(AN: Here is the next chapter!)

(So far, the depiction of Sinai has been 'to the book', even so far as by having the elders hiding in Elijah's cave there-at [since it was at Sinai/Horeb] while Moses [and in my story Joshua] go up to meet with the LORD. The part about the 'pavement of sapphire' is for real, and therefore, since the color blue also represents the Law in the art of the Tabernacle, I have made the tablets of stone blue as well. My reasoning being that the rocks were burned by God's presence, but where He set His foot, it became like sapphire pavement, therefore His finger upon the tablets would turn them blue. Just thought I'd clear that up before we go further on.)

(I won't go into great detail over the Torah, though it will be cited in various places and the building of the Tabernacle will definitely be in this story. If you seek the full story, read Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. Like with Joshua, I refer you to the original text for further reference.)

Golden Calf

A few hours past midday and Aaron came down alone from the mountain. With him was the book, which he read to all the people. Just as before, they repeated the same refrain:

"All that the LORD has said, we will do."

Convinced of their sincerity - for who would say something they don't mean - Aaron proceeded with the building of the large altar, made of raw, un-hewn stone as per the instructions of the LORD written down in Moses' book. The twelve pillars were erected around it, and the oxen were slain upon it. Aaron read forth the covenant that the LORD had given to Moses and the people swore to obey it, saying what they had said before-hand. The blood was sprinkled upon the people and upon the pillars, to signify that all were covered by this covenant. Once this was done, Aaron found Hur and told the people that they were to come to them if they had any matters.

Thirty-nine days had passed since Moses and the elders departed into the mountain of Sinai, into the cloud of fire that rested atop its horned peak. For thirty-nine days the mana rained from Heaven, and there was always water issuing from the large rock at the foot of the mountain (coming forth now at word of mouth). And for thirty-nine days, malcontent had been brewing among the people of Israel.

At last, a great company of men gathered out front of Aaron's tent, where both he and Hur were gathered for the judgment of the people. From the restless look in their faces, Aaron knew to tread cautiously with the people and not do anything that might provoke them.

"Aaron," the spokesman said. "We have gathered together to make a petition before you and Hur."

"Speak," Aaron returned. "If it is the LORD's will, it shall be done."

"We want you to make a god for us," the spokesman said. "One who will go up before us and lead us."

"Were you not present at the announcement of the covenant?" Hur asked. "Did you not hear that the LORD told us 'Thou shalt have no other gods before Me' and 'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image'?" He scoffed. "Were you not there when He spoke to us directly from the Mountain?"

"We were there," the spokesman said. "And we heard the roar of thunder and the clash of lightning and a cloud upon the mountain: and nothing more."

"The LORD is with us!" Hur added. "By His hand alone we were brought out of Egypt, and it is He alone who guides us!"

"It is Moses that guides us," the spokesman said. "Not this phantom God of his, this travesty he told us to lure us away from the flesh-pots of Egypt. Where is our leader now, Hur?"

"He went into the mountain to speak with the LORD!" Hur insisted.

"And he has not returned." the spokesman added. "We're done waiting. It's been over a month."

"Go back to your homes." Hur said.

"Do you think these," the spokesman indicated to those around him. "Are the only ones desirous of this petition? Come!" The spokesman and his lackeys walked out of the tent, and Aaron and Hur followed after them. All around the tent the people were gathered, all six hundred thousand or more of them, spread out across the plains of Sinai.

"Good people of Israel," the spokesman announced. "Who has brought us out of Egypt?"

"Moses!" the people cried out with one voice.

"Shall we not build a new god to lead us?" Abiram, one of the lackeys, asked.

Cries of 'Yes!' rang even louder than before. Aaron hung his head in sadness. Hur, on the other hand, found a large rock and stood upon it, so that the people could see him and hear him speak.

"Brothers, people of Israel!" he called out over the din. "Do not do this rash wickedness. Is it not the LORD God that has brought us to this point, rather than Moses? Who called the mana to rain down from Heaven?"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Abiram said. "The mana came from the dew, not from Heaven!" His statement was greeted with cries of affirmation and agreement from those around them.

"And what of the water?" Hur continued. "Who called forth water from the desert to feed our flocks and herds?"

"Springs may shoot up from anywhere," Dathan, Abiram's brother and cohort in this rebellion, added. "If anything, it was Miriam's skill as a well-hunter."

"You're wasting our time!" the spokesman shouted.

"Did not the Red Sea part at the command of God and not Moses?" Hur added.

"That was no Red Sea!" On, a third cohort, added. "That was a reed sea, a shallow bed of marshes."

"Get down from there, fool!"

"Moses is our leader, and he's dead!"

"We want our own gods!"

