The Priest: Aaron Read Free

of slaves rising up against their masters. That’s what the Egyptians fear, Aaron. That’s why they load you down and try to kill you with work.”
    “Is this the kind of leader you want to be? Kill them as they kill us?” Was that the way to deliverance? Was their deliverer to be a warrior leading them into battle? Would he put a sword in their hands? The rage that had built over the years under slavery filled Aaron. Oh, how easy it would be to give in to it!
    Word spread like fine sand blown before a desert wind, eventually reaching the ears of Pharaoh himself. When Hebrews fought among themselves the next day, Moses tried to intercede and found himself under attack. “Who appointed you to be our prince and judge? Do you plan to kill me as you killed that Egyptian yesterday?” The people didn’t want Moses as their deliverer. In their eyes, he was an enigma, not to be trusted.
    Pharaoh’s daughter couldn’t save Moses this time. How long could a man survive when he was hated and hunted by Pharaoh, and envied and despised by his brethren?
    Moses disappeared into the wilderness and was never heard from again.
    He didn’t even have time to say good-bye to the mother who’d believed he had been born to deliver Israel from slavery. And Moses took their mother’s hopes and dreams with him into the wilderness. She died within the year. The fate of Moses’ Egyptian mother was unknown, but Pharaoh lived on and on, continuing to build his storage cities, monuments, and grandest of all, his tomb. It was scarcely finished when the sarcophagus containing Pharaoh’s embalmed body was carried to the Valley of the Kings, followed by an entourage of thousands bearing golden idols, possessions, and provisions for an afterlife thought to be even grander than the one he had lived on earth.
    Now Raamses wore the serpent crown and held a sword over their heads. Cruel and arrogant, he preferred grinding his heel into their backs instead. When Amram could not rise from the pit, he was smothered in the mud.
    Aaron was eighty-three, a thin reed of a man. He knew he would die soon, and his sons after him, and their sons down through the generations.
    Unless God delivered them.
    Lord, Lord, why have You abandoned Your people?
    Aaron prayed out of desperation and despair. It was the only freedom he had left, to cry out to God for help. Hadn’t God made a covenant with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob? Lord, Lord, hear my prayer! Help us! If God existed, where was He? Did He see the bloody stripes on their backs, the worn-down, worn-out look in their eyes? Did he hear the cries of Abraham’s children? Aaron’s father and mother had clung to their faith in the unseen God. Where else can we find hope, Lord? How long, O God, how long before You deliver us? Help us. God, why won’t You help us?
    Aaron’s father and mother had long since been buried beneath the sand. Aaron had obeyed his father’s last wishes and married Elisheba, a daughter from among the tribe of Judah. She had given him four fine sons before she died. There were days when Aaron envied the dead. At least they were at rest. At least their unceasing prayers had finally stopped and God’s silence no longer hurt.
    Someone lifted his head and gave him water. “Father?”
    Aaron opened his eyes and saw his son Eleazar above him. “God spoke to me.” His voice was scarcely a whisper.
    Eleazar leaned down. “I couldn’t hear you, Father. What did you say?”
    Aaron wept, unable to say more.
    God had finally spoken, and Aaron knew his life would never be the same.

    Aaron gathered his four sons—Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar—and his sister, Miriam, and told them God had commanded him to go to meet Moses in the wilderness.
    “Our uncle is dead,” Nadab said. “It was the sun speaking to you.”
    “It’s been forty years, Father, without a word.”
    Aaron held up his hand. “Moses is alive.”
    “How do you know it was God who spoke to you, Father?” Abihu leaned