Ann Neely

Zelo's Daughters Ann Neely

In late summer the Nile River floods its banks and replenishes the land with rich volcanic silt scoured from the southern mountains of Ethiopia. When the waters recede, the Egyptians plant their seeds and rejoice in that great annual blessing sent by Sothis, god of the Nile.

Yahweh, God of the Hebrew people, sent a man named Moses with a different kind of blessing, a different kind of flood. Its waters rose on a swell of slavery and crested on ten plagues. It overflowed the land when Hebrew slaves threw down their tools and abandoned the quarries, the jade mines, the dredging barges, the brickyards, the dying vats, and Pharaoh's building projects.

At the behest of Moses, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob asked their former masters for gifts: silver, gold, and clothing. They stripped the coffers of Egypt. Then the Hebrew people, in a swirling mass of over a million souls, drained from every corner of their captivity. They left Cairo and Memphis and Ramses. They flowed north and returned to the land of Goshen, the rich delta Joseph had given his brothers 430 years before. From there Moses led the twelve tribes into the wilderness toward the Promised Land.

The flood of Yahweh, God of Israel, did not replenish. The flood of Yahweh, known as The Exodus, stripped away the nation of Israel and decimated the land of the Pharaohs.