"It's only been three months!" Hur shouted. "Can we not have faith in the LORD, since we have already seen evidence of all of His marvelous deeds?"

"Faith in an invisible God, who gives us nothing but a list of demands and performs ordinary miracles?" one from the crowd mocked. "Might as well say that up is down!"

The people laughed, while others stood in agreement with that statement. Some others, namely the cohorts of the rebellion, were looking at Hur with contempt, and making slashing motions across their throats at him.

"As your co-leader," Hur said. "Appointed by Moses to act in his stead, I will not submit to this plea to create foreign gods to supplant the Almighty God of Israel!"

The spokesman looked at two of his cohorts, then back at Hur and made a slashing motion across his neck.

"I implore you, good people of Israel!" Hur continued. "Do not be fooled by the lies of the unfaithful!" Strong hands seized him from behind and were dragging him down from the rock. "God has led us this far, and He will bring Moses back to us and lead us all to the Promised Land!"

"Stone him!" the spokesman shouted spitefully. "He's a liar! A charlatan just like his dead prophet!"

People began picking up rocks and hurling them at Hur. He began taking many hits, though his body, hardened with years of slave labor, made the old man stronger and he only groaned aloud as they struck his back and his arms.

"Take that, you old fool!" one of the people shouted as they heaved a rock at Hur.

"Where is your God now?" another mocked.

"Let Him save you!"

A large rock struck Hur on the side of the head, just strong enough to shatter his skull, and he fell to the ground, slowly being buried by the many stony missiles being hurled by the hateful people of Israel.

Aaron only looked on in fear as he saw his co-leader stoned to death, stunned into inaction. He did not speak or say anything in his defense, or in rebuke of the peoples' desires to build this 'god' of theirs. He just watched. After all, he was just the diplomat.

"Aaron," the spokesman said to him, his voice becoming sweet like poisoned honey. "You have not spoken since we gave our petition." The people and the lackeys started to gather around him, getting uncomfortably close, even by the standards of the East. "What do you have to say? Will you build our god for us, or join him?" He pointed to Hur's bloodied and broken body, covered with rocks just a little bit away.

Aaron swallowed hard. He was not cut out for this. He was just the diplomat. He talked and talked, but that was all he knew how to do. He had never had the burden of responsibility that his sister and brother had. He just spoke.

"Well?" they asked, getting closer.

Silence filled the air as the people gazed upon Aaron, hungry to either kill him or have their way. Aaron knew what would happen, and he dared not disobey. Exactly who he would be disobeying, however, was a different story.

"Break off all your gold earrings," he said. "And bring me all the gold that we have."

A cheer arose from the people as they immediately dispersed, to do as they had been instructed. From behind, a very stern and severe looking Miriam approached her brother.

"Gutless swine." she muttered.

"They were going to kill me!" Aaron cried, turning to her. "What was I supposed to do?"

"Show some backbone!" she shouted. "You're a son of Amram, for the sake of God, at least act like it!"

Aaron said nothing, but Miriam simply breathed and calmed herself down.

"I am going to take your two youngest sons, Elishebah and the rest of those who have faith in the LORD, and we are not going to be part of this! I will not have you stain the tribe of Levi with your spineless deviation!"

"But what if they kill you?" Aaron asked.

"Kill the whole tribe of Levi?" she laughed. "Hur has died, do you think we won't be ready if those rebels come crawling to our tents to make us worship their false god?" She walked off, very angry. Aaron, however, looked up to the fiery summit of Mount Sinai.

"Forgive me, brother." he whispered.

A gust of fire flew down from the inferno above. It struck the rocks barely a few cubits away from where Moses and Joshua lay, crouched like little rodents against the fury of a storm. Daring to look up, Moses saw what looked like a hand made of fire floating above the stones, sending sparks and flames down onto the stones about where it touched.

As soon as it had appeared, it was gone, leaving sulfur smells and burned rock in its wake. Looking up, Moses saw that there was another thing left from the fire as well. Two stone tablets, a cubit long and half-a-cubit wide, burned to a deep shade of sapphire blue, stood where the fiery hand had touched the ground. Scribbled upon them were lines that burned with white fire. The script was flowing and beautiful, like the Hieratic of Egypt yet wholly different.

Steam and smoke billowed from the tablets as the wind cooled them with its fierce torrents. His gray-white beard flying in the wind the more he stood up, Moses crawled over to the blackened rocks and put his hand upon one of the tablets. They were still warm, though they did not burn his hands.

"Written with the finger of God..." Moses muttered, his hands closing around the warm stone, feeling the still hot white lines of script upon them. He rose to a kneeling position, keeping his eyes away from the top of the mountain, and then picked up the other tablet, placing it on top of the other.

