Original subtitles

(soft music)

- [Narrator] The children of Israel dwelt in Egypt,

where the grew and prospered.

Now the Pharaoh of Egypt, fearing their

great numbers, first enslaved them and then

slew the firstborn of their men children.

But the infant Moses was saved from death

by his sister, Miriam.

He was brought up as a prince of Egypt,

but was reunited in manhood with his true people.

And God bade Moses to demand of the Pharaoh

freedom from bondage for the children of the Lord,

and the wrath of God covered the land

of Egypt with plague and pestilence.

And, last of all, he sent the Angel of Death.

Then the Pharaoh set free the Israelites,

and they passed out of Egypt.

Pursued by the Pharaoh's vengeful armies,

the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea,

which parted for them by the power of God

but closed with mighty destruction upon the Egyptians.

Wondering on in search of their promised land,

they suffered the agonies of thirst and hunger

and savage slaughter at the hands

of the warring desert tribes.

But they became skilled in the art of defense

and came, at last, to Mount Horeb.

Moses ascended the mountain to receive

the laws of Israel from the Lord God himself.

But, in his absence, the children of Israel

grew restless and impatient.

Aaron, the brother of Moses, built them

an effigy out of the gold of the treasury

of the people, but the Israelites took this

as a true god and worshiped it.

They paid it tribute of song and dance and sacrifice.

When Moses returned from the mountaintop,

he looked with horror on the sins of the people.

He ordered that they assemble to be judged

and to be punished.

(gentle music)

- You said you would accept the covenant,

but you had no faith.

You are a frail and ignorant people.

And now the tablets of the law

so painfully, so lovingly inscribed, must be broken.

For what you accepted in freedom

was rejected in freedom.

And for this you must suffer,

since freedom always has its price.

You must suffer in ways that you will see,

bear, smell, taste, feel in the very nerve,

in the very marrow.

But, for the moment, we must enact the rite

of the breaking of the covenant.

So be it.

(somber music)

This was your god.

What you worship must be obeyed.

What you took unto yourselves in the spirit,

you must now taken unto yourselves in the flesh.

What you kissed, you must eat and drink.

(dramatic music)

(man screams)

I have appointed officers of my own tribe

of Levites to see that mouths that cried out

in obscene ectasy shall now cry out in a different manner.

- Ugh.

(man screams)

(women singing)

- We must start again.

Once more, I ascend the mountain to take counsel

with the Lord our God, but, first, will you

promise to worship no other God but him?

- [Israelites] Yes!

- [Moses] Nor to make images of things

that are on the earth for profane and sinful worship?

- [Israelites] Yes, yes, yes, yes!

(thunder rumbling)

- Rain! - Oh!

(people laughing)

(heavenly music)

- [Narrator] So Moses went up the mountain

a second time, and the tribe of the Levites,

that were his own tribe, prepared a house,

for the new covenant.

And the children of Israel waited for Moses

to return to them that he might carry

the pardon of the Lord among his people.

- [Child] Ah.

- Yes, son.

- When will Father be coming?

I want to see him.

- He's very busy.

He has Israel to look after.

- Have you missed your father, Gershom?

- Are you staying with us, or are you going

back to Israel?

- Oh ho ho, I'm staying.

The Ark of the Covenant, in your keeping, Aaron.

Aaron the priest.

- Aaron the priest.

How am I to take that?

In manner of a punishment?

- A priest is God's voice.

Could one wish to be higher than God's voice?

- Once I was your voice.

- Well, take it not in the manner of a punishment

but in the manner of a promotion.

- Well then, to my first office.

- God go with you, man of God.

(gentle music)

- Hereon are inscribed God's laws.

Every word shall be accounted sacred.

♪ Hear oh Israel

♪ The Lord is our God

♪ The Lord is one

God, who art a god of justice,

be also, we beseech thee, a god of forgiveness.

If we have sinned once, shall we not sin again?

If we were perfect, would we have need of thee?

(celebratory music)

- Again.

It will happen again.

- This is a different kind of celebration.

They know they're going to the land.

And you, my sister, are you feeling better?

Tomorrow we move on.

- I could do, I could do nothing. (crying)

I have ceased to be your well being.

(Mirian crying)

(dramatic music)

I shall be glad to move on.

It's the moving on that's important.

I will never see it.

But it doesn't matter.

The work I was ordained to do has been long done.

You were my work.

I heard the soldiers sing their song,

and God was there.

For if they had not been singing,

they would have heard him cry.

