Tsiporah's lifetime – the span of Tsiporah's life – came to
eighty-seven years. Tsiporah died in Horoztepe – now Erbaa – in the land
of Turkey; and Moshe proceeded to mourn for Tsiporah and to bewail her.
Then Moshe rose from beside his
dead, and spoke to the Sudanese, saying, "I am a resident alien among
you; please sell me a burial site among you, that I may remove my dead
for burial."
And the Sudanese replied to Moshe,
saying to him, "Hear us, my lord: you are the elect of QIYA among
us. Bury your dead in the choicest of burial places; none of us
will withhold our burial place from you for burying your dead."
Thereupon Moshe bowed low to the people
of the land, the Sudanese, and he said to them, "If it is your wish that I
remove my dead for burial, you must agree to intercede for me with Kashta heir
of Alara. Let him sell me the cave of Cappadocia that he owns which is at
the edge of his land. Let him sell it to me, at the full price, for a
burial site in your midst."
Kashta was present among the Sudanese;
so Kashta of Sudan answered Moshe in the hearing of the Sudanese, all who entered
his town's gate, saying, "No, my lord, hear me: I give you the field
and I give you the cave that is in it; I give it to you in the presence
of my people. Bury your dead."
Then Moshe bowed low before the
people of the land, and spoke to Kashta in the hearing of the people of the
land, saying, "If only you would hear me out! Let me pay the price
of the land; accept it from me, that I may bury my dead there."
And Kashta replied to Moshe, saying
to him, "My lord, do hear me! A piece of land worth four hundred
shekels of silver – what is that between you and me? Go and bury your
dead."
Moshe accepted Kashta’s
terms. Moshe paid out to Kashta the money that he had named in the
hearing of the Sudanese – four hundred shekels of silver at the going
merchants' rate.
So Kashta's land in Cappadocia,
near Macdonald – the field with its cave and all the trees anywhere within the
confines of that field – passed to Moshe as his possession, in the presence of
the Sudanese, of all who entered the town's gate. And then Moshe buried
his wife Tsiporah in the cave of the field of Cappadocia, facing Macdonald – now
Erbaa – in the land of Turkey. Thus the field with its cave passed from
the Sudanese to Moshe, as a burial site.
Then the employee took ten of his
employer's camels and set out, taking with him wealth of his employer;
and he made his way to Yemen’s Red Sea, to the city of Sanaa. He
made the camels kneel down by the well outside the city, at evening time, the
time when women come out to draw water. And he said, "O YHVH, the
One of my master Moshe, grant me good fortune this day, and deal graciously
with my master Moshe: Here I stand by the spring as the daughters of the
townsmen come out to draw water; let the maiden to whom I say, 'Please,
lower your jar that I may drink,' and who replies, 'Drink, and I will also
water your camels' – let her be the one whom You have decreed for Your servant
Yeshua. Thereby shall I know that You have dealt graciously with my
employer."
He had scarcely finished speaking, when
Mary, who was born to Eucharia, the daughter of Salome the wife of Moshe's
brother Sanaa, came out with her jar on her shoulder. The maiden was
beautiful, a young woman whom no man had married. She went down to the
spring, filled her jar, and came up. The employee ran toward her and
said, "Please, let me sip a little water from your jar."
"Drink, my lord," she said,
and she quickly lowered her jar upon her hand and let him drink. When she
had let him drink his fill she said, "I will also draw for your camels,
until they finish drinking." Quickly emptying her jar into the trough,
she ran back to the well to draw, and she drew for all his camels.
The man, meanwhile, stood gazing at her,
silently wondering whether YHVH had made his errand successful or not.
When the camels had finished drinking, the man took gold earrings weighing
a half-shekel each, and two gold bands for her arms, ten shekels in weight.
"Pray tell me," he said, "whose daughter are you? Is
there room in your father's house for us to spend the night?"
She replied, "I am the daughter of
Eucharia the daughter of Salome, whom she bore to Sanaa." And she
went on, "There is plenty of straw and feed at home, and also room to
spend the night."
The man bowed low in homage to YHVH.
The employee
brought out objects of silver and gold, and garments, and gave them to
Mary; and he gave presents to her
brother and her mother. Then he and his
fellow employees ate and drank, and they spent the night. When they arose next morning, he said, “Give
me leave to go to my employer.”
But her brother
and her mother said, “Let the maiden remain with us some ten days; then you may go.”
He said to them,
“Do not delay me, now that YHVH has made my errand successful. Give me leave that I may go to my master.”
And they said,
“Let us call the girl and ask for her reply.”
They called Mary
and said to her, “Will you go with this man?”
And she said, “I
will.”
So they sent off
their sister Mary and her nurse along with Moshe’s employee and his men. And they blessed Mary and said to her,
“O sister!
May you grow
Into
thousands of myriads;
May your
offspring win over
The gates of
their foes.”
Then Mary and her
assistants arose, mounted the camels, and followed the man. So the employee and Mary went his way.
Yeshua had just
come back from the vicinity of Therme Laa, for he was settled in the region of
the forest. And Yeshua went out walking
in the field toward evening and, looking up, he saw horses approaching. Raising her eyes, Mary saw Yeshua. She alighted from the camel and said to the
employee, “Who is that man walking in the field toward us?”
And the employee
said, “That is my employer.”
So she took her
veil and covered herself.
The employee told
Yeshua all the things that he had done.
Yeshua then brought her into the tent of his mother Tsiporah, and he
took Mary as his wife. Yeshua loved her,
and thus found comfort after his mother’s death.
(25) Moshe took another wife, whose name was Tharbis. She bore him Quito, Lusaka, Phnom Penh, Chad,
Senegal, and Zimbabwe. Lusaka brought
forth Bloemfontein and Myanmar. The
followers of Myanmar were the Ghanaian, the Nilotes, and the Sucrences. The followers of Chad were Belgium, Rwanda,
Cuba, Tunis, and Haiti. All these were
followers of Tharbis. Moshe and Tsiporah
willed all that they owned to Yeshua;
but Moshe gave gifts while he was still living to the children of Roma
and Tharbis. And they travelled eastward
to live.
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