The Times of Azarel

​My name is Azarel, and I've seen the sun rise and set more times than I can count. My memory stretches back to a time when our family was small, no more than seventy souls. I was there when my grandfather, Jacob, or Israel as he was also known, had to endure a grief so profound it seemed to hollow him out. His favorite son, Joseph, was gone. Joseph’s brothers, consumed by jealousy, had sold him into slavery. But they couldn't bring themselves to tell our father the truth. Instead, they took Joseph’s beautiful coat of many colors, a symbol of our grandfather’s special love for him, and tore it. They dipped it in the blood of a goat and brought it to Jacob. I can still see the look on his face as he stared at that blood-stained garment, believing a wild animal had devoured his beloved son. For decades, he grieved, refusing to be comforted.

​Then came the day a rumor reached our ears, a flicker of hope that seemed too miraculous to be true. My grandfather first heard the news that his lost son, Joseph, was alive and living in Egypt. His joy was a thing to behold when he learned Joseph was not just alive but a vizier, second only to the Pharaoh himself. We traveled a long and dusty road from Canaan to Egypt, a small caravan of hope, and Joseph welcomed us with open arms, giving us the best land in Egypt, the fertile fields of Goshen.

​For generations, we lived in peace, our numbers swelling with each new son and daughter. Our family was no longer a small clan but a great and prosperous community. But the land we called home was not our own, and the benevolent Pharaoh who knew Joseph passed away. A new ruler came to power, a man who saw our growing population not as a blessing but as a threat. He "did not know Joseph." I remember the day the chains came out. First, it was just decrees, then it was forced labor, building vast cities and monuments for a ruler who feared us. The work was back-breaking, the days were long, and the nights were short. Our prosperity was used against us, and our numbers were seen as a weapon.

​The Pharaoh’s fear turned to cruelty, and his cruelty to evil. To stop our growth, he decreed that all our newborn sons should be thrown into the Nile. I saw mothers weeping, fathers helpless, and the river turning into a watery grave for our people. It was in this darkest hour that hope, like a tiny boat, floated into our lives. A woman named Jochebed defied the order and placed her baby boy in a basket, trusting God to save him. The baby was found by the Pharaoh’s daughter and raised as an Egyptian prince. That boy was Moses.

​I watched as Moses, now a grown man, confronted our oppressor. He spoke of a God who had not forgotten us, a God who had heard our cries. The Pharaoh mocked him, but God's power was not to be denied. A series of ten plagues descended upon Egypt, each one more terrible than the last. The Nile turned to blood, frogs and locusts swarmed the land, and darkness consumed the sky. I saw the Egyptians’ terror, and I felt our hope ignite. The final plague was the most dreadful: the death of every firstborn Egyptian. We, the Israelites, were spared, marking our doors with the blood of a lamb as a sign to the Angel of Death. This night became our Passover, the night we were passed over and spared.

​The Pharaoh, grief-stricken, finally relented, and we were set free. I remember the jubilation, the sound of our people on the move, a great multitude leaving four hundred years of slavery behind. We were a people reborn, a nation marching toward a promise. But our freedom was short-lived. The Pharaoh, consumed by regret and rage, sent his army after us. We were trapped between the pursuing chariots and the vast expanse of the Red Sea. It seemed like the end, but Moses, guided by God, raised his staff. The sea parted, a miraculous highway of dry land appeared, and we walked through to the other side. When the Egyptian army followed, the walls of water collapsed, swallowing them whole.

​Our journey through the wilderness was long and harsh, a forty-year pilgrimage to the promised land. God provided for us, sending manna from the heavens and water from a rock. On a mountain called Sinai, God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, laws that would guide our nation and bind us to Him forever. I watched as Moses, our leader and prophet, saw the promised land from a mountaintop but was not allowed to enter. It was a new generation, born free in the wilderness, who would cross the Jordan River under the leadership of Joshua.

​I watched as the walls of Jericho fell and as our tribes settled the land that God had promised our ancestors. We were no longer a small, nomadic family but a nation with a land to call our own. I've lived to see it all, from the fertile fields of Goshen to the fulfillment of a divine promise. And I'm still here, a living testament to the God who brought us out of slavery and into the land of milk and honey.