The river, the reeds, the floating cradle.

Girl, who are you?

Can you get him a wet nurse?

And I did.

I turned him into an Egyptian.

(gentle music)

So many gods, but not the one true God.

So many thousands of years for it to come

to the light, and still they will not see.

And, when they see, they will say what good is it?

- [Zipporah] Rest, Miriam, rest.

- And when the city is built, it will be destroyed.

And the temple will be destroyed.

They'll be made to wander further,

for there's no abiding city, only the dark.

I must talk to my brother Moses.

- I am here, Miriam.

- You will not see it.

- Let the soul of this, thy servant, go calmly

to its haven, where there is neither

change nor suffering.

Where the mill of the heart grinds no more

of the bread of tribulation.

(light music)

♪ We go to the other land

♪ Where the hand of the Lord shall bless it ♪

♪ And the sun fades low on the soil ♪

♪ And man's toil is a prayer

♪ All thankfulness to the Lord

♪ The mighty all arise

♪ And yet we may reach other air ♪

♪ We go to the other land

- Canaan.

Beyond those mountains.

- We must spy out the land.

It will still be a long time of waiting.

- Waiting?

What do we live on?

- We will set up the tabernacle.

(horn blowing)

- Of the tribe of Reuben, Shamar, son of Zakur.

Of the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat, son of Hori.

Of the tribe of Judah, Caleb, son of Jephunneh.

Of the tribe of Issachar, Igal, son of Joseph.

Of the tribe of Ephraim, Joshua, son of Nun.

Over there, over the mountain, the land of Canaan.

Yes, the promised land.

A land so fertile it is doubtless inhabited

by people of rich flesh and strong bone.

But whoever now possess that land

possesses it not by God's promise.

The land is ours, the land of our fathers.

But it will not be ours for the easy taking.

Your task is to spy out the land,

to see what it is, to see the people.

Are they weak?

Are they strong?

Are they few or many?

And now, be of good courage, and bring us

the fruit of that land.

Joshua.

- Let's be going.

(people cheering) (horn blowing)

- It's always the same.

We start something off and then we wait.

We wait for months.

- It's like laying the plates for a meal

when you know there is nothing to eat.

- Remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt?

And the cucumbers and the melons

and the leeks and the onions and the garlic?

- You make me thirsty, and there'll be no

water till tomorrow.

- Is anything being done?

I mean, magic or spells or anything,

to get something done?

- Shh, that's against the law.

- [Man] You're coming with us.

- What, precisely, were they doing on the sabbath?

- They were gathering palm fronds to set afire.

Harmless enough, it seems, but knowing that the covenant

is strict on this matter, and knowing that you yourself--

- Yes?

- Knowing that you yourself set great store

by the punctilious observance of the sabbath rest--

- Not I, not I, but God.

This punctilious observance, as you so grandiloquently

term it, is of the very essence of the law,

to abstain from work that the body may

be at rest and the spirit as one with God.

One day in seven.

Can we not spare one day in seven

to honor our creator?

- The men in question were rebuked, naturally.

They did not seem repentant.

What happened was that one of them was discovered

later in the day gathering dry sticks, tinderwood.

The rebuke had been of no avail.

- And now?

- And now I seek instructions

as to an appropriate punishment.

- It is God's day.

The sabbath must not be defiled.

Let them be stoned to death.

- Forgive me.

But I don't think I--

- Let them be stoned to death!

- With respect of deference, but I do not

think that my people could possibly accept--

- Than you, your people suggest an alternative

punishment, more rebukes, tortures, imprisonment?

We are all in prison till we reach our promised land.

Best be bold and be done with it.

The law's the law, one and indivisible.

To kill a man merits death.

To kill the peace of the Lord's sabbath,

is that a lesser crime?

Let them be sentenced to death by stoning.

(men screaming)

- Ah, ah.

- This is not justice!

It's murder!

(crowd yelling)

- [Man] Barbarism!

- Barbarism?

You speak to me of barbarism?

You, who to my certain knowledge, were one

of the leaders of the ghastliest displays of barbarism

in the history of the Twelve Tribes?

Count yourself lucky, Dathan, that you were

not one of the sinners chosen for punishment

after that abomination which stinks still

in God's nostrils.

- Very well, Moses.

If I was a sinner, it was because I was unenlightened.

What excuse can you find?

- Excuse, Dathan.

Do we need an excuse to sustain the law,

the law which sustains the life of man?

- It's a strange way of serving life, killing men.