Looking at the face of the one that looked up, he saw the Ten Commandments that, over a month ago, the LORD had proclaimed to all of Israel. Carefully sliding them apart, he saw that they had been repeated on the other tablet. The covenant that they were to make with the LORD was so great that His Commandments were duplicated.

Suddenly, just as Moses was at the line 'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image...', he heard a voice from the midst of the inferno above his head.

"Go! Get thee down, for thy people which thou has brought unto Me from Egypt have corrupted themselves! They have quickly turned aside from the way I have commanded for them, and have made a golden calf, worshiping and sacrificing before it, saying 'This is your God, O Israel, who has brought you out of Egypt.'

"Now leave Me be, that I may strike them down with My great wrath and consume these stiff-necked rebels, and make of you, Moses, a great and worthy nation!"

It was the greatest offer one could ever have been given: to see the rebellious, complaining people of Israel removed and have the promise of Abraham fulfilled through him. Moses could never understand, to his dying day, why he spoke these next few words.

"No, my LORD!" Moses shouted, his voice sounding small in comparison to the roar of the wind. "Why does Your anger w-w-wax hot against Thy people, which Thy almighty hand has b-b-brought forth out of Egypt? Please, do not do this thing, be it far from you! Egypt will say that You t-t-t-took Your people out into the wilderness to die! Please! Turn from Thy fierce wrath, O LORD!"

He buried his face upon the stones, not even daring to look up at the LORD as he begged with Him for the undeserving lives of the people of Israel.

"Please!" he sobbed. "Remember Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Thy servants, to whom You p-p-p-p-p-promised by Yourself that You would make their descend-d-d-dants like the stars of the Heavens...t-to give them the land as their inheritance!"

He dared to look up at the great inferno above.

"Blot my name out of Your book," he said. "But please f-f-forgive Thy children!"

There was silence as the fire raged above his head, and Moses continued to weep.

"The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth," the LORD said. "As I told thee, Moses, My angel will go before thee, leading the people to the Promised Land. Nevertheless, on the day that I visit, I shall visit this sin upon thy people. They will not be destroyed, but neither will they be allowed to go unpunished."

Moses nodded, then turned his back and made down from the mountain. Hearing footsteps, Joshua lifted his head up and saw Moses making his way down the side of the hill. Quickly he went after him, trying not to look too long at the blinding light shining from Moses' face. Taking a look at Moses' back, he saw the tablets of stone cradled in his arms, with some writing in a white script upon the reverse.

They were now half-way down the mountain, arriving at the little cave where they left the elders. Fortunately, for them, they had packed food and water. For them, this perilous camping in the cave of Sinai was more comfortable since they had food and water to eat, and a place to shelter them from the wind. For Moses and Joshua, though, they endured the slopes before the mountain's summit without food or water or any protection other than their robes.

They cried out when they saw the face of Moses, shining like the sun, with rays of light coming from his eyes like two great horns. It was indeed a fearful sight and they threw themselves on their knees before him.

"Why do you kneel?" Moses asked.

"We cannot bear to look at your face, Moses," Nashon said. "For the light of God shines from your very countenance."

"Please," Moses shook his head. "Kneel not before me."

One by one they rose, not daring to look Moses in the face and marveling at the tablets of blue stone cradled in Moses' hand. Joshua, on the other hand, made his way close to the edge of the cliff-side. Through the din of the rushing wind, he could hear some faint rumor from far below.

"Do you hear that?" he asked, turning back to the elders. "Methinks I hear voices crying out from below." Moses quickly walked over to Joshua's side, and perked his ears up, trying to pierce the loudness of the wind to hear what Joshua was talking about. With neither his natural force abated nor his eyes dim by reason of his age, Moses could easily see and hear as though he were still full of youth and vigor.

Just beyond the sound of the wind, there rose up another sound, faint and distant, coming from the very bottom of the mountain. Indistinct voices were crying out in dissonance against each other, sounding like whispers this high above them.

"There is a noise of war in the camp!" Joshua said, turning to Moses.

"No," Moses shook his head. "It is the noise of song."

The trek down the mountain was not any easier than the climb up its rocky face. They were now outside of the clouds, but what they saw below them in the plain was shocking. The people of Israel were gathered around a high altar made of large boulders, upon which they were burning sacrifices. Facing this altar was the image of a golden calf, like the pictures of Hathor from the walls of Egypt. All around this sacrilegious symbol of idolatry the people of Israel worshiped and partied with much noise and reckless abandon. Clothes went flying and men and women danced naked before the golden calf.

Moses' shining white face was livid with anger.

"How quickly they forget the LORD their God!" he seethed. The report of the LORD was more than true. Moses ran down the mountain, the two tablets of stone in each hand as he went. Seeing that Moses was angry and that something was going to happen, Joshua thought quickly and took out the Horn of Nun. The people would know that divine vengeance was upon them.

