Moses, Man of the Mountain

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1939

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Author’s Introduction-Chapter 9

Chapters 10-19

Chapters 20-30

Chapters 31-40

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Chapters 31-40Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 31 Summary

Moses and the Hebrews march on towards Sinai. Moses believes the Hebrews must see the mountain to fully accept God. The people complain about hunger, wishing they had stayed in Egypt. That evening, Moses brings a miracle of quail and bread called manna, which satisfies the people. Later, when they complain of thirst, Moses draws a stream of fresh water out of a rock.

The march towards Sinai takes the Hebrews through the territory of the Amalekites, who prepare to attack. Moses tells Joshua to lead the troops, while he stands on a ridge and fights with his staff. When Moses raises his staff, the Hebrews advance successfully in the battle. The effort drains Moses, and Aaron and Hur have to hold him up through the day until the Hebrews eventually defeat the Amalekites.

Chapter 32 Summary

The next morning, Aaron and Miriam corner Moses and demand more recognition. Moses promises to give them places of preference when they reach Sinai. When the caravan finally arrives at Sinai, Moses waits for God to call him up. Jethro arrives with Zipporah and Moses’s family. After an emotional reunion, Moses leaves to be with Zipporah, who immediately asks about Miriam. Miriam is visibly jealous of Zipporah, who has become a celebrity for the Hebrew women. To divert their attention, Miriam accuses the Hebrew women of idolatry.

Moses holds court for the people, ruling in a variety of cases. Sensing he is overwhelmed, Jethro encourages Moses to delegate the everyday tasks of ruling so he can concentrate on God. Jethro tells Moses that his destiny is to be a mediator between the people and God.

Chapter 33 Summary

The next day, Moses climbs Sinai to speak to God. God tells him to have the Hebrews prepare to meet him by making themselves ceremonially clean. After three days of ritual purification, the Hebrews gather at the foot of Sinai and see God manifested as a thick cloud bursting with lightning. God forbids any of the other Hebrews from climbing the mountain, and calls Moses onto the mountain to speak with him.

Despite God’s orders, Joshua follows Moses up the mountain. He sees Moses surrounded by seven suns and the moon, with his right hand glowing. Moses speaks directly to a whorl of light, which responds back to him. For 40 days and nights, Joshua watches Moses receive laws from God.

Chapter 34 Summary

Moses begins his descent down Sinai with two stone tablets containing ten words of power, which he has made into commandments. In his absence, the Hebrews have grown desperate: Most assume Moses is dead, while others think he has abandoned them. Feeling resentful, Aaron and Miriam stoke the people’s feelings of dissatisfaction. Aaron suggests melting their jewelry into a golden calf to worship in the familiar Egyptian way. Energized by the suggestion, the Hebrews rush to prepare for the ceremony. Aaron builds the idol and altar, then leads the worship. After the ceremony, the people take off their clothes and sing and dance joyfully.

Chapter 35 Summary

Moses’s exhilaration at receiving the tablets is cut short by the sound of singing in the valley. Joshua confirms that the sound is the song of Apis the Egyptian bull-god. God tells Moses to stop the worship and set the Hebrews straight. Moses throws the stone tablets at the golden calf, destroying both the tablets and the calf. Aaron tries to deflect blame for the idol worship. Furious, Moses orders the Hebrews who did not participate to kill everyone involved in creating and worshipping the idol.

Moses builds a tabernacle and God comes to it in the form of a cloud. He calls Moses back to the mountain for a new set of tablets with commandments. When Moses returns, his face is glowing.

Chapter 36 Summary

Miriam spreads gossip about Zipporah, who she disparagingly calls “black Mrs. Pharaoh” (229). Privately fearful that Zipporah is trying to take her position of leadership over the Hebrew women away, Miriam publicly claims that Zipporah plans to enslave the Hebrews again. Backed by a group of 2,000 women, Miriam approaches Moses’s tent and calls for Zipporah’s expulsion from the camp. Aaron supports his sister, and claims that God called them as equally as he called Moses. Moses challenges Aaron and Miriam to come to the tabernacle and speak to God. When they approach, the voice of God chastises them. Miriam is struck with leprosy, and expelled from the camp for a period of seven days. When she returns, she remains silent except to say that Moses caused her leprosy.