It was my own brother you killed.

Do you know that?

- A man who had his faults like all men,

dead because of some nonsense about the sabbath.

For it is nonsense, and all the world

knows it for nonsense.

- All the world.

All the little world of the stupid

who disdain the vision.

Since we speak of your brother, let me remind

you that my own sister.

I'll not speak of it.

- It comes clearer now, it is not the law.

It is revenge.

- No, Dathan, vengeance is for the Lord God,

in his own time.

Sit down.

For me, it is the law and the enforcing of the law.

Yes, by murder, if you will have it that way,

since you believe that just execution is murder.

Until men cease to be ignorant,

until man begins to know that his good

is the good of the commonality,

and the good of the commonality is enshrined in law.

You will learn, Dathan.

You will be made to learn.

Perhaps you are learning already,

you, the most obdurate of all my children.

- Yes, yes, I am learning one thing,

remember thou keep holy the sabbath day. (laughs)

- Why, of all men that walk the earth,

was I chosen to lead them to a fair

land which is none of their deserving?

Why was I chosen to bring them the law,

a law which they despise and spurn?

Oh Lord, I speak to you from the heart

as I have ever spoken.

I am sick and weary of the burden of rule.

What would you do if I were to renounce it now?

Would you strike me down as you have struck down others?

Well, perhaps I am willing to be struck down,

to lie at peace in the earth,

I am willing to defy you as others have.

Am I not free to do so?

Am I not a man like other men,

clothed in the garment of liberty of choice?

And yet, I cannot forget the humility

of the servant before the master.

In humility, I ask it, let thy servant go.

- [God] Moses, Moses, I will ride you

as a horseman rides a horse.

In spite of your doubts, you will bear

the burden till life's end.

You will lead your people to the land that is promised,

since that is my will.

But you yourself will never eat or drink

of the fruit of that promise.

I will never let you go, but I will never let you enter.

Nor will any of your generation, sick with the doubt

of the Lord's promise, enter that land.

I have spoken.

- They're coming!

They're coming!

- They're coming. - They're coming.

(people shouting)

- [Man] They've come back!

(horn blowing)

- We entered the land as you instructed us,

and, indeed, it flows with milk and honey.

Here, we took these in the valley named Eshcol.

- Eshcol, a cluster of grapes, well labeled.

You see, you see, you foolish children?

The land is exactly as the Lord said it would be,

flowing with milk and honey,

laden with all manner of fruit.

And the land is ours.

(people cheering)

- The land is not ours!

There are people dwelling there in walled cities,

strong people, warlike.

The children of Anak.

- Giants, we saw them.

- The Hittites, Jebusites.

- The Amorites, the mountain people, and by the sea

there are the Canaanites.

They are too strong for us.

- [Man] We haven't the numbers.

We haven't the weapons.

- This is nonsense!

We moved through the land like greyhounds.

They never saw us!

- Look, we've been through all that land.

It's a land that would swallow us as a toad swallows a gnat.

The sons of Anak are giants.

Giants, do you hear me?

Compared with them, we are grasshoppers.

- Sounds terrible.

- I don't like it.

- We've come so far to be killed.

- What about my wife and the children?

- [Man In Green Scarf] Nobody told us we were

going to have a war.

- Some promised land!

Better the desert.

- Better Egypt.

(people shouting)

Better Egypt. - Yes, back to Egypt.

- Moses!

Listen to me, Moses.

We have suffered much with hardly a murmur.

We were given a promise that we would walk

into this land of yours without trouble,

and now you bring us into this land to fall by the sword,

to see our wives and children cut to pieces!

I say this to you now, and I say it on behalf of all.

I would to God we died in the land of Egypt!

- I vote that we choose a new captain.

One who will lead us back to Egypt.

- [Dathan] Yes, a new captain.

- [Crowd] Yes, a new captain!

- Listen to me!

I say this.

The land we pass through is our land!

- No, it's not our land.

- Do not fear any of the people of that land!

We can chew them up like bread.

The Lord is with us, not with them!

- I don't believe you.

- Do not be afraid!

Fight!

- We won't fight. (people shouting)

Not for anyone.

- Stop!

- I tell you we won't fight.

We don't believe you.

- What I say, I say on behalf of my peers,

but I do not say it lightly.

- Come to the point.

- This point, that we are at the limit

of endurance of your tyranny.

Moses, I speak truth, and you know it when I say,

when I say you made your claim to rule

through a special holiness.

Well, we're all holy.

