Ten Moses continued to move forward. Forty years had passed, and the surnames in Wangcheng had been rewritten. No one cared about the little thing he did about killing people.
Even if someone cared, no one would be able to recognize him after forty years.
In a wilderness near Goshen, where the Israelites lived, Moses met his brother Aaron, who had come to meet him by God's will.
The two brothers met with tears in their eyes, hugged each other, and kissed each other cheek to cheek.
Moses told Aaron the words that the Lord had sent him and the signs that he had commanded him to perform. Then Moses and Aaron went to gather together all the elders of Israel. Aaron recounted all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses, and performed the signs in the eyes of the people, and the people believed. When the Israelites heard that Yahweh was visiting them and observing their distress, they bowed their heads and worshiped.
So, Moses and Allen set off to the Egyptian royal court to meet the current Pharaoh Ramses II. Worried about Moses' safety, Zipporah left her youngest son in the care of her eldest son, so the two brothers went there together.
When they reached Thebes, the capital of hundreds of gates, Zipporah sighed. She had never left the land of Midian since she was born. She never knew that such a majestic city could exist in the world.
Moses also kept lamenting that he grew up in this city. In the first forty years of his life, his adoptive mother's father, Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, Akhenaten, moved his capital to Amarna in central Egypt. At that time, I stayed there with my adoptive mother for a while. Later, when Pharaoh Tutankhamun returned to Thebes, he came back again. From that time on, he no longer had the right to live in the palace.
The three of them stood outside the palace wall and said to the guards guarding the door: "Please tell the respected Pharaoh that an old friend, Moses, is here to visit."
Ramesses II was enjoying the foreign songs and dances. When he heard the name of Moses being announced by his attendants, he frowned and then waved his hand to bring Moses and others over.
Seeing the son of his old friend again, Moses could no longer see a trace of his youth in Ramesses II. What he saw was boundless power, far superior to his father and ancestors, and far superior to all the previous Egyptian kings that Moses had seen. .
When Ramses II saw Moses, he could still match the aging face with the middle-aged man in his memory.
"It has been forty years since we last met, Your Majesty Ramses."
Moses decided to get close to the Egyptian king first to facilitate his actions. Rameses was once the name of his grandfather, but it is said that when his father entered the underworld to welcome the gods, he changed his name to this name to remind him not to forget his grandfather's ambition.
"Yes, I remember the last time I met you with my father, I was less than ten years old. Now I am old, let alone you." It is rare to see an old friend who can talk, Ramses II also Wouldn't mind having a casual chat with Moses.
Moses sighed: "Pharaoh, you are still in your prime. Under your leadership, the land of Egypt is gradually restoring its past glory. How can you say you are old? As for me, I have to carry a walking stick now. This is really old." It’s over.”
After speaking, Moses tapped his palm on the ground to show that he was tired and unable to do what he wanted.
Rameses II raised his lips slightly, noncommittal, and then said calmly: "These are the great achievements of God Amun, and have nothing to do with me, the pharaoh in the world. Let me tell you, you, a fugitive, return to the Capital of Hundred Gates What's the matter with me?"
Perhaps others were not aware of the fact that Moses was still a fugitive, but when Moses first arrived, Ramses received a message from the old priest in the palace, telling him that Moses had escaped from Egypt.
Moses sighed and said to Rameses: "When Your Majesty was young, I remember telling Your Majesty my true life experience."
"Oh, you're talking about this. I know you are a Hebrew. But it doesn't matter. I can give you an order so that you don't have to suffer hard labor and heavy labor like other Hebrews."
Seeing that Moses had been talking for so long without getting to the point, his brother Allen went to Ramses II and said: "This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'Let my people go and keep a feast to me in the wilderness.'"
Ramesses II was no longer so friendly to Allen: "Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let the Israelites go? I do not know the LORD, and I will not let the Israelites go." He knew that he was being beaten by them. The group called the Hebrews has always considered themselves Israel.
But Ramesses II could not let the Israelites leave. In recent years, the Egyptians' life has been getting better and better. On the one hand, they have taken back the lost land in the Egyptian God's Domain, so that foreigners living in the outside world dare not underestimate them. On the other hand, there were millions of Israelis serving in Egypt.
