The Gentle Whisper

Forty days it had taken to get here, each day trekking through the desert, empty, wild. Seeking what shade he could find from rocks or scrubby bushes at noon when the heat became too much. Making fire, if he could, at night to protect him from the cold and the wild animals while he slept. Waking before dawn to set out again. Forty days and forty nights to reach Mount Sinai, as many days as the Israelites had been years in the wilderness before they reached the promised land. This was the place that God had spoken to Moses from the burning bush; the place where God had given the Israelites the Ten Commandments, where God had appeared to them in fire and cloud.  He needed to speak to God, and if he could find God anywhere it would be here.

And now he was here, and it was evening again.

On the slopes of the mountain he found a cave. Cautiously checking no wild animals were using it as a den, he gathered firewood from the bushes and built yet another fire, and then lay down to sleep.

He slept poorly, tormented by fears and poisonous thoughts. Why had he come here? What had he expected? A rocky mountain in the desert, that’s all it was. Yes, long ago this was where God had appeared to Moses, had given him the Commandments, had made a Covenant with the Israelites. But why should that mean God would speak to him here, now? Israel had rebelled again and again, and Elijah felt that he was no better than them. His journey was all for nothing. He might as well die here, where he could do no one any harm. Dawn came, filling the sky with the promise of a new day, but he stayed huddled in the cave, tired and hopeless.

And then God spoke to him, as he had done before when he called him to prophesy. “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

The hurt, the fear, the sense of failure came pouring out. “I have done everything I could, Lord, but the people have rejected their agreement with you, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

A moment of silence, and then God said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

Elijah stumbled to the mouth of the cave, shaking with fear and on the verge of tears. Of course God already knew why he was here. Asking him to say it had been for Elijah’s benefit, not God’s- helping Elijah to understand and name what was wrong, what he was afraid of. And he was so afraid. Not just for his life, but for his people, his people that he had failed because he could not make them listen.

But before he could leave the cave the wind whipped up into a sudden storm, whirling dust into the air, pressing Elijah back against the rock wall, swirling round with a noise that filled his ears and overwhelmed his senses. He saw rocks picked up in a spinning vortex of air and dropped, shattering into fragments. Terror filled Elijah, and yet, somehow, he knew that this was not the presence of God that he had been told to expect.

As quickly as it had risen, the wind died away. Elijah was about to step out of the cave when the ground beneath him shook. He fell to his knees, covering his face with his arms as the whole mountain trembled and rocks slid past the cave entrance, carrying away anything in their path. Elijah was no less terrified, but again, he knew this was not the presence of God that he had been told to expect.

The ground ceased to shake, and the rocks slid to a halt. Elijah stood up once more, but stopped, hearing a dry roar that he knew all too well. He risked a quick look out of the cave.

Wildfire raged across the mountain side, devouring bushes and scrub in seconds, seeming even to scorch the very stones of the mountain. It was approaching nearer and nearer to Elijah’s cave. He ran to the very back of the cave and crouched down, covering his face once again. He had come here, almost expecting death, but not like this. Was God trying to kill him? And yet again, he knew this was not the presence of God that he had been told to expect.

The fire swept past Elijah’s cave, and he was unharmed. After a while he dared to stand up and look towards the entrance. What now? Did he dare to go outside?

A gentle whisper.

That was all, and yet Elijah knew this was the real thing. Trembling, he pulled his cloak over his face and stepped out of the cave.

A voice said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

This time Elijah could barely whisper. “I have done everything I could, Lord, but the people have rejected their agreement with you, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

He knew that God would understand, would hear in those words all that he felt, everything he had thought during the 40 days of his journey. He waited, expectant, for God’s answer.

But it wasn’t the answer he was expecting.

“Go back the way you came,” God said. There was more- he was to anoint new kings for Syria and for Israel- presumably Ahab would not be around for much longer, then. And he was to anoint someone called Elisha as a prophet and successor for himself, so maybe the same was true for him. Between them, the two kings and Elisha would deal with those who had been unfaithful to God. God would, though, keep safe those who had remained faithful to him.