We're all equally of Jehovah.

Why do you raise yourself above us?

Why do you pretend that you're God's special favorite?

- An empty and filthy pretense which some of us

have had the courage to explode.

Your rule is over, Moses, or soon will be.

We have the support of all the tribes,

including the Levites.

- The Levites are ready.

(crowd cheering)

- And what, precisely, does this new leadership propose?

- To lead the tribes back to Egypt,

with the Levites carrying their banners at the head,

not into slavery though.

To make out of power a treaty with the Pharaoh.

To demand that the God of the Israelites

be of equal status with Horus and Ra.

- Be silent, blasphemer!

Worse than blasphemer, abomination.

You speak of rule.

My brother was a prince of Egypt.

If he had wished to rule, would he have left

his kingdom for this desert?

His palace for a ragged tent?

- High priest, another pretender to the seat of power!

Well, we will wrest this power away from you,

this tabernacle you use for holding the people down.

we can provide our own priests.

(crowd cheering)

- Oh Dathan, Dathan, I confess my failure.

As a teacher, I have taught you nothing.

God will.

For God chooses men, men do not choose God.

God shows us the choice he has made through signs.

Where are your signs?

- (laughs) Signs.

You mean tricks!

- Where is your sign of authority?

You murderous trickster, show us the final trick,

the bellies of the people crammed with bread,

the sick and the old at peace in a land

too long promised.

I spit on your authority.

- I have warned you often in the past, Dathan.

I swear to you that this shall be the final warning.

Seek not to rise above the Lord your God.

To all of you I say, tempt not the Lord.

- Ya!

- Brother!

(people screaming)

- Aaron!

- Prepare to leave for Egypt!

(people cheering)

- Back to Egypt!

(mystical music)

- [Levite Man] Levite officers, officers of the Levites,

prepare to move out!

Tribal rulers!

Tribal rulers of the Levites, prepare to move out!

Tribal rulers!

Tribal of Judah, over here!

- [Simeon Man] The tribe of Simeon, you've got to move

the sheeps and cattle.

Hurry up!

- [Asher Man] Women of the tribe of Asher,

gather all the children.

- [Benjamin Man] The tribe of Benjamin.

- [Man] No, there's no time now.

Gather all the children.

- The Lord has spoken.

Thus sayeth the Lord.

None who has seen my glory and not believed

shall see the land I promised his father.

Since you refuse the land over which I raise

my hand that you might inhabit, you shall not enter.

You shall return to the desert.

Your children, they will see the land

that you have scorned.

You will not.

Your children, those who were newly born

when we left Egypt, shall wander in the desert

for 40 years and bear the burden of your lack of faith,

while your bodies will be consumed in the desert.

Pay heed to my words.

You shall know once for all that God chooses

and men do not.

- The God of the people speaks through them

that the people have chosen!

What the people have chosen is wise and prudent,

and we choose to return to Egypt and enjoy

its peace and its fatness.

Will law of God say nay?

(people shouting)

(earth crashing)

- Yet mercy is infinite, Dathan,

at least let us believe so.

I shall miss your thorn in my side.

- [Narrator] That generation that had heard

the word of the Lord and scorned it,

the generation of the old, one by one fell in the desert,

leaving their bones for the sun to bleach.

And their children carried the burden

of the lack of faith of the old,

wandering in the desert, missing the way

to the land of the promise.

Soon, there were few of the doubters

and those who had waivered.

And these few were dying.

- There is no pain.

The leg just feels asleep.

- But the fever's not asleep.

The fever's very much awake.

- I'll be better when we reach the oasis.

Trees, running water, fruit, hmm?

Eleazer.

- [Eliseba] Don't talk, sleep.

- Eleazer.

- Yes, yes, father?

- You know what must be done.

- I, I must take your place.

- You must take over my office, Eleazer, the high priest.

Your mother will be proud.

- [Eliseba] Aaron, please, do not reproach me.

- No, no reproach.

It is a task and a glory, which he and his sons

and his sons sons must perform till the end

of our race, a task and a glory.

- Don't talk like that.

It seems that

we'll all be together in Canaan.

- The journey is not yet over, Eliseba.

We still face many bitter enemies,

a land promised to us by the Lord

will not be granted so easily.

- Try to sleep now.

(gentle music)

- I speak of him as my brother first,

my very voice, my other heart.

Of the house of Israel, none was braver,

none more steadfast.

His mouth was of gold, and the spirit

of the Lord burned in it.