With the blast of the horn, all the people suddenly became silent. They looked up to the side of the mountain as they saw Moses walking towards them as swift as the wind. He came to a rock that leaned out closest to the camp, within sight of the golden calf.

"BLASPHEMERS!" Moses shouted to the people in his rage. "IDOLATORS! This is what the LORD thinks of your god of gold!"

With a great cry, he heaved the tablets of stone up above his head and threw them down in the direction of the golden calf. In a cry of shock and fear, the people parted as the blue tablets fell only a few cubits shy of the golden calf, shattering into pieces with the force the of the blow.

None of the people moved as Moses ran down the next few steps of the mountain. For the past three months, they had known Moses as a quiet, in-eloquent yet compliant leader. Now they were faced with his wrath and indignation for their grievous sin. His hands were shaking as he grabbed a mattock and ran towards the golden calf.

"Vain, stiff-necked, ungrateful people!" he said, standing before the calf. With his full strength, he swung the mattock back and struck the head of the golden calf from off its body. With righteous indignation, he began attacking the golden body with the tool, breaking it to many pieces.

"The LORD brought you out of Egypt," he continued. "And for the last four months, you have begged to go back to your masters in Egypt! He gave you food when you were hungry, water when you were thirsty, delivered you from the hand of the Amalekites, and this is how you repay Him? Selling yourselves like whores on the street to this blind, deaf, helpless idol!" He struck the smitten-off head of the calf with the mattock, shattering the craftsmanship.

"Even now, after He spoke to you with His own voice, gave you His commandments, and you swore to obey all that He had spoken, you deliberately disobey the LORD God of Israel!" He was now smashing the smaller bits with the head of the mattock, while the people looked on in shock. While he continued, Aaron stepped forward to see why the music and revelry had suddenly ended.

"Moses?" he asked incredulously. "What have you done?"

"No, Aaron," he shot back, pointing with his hand in Aaron's direction. "What have you done? Where is Hur? Why have you caused the people to sin?"

"It-It wasn't my fault, brother!" Aaron whined. Moses turned back to destroying the calf of gold. "You know how the people are, always dead-set on mischief. They told me to make them a god to go before them, and I said to bring their gold and jewelry before me. Then I threw it into the fire, and out rose this golden calf!"

"How dare you blame the LORD for this idolatry!" Moses shot back, stepping up to within an inch of his brother's face. Aaron balked, unable to stand looking at the shining face of fury for any great length of time.

The golden calf was now in small pieces. These Moses collected up and threw into a large bucket. This he took over to the still heated furnaces which Aaron had ordered built for the construction of the calf, and dumped the pieces into the furnace. As if he were not going fast enough, he began to make the furnace go hotter, until all the gold had melted. With iron tongs, he grabbed the crucible that contained the melted gold and set at once back to the side of the mountain. Here he stopped at the rock which brought forth water for the people. Already a small pool there was gathered below it, for the people and their animals to drink from. Moses overturned the crucible and poured the molten gold into the water.

"There," he said. "If you wish to drink, you can drink the consequences of your sins."

"Moses, please." Aaron said, running over to his brother's side. "Don't be rash! Yes, we have sinned. But do not inflict this harsh punishment upon our people for the sake of a few..."

"Harsh?" Moses returned, laughing at his brother's statement. There was no jesting in his voice. "If the LORD threatened you with what He had originally ordained, you would be begging to suffer under this punishment!"

"But, Moses..."

But Aaron's brother was fed up with his excuses. He turned instead to those around them.

"Whoever is on the LORD's side," he announced. "Come with me."

(AN: The other tablets won't be blue, since they were not written by God's hand.)

(I created Moses' little rant, since he's very angry and wanted to get that across to the listeners.)

(Hur getting murdered like that is not mentioned in the Old Testament, but it should be noted that he was assigned to be co-regent with Aaron, yet not only did he nothing to stop the building of the Golden Calf, he's not mentioned ever again in the Exodus narrative. So I guess we can follow the Talmudic/Midrash tradition and say that the rebellious people of Israel killed him to silence his protests, and to goad Aaron into acting in their favor.)

(The 'script' that the Commandments are in is Hebrew. I don't know if this is for real, but I think that, after four hundred years, the Israelites assimilated the Egyptian Hieratic script, and so I have it that God creates their own, Hebrew script for them as a 'start' for their new nation.)

(Do I need to elaborate more? My prose isn't too 'purple', is it? Should I spend some time working on the 'little' characters like Salmon and Mered? Remember, your questions are welcomed and I'll try to answer them...if I can remember them all. [lol])