Ten Plagues – 1990
Rancho del Cielo, California, USA
"How is the President?"
"He's doing well thank you, He has his good days and bad days, and, of course, the general drift is always down. It's so cruel, why did this have to happen to him?" Nancy Reagan's voice cracked slightly, then she recovered. "Naamah, it is very good of you to come to see us, your visits always cheer Ronnie up so much. But please come through to the study. Ronnie is so looking forward to seeing you."
President Reagan was sitting behind his desk, reading papers, but he rose to his feet as soon as the door open. Naamah saw his eyes flick down to the list of names on his desk, for some reason the ability to link names and faces was one of the first things to be destroyed by the creeping blight of Alzheimer's. It was, perhaps, typical of the man that he kept a directory of pictures and names on his desk so that a visitor wouldn't be offended by an error. "Welcome to the Ranch, Naamah. Would you like some coffee, or tea perhaps? Nancy, could you see to it please?"
Reagan waited until Naamah was seated before resuming his own. That courtesy had caused problems sometimes during his Presidency; there had been a couple of occasions in the Oval Office when he and a woman visitor had remained standing, each waiting for the other to sit first. He and Naamah both smiled at the shared memory, of all the Presidents she had worked for, this was the only one she had actually liked. They chatted for a few minutes over inconsequential things until Nancy Reagan returned with a tray of tea. She poured out cups for Naamah and the President, and was about to leave when Reagan asked her to stay with them.
"Naamah, ever since I learned about your people, I've been reading the Bible again, this time with different eyes. Then, last week there was a program on television about the Ten Plagues of Egypt, saying they were the result of a volcanic eruption." Reagan stopped and smiled sadly. "I wanted to ask you about that before I forgot."
Naamah took a sip of her tea while she collected her thoughts. It had been so long ago "Its a long story Mister President, and one where many parts have been fitted together by people who wrote and rewrote the story to serve their own ends. It all started with a Pharaoh called Amehotep. Back then, Egypt was ruled from Thebes and the state religion was a collection of gods, Apophis, Ra, Anubis, you've heard all the names. Amenhotep was really displeased by the wealth and power held by the religious priesthood and wanted to end all that. It wasn't just they had amassed wealth, and power, they were a threat to him and his family. Also, he had been converted to a new religion, one where there was only one god, the Sun-God, Aten. So, when he became Pharaoh, he changed his name to Akhenaten, banned the worship of the old gods and made the priests do some real work for a change. They didn't like that, Mister President, they didn't like it at all. He declared that his god Aten was the only legitimate god but he compromised a little, he identified Aten with Ra, the previous sun god. He still banned the worship of all the other gods and closed down pretty well all the sacred temples. He also claimed his god would appear to him in the form of a sacred fire that would occupy things but not consume them.
"Akhenaten even moved the capital away from Thebes, to a new city called Armana. That was purely political of course, by doing so he divorced the priests even more thoroughly from the Royal Court. The power struggle that went on was even more vicious than he'd expected. The new religion of Aten created sophisticated ceremonies in the temples and palaces while Akhenaten's supporters attacked the cults of other deities in Egypt. All the other temples were desecrated and evidence of worship in them was destroyed. Akhenaten even had his father's cartouches destroyed because it had the old gods' names encrypted upon it. The result was civil war, with the north of the country, based around Thebes pitted against the south, based at Armana. The divisions in the people were bitter Mister President, much worse than in the American Civil War. Of course, Akhenaten was on the losing side, the people of Egypt were outraged by the insults to their old gods and rebelled. Most of the cities in Egypt were deprived of workers for their estates and plantations, that created starvation and disease.