Now, he is gathered to his fathers.

(Eliseba crying)

- May the Lord grant him rest.

So be it.

Oh Lord, how long can the race last?

We're dying.

The old men are dying.

Can the young survive?

Can they carry the torch?

(music swelling)

- [Narrator] And the young did carry the torch,

or rather the sling and the stone.

And a thunder of stones was unleashed on their enemies,

for their enemies were the tribes and nations

that lay ranged between them and Canaan,

the land of the promise.

Horizon after horizon of foes to be vanquished.

And then, at last, no foes,

only a mountain and a river,

and a time of quiet with the dividing

of the land that lay beyond.

- The tribe of Benjamin.

- Here.

- The tribe of Ephraim.

- From Jericho up to Betel.

- Your new home.

- [Ephraim Man] But this is desert, it's unfair.

- [Man] The lots have been drawn in the presence of Moses.

- [Woman] Let us in!

We seek justice.

- Women?

What can women want?

- [Woman] Let us in!

- [Eleazer] It is irregular!

- [Woman] We want to see Moses!

- Women should stay with their children

and their pots and pans.

It is highly irregular!

- Many things are irregular, High Priest,

including what we are here to speak about,

if it is permitted.

- You are, are you not, the daughters of uh,

forgive me, an old man's memory or lack of it.

- I am Mahlah, and these are my sisters.

Come on.

We are the daughters of Zelophehad, now dead.

- Ah yes, Zelophehad, good man, I think.

He was slain in battle, was he not?

- With his sons, our brothers.

We are without menfolk, thanks to your holy wars.

- [Eleazer] Have a care, woman.

- We are women without menfolk.

The name of our father has disappeared from your records.

What will happen with his portion of the promised land?

- It is clearly laid down that the sons shall inherit.

No sons, no inheritance.

- This is injustice!

- It is the law.

- This is always the answer, it is the law.

It is the law!

And what if the law be unjust?

- [Eleazer] One does not question the law of God.

- I am questioning it.

- You are questioning it rightly.

- But--

- Peace, Eleazer, peace.

And my response to the questioning is this.

If a man die and leave no sons,

then the inheritance of the father

shall pass to the daughters.

- But this is--

- An abomination?

A heresy?

The Lord does not offer to strike me dead, Eleazer.

Nor will he.

Daughters of Israel, you shall have your inheritance.

Who is it?

- It is I, Eleazer, your nephew.

(gentle music)

- For a moment there, I, I mistook you

for your father, Aaron.

- He was a good father.

I would be happy to be like him.

- You will be, you will be.

Because of him, you will bring forth

generations of priests that will continue

for thousands of years to come.

Eleazer?

- Yes, my lord?

- I was the promised land denied to your father.

The Lord said because of your sin of doubt.

But, I must confess, I have never been able

to understand the real significance of those words.

Aaron, what was our real sin?

Yours, I think I know.

You loved the people too much, all the people.

And mine, did I love them too little?

I have always loved the law more than

mankind, for whom it was destined.

Oh Lord, I would like to cross the river

and set my feet on the land beyond the Jordan.

♪ Hear oh Israel

♪ Hear oh Israel

♪ The Lord is our God

♪ The Lord is our God

♪ The Lord is one

♪ The Lord is one

- [Man] Happy art though, oh Israel.

Who is like unto thee?

Oh people, saved by the Lord.

The shield of thy help and the sword of thy excellency.

There is none like unto your God

who rides upon the heavens.

The eternal God is your refuge,

and underneath are the everlasting arms.

(somber music)

- [God] Now, Moses, I will show you their inheritance.

Look now, all the land of Gilead unto Dan.

All Naphtali and the land of Ephraim

and Manasseh.

All the land of Judah unto the utmost sea.

And the plain of the Valley of Jericho.

The city of palm trees unto Zoar.

This is the land which I swore unto Abraham

and to Isaac and unto Jacob saying I will give

it unto thy seed.

I have caused thee to see it, Moses,

with thine own eyes.

Thou shalt not go over into the land.

- You're a hard and unforgiving God.

- [God] Unforgiving?

If you but knew.

I have sworn, and I have made my covenant with man.

I shall never again destroy him for his sins.

Yet I shall torment him with dissatisfaction,

for only in me shall he be satisfied.

And now, Moses, your task is finished.

(sad music)

For the Lord thy God is with thee

wheresoever thou goest.

(gentle music)

♪ Israel

♪ Israel

♪ Israel

♪ Israel

(electronic music)