One final mountain to climb

 When Moses was old and full of years, and his legs were no longer as fast as they once had been, God called him up the mountain.

The prophet climbed for most of the day, until the sweat on his face had turned dry and his skin was pulled taut like the papyrus scrolls he had held and read as a boy in pharaoh's court. His hair was matted to his head, and his eye had begun to twitch in time with the strange pulsing noise that came from the sun. His head was light but his arms were heavy, and God spoke to him as he had many years ago.

"Moses," the voice said. "Look down on the land below."

The prophet looked, and it was a beautiful thing to see. A river flowed through the land, and watered trees and fields alike. The prophet could almost taste the figs and the dates growing on the trees, he could almost smell the honey the bees kept in their hives, and his tired throat could feel clean water coursing through it.

It was a good land, he thought. "Flowing with milk and honey," as they used to say.

"Moses," God told him. "Lie down."

So Moses lay down, and the grass atop the mountain was soft and soothing on all the places where he ached. It was a nicer bed than he had lain in for forty years as he had led his people through the desert. It carried him back to his younger days in Midian with his wife; or further still, to the luxury he'd known in the royal court. It was odd to think that all this time such comfort had awaited him up here in a mountaintop meadow.

"Moses," God said. "You can no longer feel your legs."

And it was true. He couldn't. They had been bothering Moses for days beyond reckoning, and the climb up the mountain had brought aches to places he'd never felt before. But now they were relaxed and it seemed as though his legs had drifted away.

"Moses." He'd heard the voice of God thunder between the mountains when he'd climbed Sinai, but now the voice of the Almighty was little more than a whisper and he had to strain to hear it. "You can no longer feel your arms."

It was such a relief. He had carried such heavy loads with those arms, but they were fading away.

"Moses. Close your eyes."

The sky disappeared. The evening sun and the clouds vanished from view. There was no sky, there were no birds. All the prophet could hear was a steady drumbeat that filled his chest, his ears, his whole head.

And then -- "Moses. You're dead."

And there was silence on Mount Nebo.

 

Copyright ©2022 by David Learn