"After 18 years Akhenaten had pretty much lost the civil war. He was killed in some of the fighting and was followed by a series of short-lived Pharaohs who tried to carry on his beliefs. One by one they were all killed. It took fifty years before the fighting ended and the cult of Aten eliminated in favor of the old religion. The followers of Aten were enslaved of course, that was the way things worked back then. Egypt was a ruin, bankrupt, starving, diseased. The older buildings and records had been destroyed and defaced. So much had been lost. Anyway, the enslaved followers of Aten were put to work repairing the damage their heresy had caused. By this time, Ramesses II was Pharaoh and he had a country to rebuild and it was only fair that the people whose heresy was responsible for the destruction. Mister President, in ancient Egyptian, such enslaved prisoners were called Habiru.
"Those were not merciful times, Mister President, slaves were not treated well and a defeated and enslaved enemy was treated worse than most. There were few who did not treat their enemies that way and Ramesses was not one of them. The intention was to work those slaves to death. In the end, only a few thousand were left. Of course, they were the toughest and hardest, the survivors. In the end, faced with a choice of certain death in the quarries and worksites or probable death trying to escape, they chose probable. Lead by a Prince called Amosesnut, the last of Akhenaten's line, they made a break for the wilderness.
"It goes without saying that chasing a group of escaped slaves was far beneath the dignity of any Pharaoh, let alone one with the ego of Ramesses. He ordered his eldest son to take a military force, intercept the escaping Habiru and annihilate them. As it happened the nearest force to the escaping slaves was the Royal Charioteers. They were a very special unit of 600 chariots, the elite Royal Guard of the Egyptian Army. The first-born son of every family of note was enrolled in that unit. By this time, it was obvious that the Habiru were heading for the East. I don't know if Amosesnut had worked it out but they were going into an area called The Reed Sea. Mister President, in Egyptian, any salt marsh is called a Reed Sea but there was a huge one just east of Pi-Ramesses that was always called The Reed Sea. It was a maze of semi-submerged paths, of swamps and marshes, seething with poisonous snakes and quicksand that could swallow a man in seconds.
"Ramesses ' son was Amenhirkhepeshef. Like most eldest sons of very dominant fathers, he was always trying to prove himself and he saw this pursuit as a way of doing that. He allowed that to blind him to the dangers of what he was doing and he took the entire unit into The Reed Sea in pursuit of the Habiru. He'd forgotten two things. One was that he had 600 chariots, each with a crew of two, at most 1200 men. He was facing about five or six thousand escaped slaves so he was pretty heavily outnumbered. The other thing was that it is hard to imagine a worse place for chariots to fight than the Reed Sea. There was only one major way through, a sort of ridge that split the marsh into two sections. Amenhirkhepeshef lead his chariots along that ridge, straight into an ambush. Amosesnut had gathered as much dry wood and plants as he could and stacked them across the ridge. When the chariots approached he had that barricade set on fire.
"Mister President, armies then were pretty undisciplined. The chariots weren't advancing as a phalanx or anything like that. No order, just a mob of horses charging as a herd. A chariot isn't even very agile, its very easy to overturn and very easy to fall out of . When the barricade burst into flame in front of them, the lead chariots would try to swerve out of the way and go over. Others would pile straight into the fires while the ones further back would charge into the disorganized chaos at the front, adding still more to the catastrophe. Then, of course, the Habiru closed in on the flanks. The Egyptian charioteers were at a terrible disadvantage, in a bad position, outnumbered and surrounded. The ones at the back tried to turn around and get away but their chariots couldn't make the turn and they had to try and make their escape on foot through the swamps. The Habiru hunted them down and killed them all. There were no survivors. That was the last "plague" Mister President, the death of the First Born. Not a plague at all but a military disaster."
There was silence as the Reagans and Naamah reflected on her story. Quietly, Nancy Reagan refilled the President's and Naamah's teacups. Eventually the President broke the quiet. "So the plagues in the Bible were just the results of civil war then?"
"To some extent, yes Sir. The civil war had left the country in a bad way, there was starvation and disease certainly, but that isn't where the rest of the story came from. Have you ever read the Book of the Dead, Mister President?"
"Is there such a thing? I thought it was just a creation of film-makers."