They did the most tiring work and received the least pay, but the success of their labor was enjoyed by the Egyptians.
Moses also stood by and said, "God has met us. Please allow us to go into the wilderness for three days' journey to sacrifice to the Lord our God, so that he will not attack you with pestilence or sword."
"Moses, are you using your gods to threaten me, the Egyptian dynasty, and the Egyptian pantheon?"
Ramses II's expression suddenly turned cold, and he looked at the three people in front of him and smiled coldly. For Egypt, the most disgusting thing about the Israelites is that they were supported by the Egyptian heaven and earth and were protected by the Egyptian gods, but they did not know how to be grateful. They only knew how to sacrifice to their gods, but did not receive any Egyptian sacrifices. Express gratitude in the temple.
Four hundred years have passed. The Egyptian gods and Egyptians have long lost their patience with this group of ungrateful Israelites and Hebrews, and decided to give them heavy hard labor and let them continue to sacrifice to their gods. days, slowly heading towards destruction.
Then, the angry Pharaoh said to them: "Moses and Aaron, why do you ask the people to absent themselves from work? I originally wanted to exempt you from your labor, but now, I think it's better to forget it. You also go and bear your labor." Take the load!”
That day, Pharaoh ordered his overseers and officials: "You must not give the people straw to make bricks as usual, and let them pick it up themselves. You still ask them for the number of bricks they usually make, and do not reduce it at all! Because they are lazy. ’, so he cried out, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’ You must put a heavier burden on these people, so that they work hard and do not listen to lies.”
The overseers and officials came out and said to the people, "This is what Pharaoh says: 'I will not give you straw. Go and find it wherever you can find it, but do not reduce your work at all.'"
So the people were scattered throughout Egypt, gathering stubble for straw. The overseer urged them, saying, "You still have to finish your work today, just as you did before when you didn't have to look for straw."
The overseer struck the Israelite officers whom he had appointed, saying, "Why did you not finish your work yesterday and today by making the same number of bricks as before?"
The officers of the Israelites came and begged Pharaoh, saying, "Why are you treating your servants like this? The overseers did not give straw to their servants, but they said to us, 'Make bricks!' Behold, your servants were beaten, but they were beaten." It’s your people’s fault.”
Ramses II ignored him and said directly: "You are lazy! You are lazy! That's why you sent people to say: 'Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord.' Now go to work, this is your What will happen if you want to be lazy and offer sacrifices to the gods outside? The grass will not be given to you, but the bricks must be paid in full."
When the rulers of the Israelites heard that "your daily work of making bricks must not be diminished at all," they knew they were in trouble. As they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron standing opposite. They said to them, "May the LORD look upon you and judge you, for you have brought us into disrepute before Pharaoh and his servants. Kill us in their hands."
When Moses returned to Goshen at night, he prayed to Yahweh: "Lord, why do you afflict this people? Why did you send me? Since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has afflicted this people. People, you didn’t save them at all.”
While Moses was praying, a strange light appeared in the sky, seven-colored clouds rolled in the light, and the voice of Yahweh came from within.
“Now you will see what I did to Pharaoh, so that by my mighty hand he let the children of Israel go and drove them out of his land.”
God spoke to Moses, saying, "I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as the Almighty God, but they did not know my name, the LORD. I established my covenant with them to bring them back to the land where they were strangers. I will give them the southern land. I have heard the cry of the people of Israel who are being oppressed by the Egyptians, and I have remembered my covenant. So say to the children of Israel, I am the LORD. I will punish Egypt severely with my outstretched arm. man, redeem you from their burdens and do not do their hard work. I will make you my people, and I will be your God. You must know that I am the LORD your God, who delivered you from the burden of the Egyptians. .I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you as an inheritance. I am the LORD.”
Moses told this to the Israelites, but they were tired of hard work and would not listen to him. The LORD said to Moses, “Go in and tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the Israelites come out of his land.”
Moses said before the LORD, “If the Israelites will not listen to my voice, how will Pharaoh listen to me, a slow-tongued person?”
Then Yahweh told Moses that Israel was Jacob, the son of Isaac, the grandson of Abraham, and told him about the twelve sons and one daughter born to Israel, and told him all about the twelve branches of the Israelites. Moses, let Moses use this to win the trust of the Israelites.
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