And that was that. Elijah didn’t know what he had expected, but not that. Perhaps he had expected that God would say, ‘Never mind, you tried your best. You can stop being a prophet now, and go back to your old life.” Perhaps he had thought that God would strike Jezebel down at once, and somehow force Israel to turn back to God. Perhaps he had thought- hoped- that God would kill him, and end his suffering.

None of that had happened. Nothing had changed. Jezebel still wanted him dead. He hadn’t got any of the answers he had wanted, not even a promise of divine protection. But at the same time, he felt a little reassured. God had heard him, and had not condemned him for how he felt or punished him for his failure. And God had given him a task, a duty to do. Even though he felt a hopeless failure, God still wanted to use him to help bring about change.

He turned away from the cave, back towards the desert and the long journey back to Israel. The mountainside, blackened and torn apart by fire and earthquake and storm, would recover. Seeds would sprout, birds and animals would return. Even in the desert, there was hope.



Based on https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Kings%2019&version=NIV

Too Much For You

The desert wind whipped the sand around his legs, stinging like a hundred insects. Elijah trudged on through the storm, shielding his eyes with his arm, a cloth tied over his nose and mouth. If he could have found shelter he would have waited until the storm passed, but there was none, so he struggled on, blinded by the swirling sand, hoping that the wind would drop before he fell from a cliff or stumbled into a den of wild animals. At least it would cover his tracks and make it harder for anyone following to find him.

The storm in his mind raged almost as fiercely as the wind. So few days before, he had stood alone on Mount Carmel, loudly proclaiming his faith before King Ahab and the people, and had faced down the prophets of the false god Baal, even mocking their failure to call down fire on the sacrifice prepared. They had been humiliated before all Israel when Elijah’s short prayer had done what all the elaborate rituals of the Baal-priests could not, and brought first fire to consume the sacrifice and then rain to end the three year drought. Elijah had felt, briefly, that perhaps the tide had turned- that Ahab and his people, freed from the influence of the Baal-priests, would turn back to God. Elijah himself had been full of confidence, high on God’s power and spirit, running ahead of Ahab’s chariot all the way from Carmel to Jezreel.

Now he was just running away. When Ahab’s queen, Jezebel, had heard that the Baal-priests had been humiliated and killed, she had promised to kill Elijah in response. When her threats had reached him Elijah had been afraid, knowing that she had the power to carry out her threats. He had run for his life, beyond the bounds of Israel into the wilderness of Judah. Away from Jezebel, away from Ahab. Away, too, from his role as voice of God in Israel. He had left his servant at Beersheba yesterday- it was safer for both of them to be alone- and had walked all day into the desert.

At last he stumbled into a bush. He worked his way round to the sheltered side and sat down, hunched over with his back to the wind. It was not much shelter, but he was too tired to battle the storm any longer.

Alone in the desert, a tattered, frightened prophet running for his life. He was ashamed of his fear, ashamed that he had run away and let his God down. He was no better than any other of the Israelites, who he had been so quick to condemn for following the powerful Baal-priests. He was a mess of a man, everything he did just led to more hurt and failure.

“I’ve had enough, Lord,” he prayed. “Take my life, I don’t deserve to live.”

He lay down under the meagre shelter of the broom bush. Exhausted both physically and emotionally, he was soon asleep.

Elijah woke suddenly, as if someone had touched his shoulder. He started up in panic, fearing that Jezebel’s minions had found him and he was about to die. But a voice spoke, and something about it dispelled all Elijah’s fear.

“Get up and eat.”

Elijah sat up, looking around. The wind had dropped, and all was still. The sun had just set and the stars were beginning to appear overhead, bright as flames. There was a small fire near his head, with bread baking over the hot coals. Nearby was a jar of water. He realised that both the journey and his emotions had taken a toll, and he was both hungry and thirsty.

He looked around in the light of the fire, but the speaker could not be seen.  

He ate the warm bread washed down with clear cool water from the jar. It was not the first time he had been fed in the wilderness. In the first year of the drought God had told him to go and hide in the Kerith Ravine, not far from his homeland of Tishbe in Gilead, and had fed him with bread and meat delivered by ravens. He had been completely dependent then on God’s provision. If he had trusted God then, surely he should be able to trust him even more now, after all the experience he had had of God’s power? And yet- Elijah felt his spirit still as dry as the desert around him. What use was he as a prophet?

