The Priest: Aaron Read Free Page A

forward. “You were out in the sun all day. It wouldn’t be the first time the heat got to you.”
    “Are you sure, Aaron?” Miriam cupped her cheeks. “We have been hoping for so long.”
    “Yes. I’m certain. No one can imagine a voice like that. I cannot explain, nor do I have the time to try. You must all believe me!”
    They all spoke at once.
    “There are Philistines beyond the borders of Egypt.”
    “You can’t survive in the wilderness, Father.”
    “What will we tell the other elders when they ask after you? They will want to know why we didn’t stop our father from such folly.”
    “You won’t make it to the trade route before you’re stopped.”
    “And if you do, how will you survive?”
    “Who will go with you?”
    “Father, you’re eighty-three years old!”
    Eleazar put his hand on Aaron’s arm. “I’ll go with you, Father.”
    Miriam stamped her foot. “Enough! Let your father speak.”
    “No one will go with me. I go alone, and God will provide.”
    “How will you find Moses? The wilderness is a vast place. How will you find water?”
    “And food. You can’t carry enough for that kind of journey.”
    Miriam rose. “Would you try to talk your father out of what God instructed?”
    “Sit, Miriam.” His sister merely added to the confusion, and Aaron could speak for himself. “God called me to this journey; surely God will show me the way.” Hadn’t he prayed for years? Maybe Moses would know something. Maybe God was finally going to help His people. “I must trust in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to lead me.” He spoke with more confidence than he felt, for their questions troubled him. Why should they doubt his word? He must do as God said and go. Quickly, before courage failed him.

    Carrying a skin of water, seven small loaves of unleavened barley bread, and his staff, Aaron left before the sun came up. He walked all day. He saw Egyptians, but they paid him no attention. Nor did he allow his steps to falter at the sight of them. God had given him purpose and hope. Weariness and desolation no longer oppressed him. He felt renewed as he walked. God exists. God spoke. God had told him where to go and whom he was to meet: Moses!
    What would his brother be like? Had he spent all forty years in the wilderness? Did he have a family? Did Moses know Aaron was coming? Had God spoken to him as well? If not, what was he to say to Moses when he found him? Surely God would not send him so far without purpose at the end. But what purpose?
    His questions made him think of other things. He slowed his steps, troubled. It had been easy to walk away. No one had stopped him. He had taken up his staff, shouldered a skin of water and a pouch of bread, and headed out into the desert. Maybe he should have brought Miriam and his sons with him.
    No. No. He must do exactly as God said.
    Aaron walked all day, day after day, and slept in the open at night, eyes on the stars overhead, alone in silence. Never had he been so alone, or felt so lonely. Thirsty, he sucked on a small flat stone to keep his mouth from going dry. How he wished he could raise his hand and have a boy run to him with a skin of water. His bread was almost gone. His stomach growled, but he was afraid to eat until later in the afternoon. He didn’t know how far he had to go and whether his supply of bread would hold out. He didn’t know what to eat out here in the desert. He didn’t have the skills to hunt and kill animals. He was tired and hungry and beginning to wonder if he really had heard God’s voice or just imagined it. How many more days? How far? The sun beat down relentlessly until he looked for escape in a cleft of rocks, miserable and exhausted. He couldn’t remember the sound of God’s voice.
    Was it all his imagination, birthed by years of misery and a dying hope that a Savior would come and deliver him from slavery? Maybe his sons were right and he’d been suffering from the heat. He was certainly suffering