Aggada -- Translations into English; Bible. Old Testament -- Legends; Jewish legends; Midrash -- Translations into English
They could find none except Moses fit to be their king. They hastened
and stripped off each man his upper garment, and cast them all in a
heap upon the ground, making a high place, on top of which they set
Moses. Then they blew with trumpets, and called out before him: "Long
live the king! Long live the king!" And all the people and the nobles
swore unto him to give him Adoniah for wife, the Ethiopian queen, the
widow of Kikanos. And they made Moses king over them on that day.
They also issued a proclamation, commanding every man to give Moses of
what he possessed, and upon the high place they spread a sheet, wherein
each one cast something, this one a gold nose ring, that one a coin,
and onyx stones, bdellium, pearls, gold, and silver in great abundance.
Moses was twenty-seven years old when he became king over Ethiopia, and
he reigned for forty years. On the seventh day of his reign, all the
people assembled and came before him, to ask his counsel as to what was
to be done to the city they were besieging. The king answered them, and
said: "If you will hearken to my words, the city will be delivered into
our hands. Proclaim with a loud voice throughout the whole camp, unto
all the people, saying: 'Thus saith the king! Go to the forest and
fetch hither of the young of the stork, each man one fledgling in his
hand. And if there be any man that transgresseth the word of the king,
not to bring a bird, he shall die, and the king shall take all
belonging to him.' And when you have brought them, they shall be in
your keeping. You shall rear them until they grow up, and you shall
teach them to fly as the hawk flieth."
All the people did according to the word of Moses, and after the young
storks had grown to full size, he ordered them to be starved for three
days. On the third day the king said unto them, "Let every man put on
his armor and gird his sword upon him. Each one shall mount his horse,
and each shall set his stork upon his hand, and we will rise up and
fight against the city opposite to the place of the serpents."
When they came to the appointed spot, the king said to them, "Let each
man send forth his young stork, to descend upon the serpents." Thus
they did, and the birds swooped down and devoured all the reptiles and
destroyed them. After the serpents were removed in this way, the men
fought against the city, subdued it, and killed all its inhabitants,
but of the people besieging it there died not one.
When Balaam saw that the city had fallen into the hands of the
besiegers, he exercised his magic arts, which enabled him to fly
through the air, and he carried with him his two sons, Jannes and
Jambres, and his eight brothers, and they all took refuge in Egypt.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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