He lay down again, refreshed by the food and water but still feeling bruised and shaken in his spirit. Tears of fear, of frustration, of failure, of loneliness, watered the desert floor until tired out by this new storm, he slept again.

In the twilight just before dawn he was woken again in the same way. A shadowy figure spoke; “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” There was more bread on the coals, more water in the jar. He ate and drank. Perhaps it was the food, or the sleep, but he felt stronger now. He was still afraid, still hopeless, still questioning whether he had a future. But a new resolve had come to him during the night, and he knew where he must go. It would be a long journey, and maybe it would be too much for him, but he had to go- to speak with God. There was no other way he could find peace with himself.




Based on https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Kings%2019&version=NIV

Seven Days

Miriam shivered in the chill of the desert evening. The wind was getting up too, and the sand blew across the plain towards her. She scratched again, tried to stop, and scratched again, cursing her skin, the sand, and the everlasting desert.

What a place. When her long-lost brother Moses had reappeared out of the desert, saying he had been sent to set the Israelites free, she had rejoiced. Their lives as slaves in Egypt had been hard. But they had only got harder after Moses arrived. Pharaoh had not been happy. Fleas, hail, frogs, locusts, blood, boils- plague had followed plague for the Egyptians, and they had not appreciated the fact that the Israelites had seemed to be immune. Finally, the last straw- every firstborn son in every Egyptian family, killed in one night. It had been horrible- and yet Miriam could not help but remember that years before, Pharaoh had ordered the death of every Israelite boy that was born. She might feel some sympathy for the ordinary Egyptians- but little for Pharaoh himself.

And so Moses had led the Israelites into freedom, even parting the waters of the Red Sea to let them through. That night she had sung and danced, praising the God who had given her little brother the power to do such things. The Israelites had moved on into the desert that seemed to go on for ever.

Miriam scratched again. The desert must have done something to her. She had been so glad to see her brother at first, proud to see him lead them into freedom. And then, little by little, she had begun to grow jealous. Moses was her little brother- why should he be special, and not her? Even now he was a hesitant speaker and seemed to spend half his time in despair at the Israelites. Miriam took a rather more pragmatic attitude and felt she could have done just as good a job at leading this rabble- better, perhaps. She had felt the God of the Israelites inspiring her words too- Moses didn’t have a monopoly on it.

And then there was his wife. Moses had married in the long years he had been away from home, and she was a foreigner- not one of them. Surely that wasn’t right for the leader of the Israelites to marry a Cushite?

All she had done was say to Aaron that it wasn’t right. And Moses’ God had heard, and called her out, and now here she was. Stuck outside the camp with a skin disease for a week, if she was lucky. She ground her teeth, remembering God’s words to her. It wasn’t fair. Aaron hadn’t been punished, even though she knew he agreed with her. He had at least begged for her to be healed. Even Moses had prayed for her to be healed when he saw what had happened to her. She scratched again, and shivered. She felt like screaming.

Her own brother had sent her out here! Without her, Moses would not even have lived! When their mother, at her wits end with hiding the boy after Pharaoh had decreed that all Israelite baby boys must be killed, had placed three-month-old Moses in a basket among the reeds of the Nile, Miriam had been the one who had watched the basket to see what happened. It had been part luck and part good judgement on the part of Miriam and her mother- Pharaoh's daughter had come to bathe and found the boy, and Miriam had told her that she knew an Israelite woman who could nurse the child for her. Pharaoh's daughter had agreed, and Moses’ own mother had nursed him those first few years, until he went to live at the palace. Without Miriam, that wouldn’t have happened. All that for the ungrateful little-

She looked up at the sound of a step. A shape was approaching her in the twilight. Miriam looked up. Was it her brother, come to forgive her and bring her back in? She didn’t want his pity.

It was Zipporah, Moses’ wife. Miriam glared at her, wondering if the woman knew she was the cause of everything that had gone wrong for her.