"Oh yes Mister President. As a matter of fact there are quite a number of them. We have a copy of the most common one at the NSC Building, I'll ask Lillith to send it to you. They aren't anything mysterious, they are just collections of old legends that were buried with the dead to help them find their way around their new world. One of them contains the legend of Osiris.
"According to the legends in the Book of the Dead, Osiris was the son of Geb and Nut and was born in Thebes in Upper Egypt. Upon his birth, his grandfather, Ra, pronounced him heir to his throne, and when Geb retired, Osiris assumed this role and took his sister, Isis, as queen. After he had turned Egypt into a new civilization, he left Isis to rule Egypt and spent the next few years spreading his dominion around the world. He returned only after civilizing the entire earth. He found that Isis ruled wisely and his kingdom was still in perfect order. However, it was at this point that his brother, Set, began plotting against him. Set held an extravagant banquet and invited Osiris. After the festivities were over, Set produced a magnificent coffin made of reeds and papyrus and offered it as a gift to whomever it fitted best. Of course, it had been built for Osiriss form and when he got in it, Set shut the lid and threw it in the Nile river. The coffin with Osiris inside floated away down the river and Set took Osiriss place, believing that Osiris had died a cruel and lingering death.
"However, Set had miscalculated. The coffin containing Osiris had been found by the kings of Byblos. Osiris had been driven mad by his ordeal and did not remember who he was or where he had come from. But, the people who had found him looked after him and restored his body to health. Meanwhile, the grieving Isis had searched everywhere for Osiriss remains. After twenty years of searching, she came upon Byblos where Osiris now lived and recognized him. He did not recognize her though, nor did he remember who he was. Hoping that the sight of his home would restore his memory, Isis took him back to Egypt. Unfortunately, Set discovered her plan and laid an ambush for them There was a great battle, during which Osiris was killed. Set found his body on the battlefield and tore it into nine pieces, throwing them again into the river.
"When Ra looked down from the heavens and saw what set had done to his favorite son, he was greatly enraged. He struck Set down and commanded him to spend the rest of eternity crawling on his belly. To punish the people of Egypt for accepting Set as their ruler and not standing by Osiris, he caused each one of the parts of Osiris's body to become the source of a separate plague. As people found each part, the plague was unleashed and scourged the people of Egypt.
"When the legends of the Habiru escape from Egypt were being written, the scribes didn't want to admit that their ancestors had simply lost a civil war so they took the legends of Osiris, rewrote them into the styles of the religion that was evolving from the older Aten cult and combined them with the story of the escape and the last great battle. By then, rewriting and changes had taken place, Habiru had become Hebrew and Aten became Yahweh. You know there is only one mention of Israelites in all of the recovered Egyptian texts? That fooled the scholars for centuries, they didnt realize they should be looking for Habiru instead."
Nancy Reagan leaned over the desk and took her husband's hand. "Ronnie, you had better not tell any of this to Jimmy or Billy. They'll have fifty different kinds of fits and probably foam at the mouth."
Naamah started. "Mister President, nobody's been told about us have they?"
Regan shook his head. "Naamah, your secrets are safe with us. Nobody's been told and nothing's written down. Somebody else might figure it out, that is a chance you'll have to take. I guess you always have. But they won't learn it from us. I suppose you are going to tell us that the children of Israel didn't wander in the desert for forty years either?"
"Well, Mister President, they did, in a manner of speaking. There were a stream of refugees from Upper and Lower Egypt all through the reign of Ramesses and they did arrive throughout the period. I suppose in that sense they wandered for forty years. It was a sort of stream of people that went on for forty years. But the real explanation is quite different. Mister President, have you heard of somebody called Sammael?"
"Wasn't that the name of Satan before he was expelled from the Kingdom of Heaven?"
"In mythology, yes. In reality, Sammael was a king in what is now Palestine Province of The Caliphate. Back then it was a patchwork of petty kingdoms that recognized some vague overlordship from both Egypt and the Hittites. Sammael started off as one of those kings. It was joke title really, those kings controlled less land than a farmer does today and their "people" were their extended family. When you read of cities, they were little more than fortified farms. Mister President, its hard to explain just how brutal warfare was in those days. When a city fell, the surviving men would be tortured and killed, their women would be raped, tortured and killed. Children the same. When we read of babies being swung by their feet and having their heads smashed against rocks, that was exactly true. It happened, all the time.
