“Nineteen years passed and, on the evening of my birthday, which no one remembered save Milcah, Eleasar’s daughter, the Most High for the first time sent me a messenger.  He came in the guise of an angel, and bade me set the house in order; for a guest, the person dearest to me on earth, was on the way.

“It was early and under this very tree; but I went home and, with old Rachel’s help, set the house in order, and provided food, wine, and all else we offer to an honored guest.  Noon came, the afternoon passed away, evening deepened into night, and morning returned, yet I still waited for the guest.  But when the sum of that day was nearing the western horizon, the dogs began to bark loudly, and when I went to the door a powerful man, with tangled grey hair and beard, clad in the tattered white robes of a priest, hurried toward me.  The dogs shrank back whining; but I recognized my brother.

“Our meeting after so long a separation at first brought me more fear than pleasure; for Moses was flying from the officers of the law because he had slain the overseer.  You know the story.

“Wrath still glowed in his flashing eyes.  He seemed to me like the god Seth in his fury, and each one of his slow words was graven upon my soul as by a hammer and chisel.  Thrice seven days and nights he remained under my roof, and as I was alone with him and deaf Rachel, and he was compelled to remain concealed, no one came between us, and he taught me to know Him who is the God of our fathers.

“Trembling and despairing, I listened to his powerful words, which seemed to fall like rocks upon my breast, when he admonished me of God’s requirements, or described the grandeur and wrath of Him whom no mind can comprehend, and no name can describe.  Ah, when he spoke of Him and of the Egyptian gods, it seemed as if the God of my people stood before me like a giant, whose head touched the sky, and the other gods were creeping in the dust at his feet like whining curs.

“He taught me also that we alone were the people whom the Lord had chosen, we and no other.  Then for the first time I was filled with pride at being a descendant of Abraham, and every Hebrew seemed a brother, every daughter of Israel a sister.  Now, too, I perceived how cruelly my people had been enslaved and tortured.  I had been blind to their suffering, but Moses opened my eyes and sowed in my heart hate, intense hate of their oppressors, and from this hate sprang love for the victims.  I vowed to follow my brother and await the summons of my God.  And lo, he did not tarry and Jehovah’s voice spoke to me as with tongues.

“Old Rachel died.  At Moses’ bidding I gave up my solitary life and accepted the invitation of Aaron and Amminadab.

“So I became a guest in their household, yet led a separate life among them all.  They did not interfere with me, and the sycamore here on their land became my special property.  Beneath its shadow God commanded me to summon you and bestow on you the name “Help of Jehovah”—­and you, no longer Hosea, but Joshua, will obey the mandate of God and His prophetess.”