Chapter 80

Helena’s impatience assuaged. Moses and David speak. Helena’s interloping speech and David’s final word.

1. Here Helena asks Me on the side: “But Lord, You my sweetest Jesus, did You not say You would be the first speaker? And now only the others speak, and You don’t make even a comment, nor are there any of those appearances. How is this to be understood? Please tell me what is going on.”

2. Say I: “My dearest Helena, just a little patience, it shall all be clear to you later. I was in any case the first to speak, by directing an exceedingly portentous question to all at the conference table. They are now actually bound to respond with a contribution. Once they have all contributed, I shall begin to speak.

3. “And behold, no matter when I start speaking, I nevertheless am always the first, and My speech is also the first, because I am the first! Do you understand that? Wherefore pay close attention to what Moses shall say! Later, when I speak, the appearances shall take place anyway. Behold, Moses is rising, and so we shall hear him!”

4. Helena has now calmed down. And Moses speaks with much earnestness: “Lord, when Your people languished under Egyptian tyranny, You awakened me, making me a liberator of Your people. I lived at Pharaoh’s court and was initiated into the plans which this brute had spawned against Your people. His fury was no where near abated by the drowning of all the first-born. I often secretly prayed to You that You would at last free Your people from this heavy yoke. But You were at that time much harder of hearing than now!

5. “On seeing the king’s rage intensify by the hour, and on top of that seeing a miserable courtorderly beating up an Israelite, I disarmed and took the outraged one, killing him and burying him in the sand. On being informed, Pharaoh called out a search to kill me, but I got away to Midean in time. Arriving there at the Priest Reguel’s, who had seven daughters, I soon received one of them – Zippora by name, as wife, and was made herdsman to the priest’s brother Jethro’s sheep!

6. “And when I was already keeping Jethro’s sheep at the foot of Mt. Horeb, one of Your angels came, calling me over to where a bush was burning. There Your voice commanded me to take off my shoes, the place upon which I stood being holy. There You commanded me to go to Egypt to free Your people, giving me a rod with which to defeat Pharaoh, (whose heart You had hardened) seven times for refusing to recognise You.

7. “Behold, oh Lord, at present more than the Pharaoh’s hardness has gotten into the hearts of the many great and small rulers. Now they offer not only the first-born of their people for the honour to their thrones, but send away many thousands to the battlefields, letting them fight and kill each other worse than was the case with the most ignorant heathens. All these are baptised in Your name and with Your word and have Your commandment: ‘Thou shalt not kill!’ Yet they go on murdering, and have become deaf and blind, they don’t hear their poor brethren’s voice and don’t see the great misery of the destitute!

8. “Oh Lord, how much longer will You be watching such abominations? Oh Lord, arise for once as You promised! Give me again the rod into my hand with which You defeated Pharaoh, liberating Your people! I, Your old faithful Moses, am ready to go down to Earth at You command to strike all the hard and intransigent ones, and to liberate Your children from their too great oppression! Oh Lord, hear Your old servant Moses, and hear also the pleas of Your bleeding children! – Hallowed be Thy name, and Your will be done now and forever, on Earth as in Heaven!”

9. After Moses, David rises, saying: “Lord, Your Spirit once spoke to me, Your servant, thus: ‘Sit at My right hand until I have placed all your enemies at your feet!’ – Lord, everything Your Spirit revealed to me has been fulfilled. But the complete subjugation of Your enemies, the final destruction of all arrogance and what same brings forth -–which also Your Spirit revealed to me – is not coming true. Men are still as they were – nine tenths wicked and hardly one tenth good!

10. “Wrathfully You gave Your people a king – when they heaped sin upon sin and to all that added the demand for a king. And this Your wrath continues, not wanting to cease. For all nations now have kings, and even heathen emperors that serve the nations as images of uttermost pride and insatiable arrogance!

11. “Oh Lord, when will You take away Your people’s greatest curse upon Earth, then reintroduce Your ancient holy patriarchal constitution? You see how cowardly and unscrupulous crawlers hang around kings, scattering incense before them, gushing praise for their own profit; and that they condemn every honest person to death if they dare to tell a king the truth, which surely he would be much more in need of than the very sight of his eyes. Every ever-so wellmeant truth directed towards a king is declared high treason, it proclaimer being promptly bumped off the world.

12. “Oh Lord! During my rule, things were evil indeed, but not that evil! For I praised those wise men who told me the truth. But now everything is upside down! The wise man is persecuted like a rapacious beast, but the liar and flatterer is decorated with every honour!

13. “Lord, things can’t stay that way! Let hell be hell wherever it is in its primeval nature. But it should not be allowed to set itself up so brazenly on Earth. Whence we all beg You to al last put an end to hell’s rule on Earth! Let there be kings by all means, but as I was one, so that people would not turn into devils and :Your name not be so profaned! Because who shall praise You in hell, and what devil laud You? Wherefore arise, Lord, and put all our foes to shame! Your will be done, Amen.”

14. Our Helena, quite saturated with approval of David’s speech, cannot contain herself, cheerfully standing up and saying to the speaker: “Bravo, bravo, Mr. David! You were indeed the right king for the Earth. If there were kings like that, then being subject to them would be bliss! But in this time our kings, who no longer know what a human and his worth is – are either gods who, besides demanding exorbitant taxes, also demand actual worship. Or they act like those rapacious animals which they customarily use in their coat-of-arms! What the subjects feel like under such rulers, Mr. David can imagine! I wish with all my heart that our most beloved, best and most almighty Lord and Father Jesus would drive home to such rulers, who take only themselves for everything and their people for nothing at all, what point in time it is and what they and their people are worth! Am I right or not?”

15. Says David most amicably: “Dear Helena, as a young descendant of my people you are quite right, and I must laud your wisdom, for you desire only what is fair and just.

16. “Let there be kings indeed, but let them come down to their people from their lofty thrones and be men among men, and grant them what is right and fair! But the nations likewise should only place demands upon their kings which are just and achievable. But on both sides now the strings are tuned too tightly, and it will therefore hardly get better before the full bursting of the strings! The kings shall defeat their people and the people their kings.

17. “But our only Jehovah-Zebaoth still stands between king and nation, able to order things between them in ways mysterious to us. The great work is alone the Lord’s! – Thus are these things, my dear.”

18. Says Helena: “Indeed, indeed, you certainly are a wise king. You are right!”