"Sammael was different. He hit upon a different idea and did things differently. When he went to war and attacked an enemy city, if the inhabitants opened their gates to him, they would be treated with respect and protected from outrage. If they fought, they would have to take their chances when the city fell but those that survived the sack would be left alive. So the message started to spread, people began to realize that if Sammael besieged their city, their best chance was to surrender. Even more, they found that Sammael didn't enslave them, or take their women and children. In fact, life went on very much as before. And was pretty good. By the standards of then and there.
"Sammael brought some other ideas as well. He'd seen that people who were healthy were happier and people who were happier worked harder and made him richer. He was what we would call an enlightened man by the standards of those days although he was pretty much of a tyrant by ours. Give you an example, for a woman, getting married in those days was a death sentence. She would be married young, perhaps thirteen or fourteen and she would be continuously pregnant from that point onwards. Two babies within a year was commonplace and she would be worn out and dead before she was twenty. Richer women were luckier, they lived in harems where they could reduce the frequency of birth. Sammael established rules that gave women time to recover from one birth before risking another pregnancy. That caused a lot of reaction at first but soon people noted that the babies were healthier and their wives lived a lot longer. Soon, the women of Sammael's kingdom were noted for their beauty and their longevity.
"When the Hibaru started to arrive, Sammael welcomed them at first, offered them sanctuary in his kingdom. The problem was that the followers of Aten were intolerant and the whole watch-word of Sammael's kingdom was tolerance. Most of the Hibaru though gave up their ways and accepted the easy-going permissiveness of Sammael's ways. Then, Amosesnut and his priests found that the ways of Aten were being neglected and they through a hissy fit. They produced a set of rules dictated by Aten and tried to stage a purge of those who had left Aten's ways. That was the one big no-no under Sammael. He sent in his troops and drove the Habiru out. That was the start of a constant border war that lasted almost 40 years, with the Hibaru trying to get in and Sammael's heavy infantry beating them stupid every time.
"It didn't last of course. Sammael ruled for forty years and died. His successors didn't recognize what he had achieved or the lamp of enlightenment he had created. They went back to the old ways, the borders collapsed and the Hibaru forced their way in. You can read about it in the Book of Joshua. Its a pretty good military history. You can follow the campaign on a map from the descriptions given. Later, the scribes literally demonized Sammael, they took his achievements and his enlightenment and turned it on his head. His mercy towards his enemies and how that reconciled them to his rule became him corrupting and seducing them. His tolerance for the beliefs of others, well you can read all about what they said. All the good he did died with him, his mistakes and the corrupted versions of his beliefs lived on."
Once again, there was silence. The President's head started to nod slightly. Nancy Reagan noticed the movement and spoke quietly. "Naamah, would you like to stay for dinner tonight? Perhaps you could help me lay the table?" It was a code phrase between the two women. One that indicated the President needed to sleep before dinner. Naamah went into the dining room of the ranch while Nancy Reagan looked after her husband. The sun was setting now and the room was slowly darkening. The view really was incredibly beautiful.
"It is wonderful, isn't it. Ronnie wants to be buried up here when his time comes. That's the big difference between us isnt it? We know our time will come, you don't. Naamah, do you believe in God?"
Naamah thought for a second. "I don't know. Honestly I don't. I don't see how anybody can know. People can have faith, one way or the other but they can't know. Saying there is no God is as much a statement of faith as saying there is. The person who says there is a God has no more proof and no less than the person who says there isn't. And I can't say that with any more certainty than that."
"When you were talking about King Sammael earlier I got the feeling you know him. Did you?"
"Know him Mrs Reagan? Oh yes, I knew him. I should have. I was married to him for thirty years."