Next it was necessary to have priests that the service in the Tabernacle might be conducted according to certain prescribed regulations.Because the men of the tribe of Levi had stood by Moses when he tried to suppress the worship of the golden calf,they were chosen to be priests.As “Levites,”we shall hear of them all through Jewish history.As for Moses,he made himself the uncrowned king of the surviving Jews.Acting upon the advice which his father-in-law had given him a long time before,he stated that he alone was allowed to come into the presence of Jehovah,whenever it was necessary that some divine command be imparted to the faithful ones.
Furthermore,he ordained that after his death,this high office should go to his brother Aaron and to his sons and grandchildren until the end of time.
Often during the journey in the desert,Moses had suffered because the men and women of the different families hardly knew whom they should recognise as their own immediate head.Moses therefore divided the people into certain definite groups.Over each one he placed a trusted Elder.Him he called a Judge,that he might hear all minor complaints and settle all small points of dispute,so that the people might live together as good neighbours.
Only when all this had been done,did he give the sign to break up camp.A high pillar of clouds,which for more than a year had floated ahead of the wanderers,and which had shown them the path in the desert,now settled down upon the holy chest,or Ark,in which the sacred tablets of the Commandments were carried.The Levites took up their holy burden,which was for ever to stand as the centre of the Temple,and the seven thousand men and women and children who remained,continued their way.
But as they came nearer and nearer to the old land of their fathers,their troubles increased.The wife of Moses,Zipporah,had died and he had married a woman of the tribe of the Cushites.In the eyes of the other Jews,she was a foreigner.They hated her and openly showed their dislike.In his difficulties,Moses was not even supported by his own brother and sister.He had given them high office in the new state which he had just founded.But they were jealous.They wanted more honours for themselves.They said so until Moses,in disgust,took Aaron to the top of Mount Hor and there stripped him of all his former dignities.
Finally,when they were almost within sight of Canaan,they suffered terribly from the snakes that infested the country.Moses then made a large snake of copper,He put this image on a high stake where all the people could see it.Thereafter,the deadly bite became quite harmless.
But the nearer the tribes came to the river Jordan,the more aggressive became the attitude of their enemies.Soon the Jewish camp was full of stories about terribly big men,who were called the sons of Anak and who now occupied the old farms of Abraham,which Moses intended to claim for the sole benefit of his own people.
To make an end to these fairy-tales,Moses chose one man from each of the twelve tribes and sent the twelve forward to spy out the land they were about to conquer.After a short while,Joshua (who was forever in the thick of things)and Caleb (a young man from the tribe of Judah)returned carrying an enormous bunch of grapes.These they had found in a valley called Eshcol.They reported that the land was very fertile.It abounded in milk and honey.Of course,this country could not be taken away from the present occupants without some fighting.But they were quite certain that the Jews could defeat their enemies and they advised an immediate advance.
But panic had already swept through the tribes.They had marched and marched and marched.They had suffered from hunger and from heat and from thirst and from snakes and now they were asked to expose themselves to the deadly fury of the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Amalekites.This was too much.Once more they broke into rebellion.
Many hot-heads openly advocated a return to Egypt.There was much shouting and there were many speeches.In vain did Moses and Aaron (who had regained his courage somewhat)and brave Joshua try to persuade their followers that no retreat was possible under the circumstances.The people had lost all reason.They were tired of this eternal journeying.They wanted peace,although it be the peace of bondage.
Then Jehovah grew angry.His patience had become exhausted.His voice was heard from the dome of the Tabernacle.The Jews,so he said,had persistently disobeyed his will.As punishment for their lack of faith,they were condemned to wander in the desert for forty years.
Even then,a few foolish souls tried to push forward on their own account.They were all killed by the Canaanites and by the Amalekites.
But the others accepted their fate.They turned their backs upon the Promised Land and for forty years they wandered through the desert,and they were shepherds as Abraham and Isaac had been before them.
Gradually their children forgot all about the days which their fathers had spent in Egypt,and driven by circumstances,they returned to the simple ways of their ancestors.
That was what Moses had tried to accomplish from the very beginning.He had reason to be content.His task had been fulfilled.
As for this great prophet,who had given the children of Jacob certain laws which have survived until this day,he was growing old and very,very weary.When he felt that his end was near,he appointed Joshua as his successor,instead of Aaron,who was too old and weak.Then he climbed to the top of Mount Pisgah,which is on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea.From there he looked down upon the valley of the river Jordan.
He died alone,and no one knows where his body lies.