“I’ve brought you some food,” Zipporah said. “And a couple of the men are setting up a shelter for you.” She set down a covered basket beside Miriam and gestured in the direction she had come from. Two men were indeed carrying skins and wooden poles out of the camp.

Miriam said nothing.

“I hope you are well again soon,” Zipporah said, and, after waiting a second for a response that didn’t come, set off back to camp.

Miriam waited until Zipporah and the men had all gone back into the camp before opening the basket. Cakes of manna, freshly baked, and a jug of water.

She ate the cakes, then went to investigate the shelter. Zipporah had left a blanket there, and Miriam wrapped herself up thankfully, fighting the urge to scratch. Did Moses know what Zipporah had done? Had he sent her?

She looked down at her white, flaking skin. One week until she could go back into the camp. Seven days.


Three days later, she was still angry, but she was also too tired to care as much. The constant itch which stopped her from sleeping had worn her down. She lay in the shelter, enduring the midday heat, her skin on fire.

Maybe they should never have left Egypt to wander in this barren land. They had been slaves, true, but until Moses came along that had been bearable. There had been meat, and vegetables, and fruit, and bread. Out here, all they had to eat was manna, endless manna. God provided the manna each day, a sort of seed that could be grounds into flour to make bread or a kind of porridge. It tasted all right, but after weeks of nothing else the people had got restless and demanded meat. And meat there had been- flocks of quail. Not that it had done them much good. It had been diseased, and many had died.

She had been stupid to talk against her brother, Moses, like that. More importantly, she had been stupid to talk against God. Whatever she might be angry about, she knew all too well that they were totally dependent on him now. There was nowhere near enough food for the Israelites out here- if God abandoned them they would starve. If they did not first die of thirst- when they had run out of water, God had told Moses to split a rock with his staff- and water had flowed from it even in the middle of the desert.

Parting the sea, drawing water from a rock- Miriam had to admit that she would not have had the faith in God to do the things Moses had done. She would have been too scared of losing face when nothing happened. Moses managed to combine faith and humility.  Perhaps there was a reason Moses was the one who had been chosen to lead them after all.

Her skin was raw and bleeding and still itched. When Zipporah brought her food she had noticed and brought her clean linen for bandages, and water to soak them in to give her some relief. But she still slept only fitfully, tormented by the itch and pain and fear of what might be lurking out there in the desert. On the edge of the camp, she was aware of how vulnerable she was. But it hardly seemed to matter compared to the burning in her skin.

As the evening fell she crawled to the edge of her shelter. The sun was setting, turning the sands into a flaming sea.

She saw Zipporah approaching from the camp, bringing food, as she had every evening. On other days Miriam had not spoken to the woman, but this time, her curiosity overcame her jealousy.

“Does Moses know you have been helping me?”

“Of course,” Zipporah said. "He is your brother- he wants you to be well. We all do." She turned to leave.

"Thank you," Miriam said. She realised she no longer hated the foreign woman. She was grateful for her help, and too tired to hate.

She ate a little of the food, but she wasn't hungry. Her skin tormented her and she felt sick. As darkness fell, she lay in the shelter, turning first one way then the other seeking respite from her skin and her thoughts. "Why did you do this to me?" she cried out to God. "It would have been better for me to die!"

She wept, the salt tears stinging where they fell on open wounds. Eventually she slept.

The next day, almost unnoticed, was a little easier. The morning after that, when she woke she could tell that her skin was healing. It still itched, but the worst sores were beginning to heal and she did not feel so hopeless.

On the seventh evening, as darkness fell she saw not only Zipporah but Moses walking towards her from the edge of the camp. She stood up. and walked slowly to meet them.



Based on: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers%2012&version=NIV

I Will Be With You

The sheep had strayed again, searching for fresh greenery amid the desert dust. They had wandered to the foot of Mount Sinai, and some had begun to climb it’s slopes. Moses, tired and feeling his age creeping up on him, began to climb after them.

The sky above was blue and empty, cloudless. There had been no storms for weeks, so when Moses saw the flicker of a fire a little higher up the slope he was surprised. Other than a lightning strike, how could a fire just start out here? Was there somebody else nearby?

