, a thousand times louder than any Iscah had ever heard, shattered the air.
“We are supposed to approach the mountain?” Reumah was searching her husband’s face for reassurance.
“I’m sure it is only to witness Yahweh’s power,” he said. “But as Moses told us, we are not to go too close.”
“Adah cannot go,” Reumah said firmly. “I will stay with her.”
“I will stay too,” Leah announced, “to help take care of Adah.”
Iscah heard nothing in her sister’s voice to denote fear, but she could not blame her if she was afraid. But Iscah wanted to go to the foot of the mountain. She did not want to be afraid.
Iscah walked behind her father to the place at the base of the mountain where the people were gathering. There was a great throng already and more pressed in behind her. She stood on her toes and could see Moses part of the way up the mountain- or was he coming back down? As she watched, he descended to where the people were and took hold of his brother Aaron’s arm.
“Aaron shall go with me, as Yahweh requests,” he was saying, somehow still audible over the thunder and the sound of trumpets.
He warned them to stay behind the perimeter he had set up around the mountain. Iscah watched in awed silence as a voice from somewhere behind him began to speak words meant just for them. The people fell completely silent as the voice echoed across the desert and filled Iscah’s ears like the sound of trumpets.
“You shall have no other gods besides me, you shall not make for yourself an idol,” it was saying. Iscah’s heart filled with a satisfaction she only just realized she had been seeking from Yahweh. It filled her from the roots of her thick, dark hair to the thick leather sandals that had lasted two months so far of walking in the desert.
Yahweh had begun to establish Himself with clear rules about how best to honor Him. Perhaps now, Iscah told herself, those who complained about all they lacked would feel the same satisfaction she felt and begin to trust, and even to put away the idols they had been given in the plunder of Egypt.
As the tenth- Iscah counted- command had been given, the thunder on the mountain increased and the whole mountain seemed engulfed in smoke. Many of the people drew back even farther from the perimeter. Samlah reached for Iscah’s hand and held her close to him as men, full of the fear of Yahweh, retreated away from the mountain, pushing each other in their haste. Iscah peeked over her father’s shoulder and saw one of the judges Moses had appointed at his father-in-law’s request to help him govern, stood forward and pleaded with Moses, saying:
“Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have Yahweh speak to us or we will die.”
Moses turned to face the people and said in reply, “Do not be afraid. Yahweh has come to test you, so that the fear of Him will be with you to keep you from sinning.”
Iscah glanced up to the top of the mountain again and decided that Yahweh must be very wise. In order to keep His people, whom He loved, from coming too close to His glory and dying because of it, He had to frighten them.
“Let us go,” Samlah whispered then, beginning to pull her through the crowd. Iscah did not see where Carmi had gone, but was not afraid for him. He often ran away to explore.
As she walked away, she looked over her shoulder at the mountain, and the last thing she heard from Moses before the sound of thunder hid his voice from her ears was, “Yahweh says, ‘do not make any gods to be alongside me; do not make for yourselves gods of silver or gods of gold.’”
“What was it like?” Leah asked her later, when she had returned with her father and Carmi, who had arrived later with the news that rocks had been painted around the mountain to show a line the people were not to cross. It had been so close to the mountain, too, and Iscah wondered if Yahweh wanted to be as close as possible to His people.
“Incredible,” Iscah answered her sister, holding her still-trembling hands together to keep them still. “I used to wonder why the Egyptian gods never did anything like that, but I know now that they were not gods at all. I think that Yahweh must love us a lot not only to rescue us but to meet us here in the desert too, and to guide us to the promised land.”
“You’re crying!” Leah exclaimed, brushing her sister’s tears away. Her voice was full of wonder.
“I’m just so very excited Leah,” she said. “Where we are going must be very wonderful if Yahweh chose it just for us.”
A few more days passed and Iscah spent them sitting in contemplation before the entrance to her family’s tent. From the reports Carmi brought home from his wanderings, Iscah learned that Moses and Aaron and the other leaders had gone to the top of the mountain to speak with Yahweh and learn more about Him.
A burning grew inside Iscah that she was unsure how to describe to her sister when Leah joined her one evening before the sun had set, and before the warm glow from the west and from the mountain to the south began to fill the camp like fog.
“It is as though I wish I could do something for Yahweh to show how grateful I am to Him,” she told her.
“I know how you feel,” Leah said, hugging her knees to her chest and looking up at the evening stars. “But I don’t know what we could do. We’re just two people out of thousands, and children at that.”
“But if He is truly as mighty as they say, then He must know us personally. That’s why I want to do something.”
“Yet there are still some who wish we were back in Egypt,” Leah whispered as if she didn’t want to be heard.
‘That’s foolish,” Iscah wrinkled her nose. “I like it here.”
“Me too. But some seem afraid of change, even the change they’ve been asking for all their lives.”
Iscah regarded her sister with some respect.
“Didn’t Abba once say that those who learn to be content are wisest of all?”
“Yes, he did. Many times, I think.”
“Then perhaps, Leah, we are not really children after all.”
Leah smiled back at her sister, with the glow from the mountain reflected in her eyes.
postscript
Here is a three-part fiction series I've been working on. The basic idea has been in my head for about two years now, but I didn't get it down until just now. It's historical fiction- ancient history, in fact. A well-known story but from someone else's eyes. I've become exceedingly attached to Iscah and her family. I think it's because I see myself in Iscah and her family reminds me of the family I'd like to have someday when I marry. Except with more boys, I think.