I feel rather foolish now that it’s all worked out well.  Just a few hours ago, I was terrified – sure that we were all going to be slaughtered!  Now all the people who threatened us are dead and we are safe and happy.

I’m just an ordinary man.  I was a slave just like everyone else.  I complained about the Egyptian overseers who demanded that we make a ridiculous number of bricks.  I complained even more when Moses came along and we were expected not only to make bricks, but also to find the straw for them.  I complained when all the water in the Nile was changed to blood: after all, what were we supposed to drink?  And the frogs that came next were disgusting.  What else can I say?  Walking around trying to find enough room to put my feet and still ending up stepping on slimy frogs all the time.  Then, going to bed at night… I think you can imagine for yourself what it was like trying to clear a space in the dark to lie down, and waking up frequently during the night with frogs all over me.  Once I woke up with one frog’s foot in my mouth and another in my ear! Finally the frogs went away – but then it was gnats.  It wasn’t possible to avoid getting them in my mouth.  I was eating mouthfuls of gnats, and other gnats were biting me all over.  It was hard to work out who was getting more food from whom.

Naturally, I complained along with everyone else.  Moses wasn’t helping us at all.  Everything had just got worse since he appeared.

When the fourth plague came, though, there was a reprieve, because Goshen where we lived was free of the flies that filled the rest of Egypt.  That got me thinking a bit, but it wasn’t as if there was any clear line where there were flies on one side and none on the other.  If we went anywhere outside Goshen, we slowly started to meet flies, then more and more until the air – and your mouth, hair, eyes, ears and everything else – were full of flies.  It was as if there was some reason why the flies didn’t like Goshen.  Well, I didn’t care whether it was natural or not, I was just glad that we didn’t have the flies or any of the other plagues that followed.  Our cattle didn’t die, we weren’t covered with boils, no hail fell on us, and no locusts swarmed in Goshen.  For once, we were doing rather well, and I wasn’t complaining then – except about the work we still had to do, of course.

The darkness was yet another plague, and we didn’t have that either.  We could see the sun and moon as usual – as long as we didn’t go outside Goshen.  If we did, they gradually got dimmer and dimmer until they disappeared completely in the tangible blackness that filled the rest of the land.

That was all very good, but if the plagues were meant to bring Pharaoh to heel, then it wasn’t working.  Pharaoh was still refusing to treat us any better than he had been doing.  Nothing that Moses brought on the land made any difference.  Oh, in the middle of a plague Pharaoh would admit that he had been a bad boy, but when the heat was off, so was his remorse.  He could turn contrition on and off as it suited him.

The last plague, however, did the trick.  It was overwhelmingly convincing.  Beforehand, Moses warned us that firstborn sons all over the land – including Goshen – would be killed on one particular night unless we followed some fancy instructions that he gave us.

It was inconvenient all right, but we got everything organised and were quite careful in obeying those instructions – even to keeping a lamb inside for four days and then slopping its blood on the doorposts of the house.  I suppose it worked: my son is still alive, whereas I hear that all of the firstborn Egyptians died that night.  Quite a few Egyptians had moved in among us Hebrews by that time.  Some of them seemed to want to learn about the God that Moses was talking about, while others were just trying to avoid the plagues, even to the point of being willing to live among slaves to do so.  Goshen’s not the most upmarket neighbourhood in Egypt, but even a slum is attractive when it is the only place free of locusts and the other plagues Moses kept bringing.  And, of course, the guards and taskmasters lived in Goshen to make sure that we were kept under control.

When midnight came, a sudden hubbub of screams and wailing broke out from among our Egyptian “neighbours”.  Once I worked out what it was about, I was glad to hear it.  So many Hebrews – babies, children and adults – have died through the brutality of the Egyptians that it seemed only fair for them to get their share of death and mourning.

Then we were leaving Egypt and the Egyptians were giving us presents!  I still haven’t figured that out.  Ah well, it meant that we were all richer than we had ever been before and had a lot more to carry than you might have expected a bunch of slaves to own.

Leaving was hard.  We didn’t know where we were going and we weren’t used to walking long distances.  Everyone was glad to go in some ways, but it wasn’t long before we started to notice the problems.  Sand gets into everything.  Dust fills your mouth, nose, eyes and everything.  Heat and hard walking.  No houses.

But I thought we were coping well enough until we had that unaccountable change in direction, back down the coast.  Moses told us that it was God’s instruction, and since he was the only one who knew the area at all, we had to take his word for it.  Dust and sand are my strongest memories of the days after we left Goshen.  I’ve never breathed so much dust or got so much sand in my eyes.  Countless tramping feet meant endless clouds of dust.  Moses told us that there was a pillar of smoke sent by God to lead us, but I was too far back in the dust to be able to see anything like that, and I’m not prone to believing things that I can’t see.  I have to admit that there did seem to be some light, though – sometimes it almost looked like a column of fire when we stopped for the night.

In summary, it wasn’t a particularly enjoyable trip, but everything was progressing well enough and we were rather pleased to be leaving Egypt.  Then one afternoon as the sun was setting and we were getting ready to camp for the night, our doom caught up with us.

Most of us had been keeping a bit of a lookout behind us.  Not a constant watch, you understand, just the occasional check.  We’d had enough experience of Pharaoh to be a little worried that he might chase us.  By that time, though, we’d begun to hope that we’d got clean away.  It was not to be.  As the sun sank in the west, people began to notice small clouds of dust on the horizon – clouds that grew larger as we watched.

Everybody stopped setting up camp and stood, staring in fear at those clouds of dust.  Before long, it was clear that there was an army marching after us, and who else could it be but Pharaoh?

Quite understandably, I think, we panicked.  I don’t mean that we dropped our goods and started running away, but many people did start calling out, asking for God to help us.  Others of us formed a delegation and went to remind Moses that we had told him while we were in Egypt that he should leave well enough alone – being a slave wasn’t great, but it was better than being dead!  At that stage, it looked as if we were all going to die in the desert, and there was a lot of worry and anger directed at Moses.

Moses told us not to worry, but really, what else was he going to say?  Seriously, it didn’t sound very convincing to me.  Anyway, while we were talking to Moses, arguing against his glib “Just wait!” message, there was some thunder that almost sounded like a voice.  Some people even said that God was telling Moses what to do, but most of us didn’t hear it that way.  Just thunder, I reckon.

Nevertheless, Moses had an idea, and he made his way to the beach and waved his staff around over the water.

By that time, it was almost completely dark, and that sort of cloud that Moses makes so much of moved from between us and the sea to being between us and the Egyptians.  A flimsy sort of cloud wasn’t going to do much to keep the Egyptians away, I thought.

But for some reason, the Egyptians didn’t come and attack us straight away – definitely some bad leadership decisions there.

On the other hand, we were very fortunate with the weather, too.  A strong east wind sprang up right when we needed it and there was so much dust and sand blowing around that I suspect it took the Egyptians a long time to find exactly where we were; long enough that, by the time they did, it was too late.

Anyway, after that peal of thunder, Moses told us all to move forward – straight towards the sea, mind you!  By that time, it was pitch dark: the moon still hadn’t risen and the stars were no help, with all the dust and sand in the air.  I suppose that there was a little light from that cloud, but it didn’t help much either.

Still, some of the leaders started to follow Moses’ instructions straight away, marching happily off into the darkness.  Crazy!

I didn’t know what was the best thing to do.  Nothing seemed to be able to convince Moses that he should try some other plan.  After all, it was just a matter of time before the Egyptians would be in amongst us, killing and maiming, and walking out into the water wasn’t going to help, was it?