He climbed up for a closer look, pulling himself up the steep rocky slope. It did not have the look of a fire started by a traveller. A bush, clinging to the side of the mountain, was burning furiously. Moses blinked and looked more closely. The flames were licking the leaves and branches, but they were not burning. Flames danced but the bush was not consumed. Moses shook his head. How could a bush be on fire and yet not burn? There was something at work here that was not human, and Moses did not like it.

He was about to turn away when he heard the voice.

“Moses!”

He looked all round for the speaker, because he would not believe what his senses told him. There must be someone else nearby. It couldn’t be that the voice was coming from the bush.

“Moses!”

There was no one else there. Moses cleared his throat. “Er...yes? I’m here?”

“Do not come any closer,” the voice said. “Take off your sandals; the place you are standing on is holy ground. I am the God of your fathers, of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob.”

Moses crouched down, both to remove his shoes and to hide his face. His heart raced and his breathing was short, not just from the climb. He was face to face with God- an experience that would destroy anyone who was less than perfect. And Moses knew that he was much less than perfect. He remembered so many things he had done wrong- and one in particular that was worse than all the rest. The Egyptian he had killed.

The Egyptian had been beating one of Moses’ own people, the descendents of Jacob, the Israelites , now slaves in Egypt. Moses, although an Israelite , had been adopted and brought up in the Egyptian royal family. Yet when he saw one of his people being mistreated he had been filled with anger, and had killed the Egyptian and hidden the body.

He thought he had got away without being seen, but the very next day another Israelites had made it clear that his crime was known- and had also let Moses see, very clearly, that he was an outsider, a traitor to his class and people. Afraid of both Egyptians and Israelites, Moses had fled Egypt.

It had not just been the fear of being caught. He didn’t know who he was any more. Brought up by Pharoah’s daughter, he had identified with his Egyptian peers. But as he had grown up watching them enslave and ill-treat his birth family and those around them, he had felt that he did not belong. But he did not belong with the Israelites either- his Egyptian education and upbringing had set him apart from them. They did not know where his loyalties lay, did not trust him. Killing the Egyptian overseer had only brought that to a head. Rejected by both sides, alone, ashamed, he had sought sanctuary in the desert.

That had been years ago, and now the adopted son of Pharoah’s daughter was a shepherd in the desert. He had tried to forget his past. But it seemed his God had not forgotten him.

As if reading his thoughts, the voice spoke again. “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a land of their own. Go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

Moses could scarcely believe what he was hearing.  Him?  He was no leader- a murderer, hated by his own people.  Why on earth would anyone want him to do anything, let alone this!

“Me, Lord? Why should Pharoah listen to me- or the Israelites for that matter?”

“I will be with you.” The voice spoke again. “And when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you and they will worship God on this mountain.”

There was more, more instructions on what he was to do. Moses listened, but did not dare even to stand up. Go back to Egypt? Persuade Pharoah to set his industrious Israelite slaves free? Persuade the Israelites to follow him, of all people, out of Egypt? The idea filled him with terror. His life in the desert, hard as it was, suddenly seemed comfortable and safe compared to what his God was asking. He tried to find a way out.

“But Lord, I’m not a leader. I can’t speak well- no one will believe me, let alone do what I say.”

“I am the Lord, I will give you words to say and signs so that Pharoah and the Israelites will believe you. I will be with you. Now go.”

Moses was almost weeping in fear.

“Lord, please..there must be someone better than me.  Forgive me, Lord- please send someone else.”

The fire leapt up the branches of the burning bush. To Moses it almost seemed to be reaching out towards him.

“I will be with you! I have chosen you! Others will help to speak and you will perform miracles and signs in my name. Now, go!”

Moses stumbled away, sheep forgotten. At the bottom of the mountain he sat down on a rock to rest, still shaking in fear. He looked behind him, but the burning bush wasn’t visible. He guessed that if he went back to plead again to be released from this quest he would find no sign of the fire, no one to answer if he spoke. Not that he dared go back. It seemed there was no escape. Back to Egypt he would have to go.



Based on https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%203&version=NIV