Chapter 37 Summary

Years pass for the Hebrews in the Sinai desert. Moses sends Zipporah back to Jethro, claiming their interests are too different. Moses’s position as a leader isolates him from everyone except Joshua, who has become the head of the military forces but still serves Moses closely. A committee of 70 Elders, including Aaron, approaches Moses demanding food beyond the manna he is providing. Although Moses feels there are better uses of his power, he agrees to find a way to satisfy them. As the group leaves, Moses accuses Aaron of not doing his job in supporting Moses. Aaron replies that Moses needs to learn he can’t use people. Moses decides to send 12 scouts to bring reports of the promised land, Canaan.

Chapter 38 Summary

Two scouts return with reports of Canaan’s riches, full of confidence that the Hebrews can take the land. The other 10 scouts claim that the land is heavily defended, populated with giants, and cannot be taken. The frightened Hebrews refuse to leave Sinai. Moses brings the Elders into the tabernacle and falls onto his face. The Elders are paralyzed with fear; Miriam breaks a two month silence to warn that they should do what he says. Moses stands and asks God why he was given a nation of cowards. God tells Moses that the current generation of Hebrews must die before they can take Canaan, and sets them on a 40 year journey through the desert. Moses is devastated by this command.

Chapter 39 Summary

The Hebrews wander for 40 years as new generations are born. Miriam approaches Moses and asks permission to die. She apologizes for her treatment of his wife and for resisting his call to serve God. Moses is stunned, viewing her with pity for the first time. Satisfied, Miriam leaves and dies. Moses orders 30 days of mourning and establishes Miriam as a heroine of the Exodus from Egypt. Jethro also dies, leaving Moses feeling truly alone. The Hebrews invite Moses to be King of Israel; he dismisses the idea, reminding them that they now are free from political bondage. When Aaron begins causing trouble, Moses brings him to the top of Mount Horeb and kills him. He orders 30 days of mourning and calls Aaron a patriot and the first High Priest of Israel.

Chapter 40 Summary

The Hebrews reach the river Jordan, the entry to Canaan. Moses warns Joshua that maintaining the nation of Israel will be harder than leading the Hebrews through the desert. He encourages him to find ways to keep the people united, and to lead them away from the negative influences of the people they conquer. Joshua asks if any part of Moses’s journey with the Hebrews has brought him joy. Moses responds that the highlight of his life was the 40 days spent on the mountain with God. Joshua and Moses reflect on their victories and losses in the desert. Moses leaves to climb Mt. Nebo, and tells Joshua to search for him if he doesn’t return in 30 days.

Moses decides that the Hebrews must not see him die, and stays on the mountain. When he stops to rest, he finds a small lizard who tells him that there is a great bearded lizard with the answers to everything at the top of Mt. Sinai. Moses tells God that his people have arrived. As the cloud of lightning surrounds him, Moses begins to walk towards Sinai.

Chapters 31-40 Analysis

In the final section of the novel, Hurston shifts the central conflict of the plot from external (battling Ta-Phar to free the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt) to internal as the Hebrews struggle to form the nation of Israel. Moses and the Hebrews are free from the enslavement of Egypt and at liberty to create their own future. The personal grievances and human needs of the Hebrew people provide the central conflict of the plot as Moses and Joshua attempt to lead them. In Chapter 31, Hebrew leaders come to Joshua “whooping and hollering for rations” (193). Moses chastises the Hebrews, saying that “freedom looks like the biggest thing that God ever made, and being a little hungry for the sake of it ought not to stop you” (194). Nevertheless, he brings about a miracle of quail and manna in order to feed the people. Later, when the Elders return to complain about being bored with quail and manna, Moses loses his temper, shouting that “I don’t want to spend all my time and strength pulling miracles for the sake of your bellies” (239). These repeated conflicts over food highlight a crucial difference between Moses and the rest of the Hebrews: Moses believes that permanent freedom and a secure future for the Hebrews as a people is the goal of their mission—both of which require ongoing sacrifice and arduous work, pointing to the novel’s thematic interest in Freedom as a Constant Struggle. However, having survived enslavement in Egypt, the Hebrews want to experience a sense of abundance and contentment in the here and now of their newly realized freedom.

The characters of Aaron and Miriam act as powerful symbols of this focus on comfort and entitlement. When the Hebrews first arrive in Sinai, Miriam and Aaron demand more recognition for their roles in the Exodus from Egypt: “We’re the very ones that got this thing together and kept it together all down the line” (203). Miriam specifically worries that Moses’s wife Zipporah will outshine her among the Hebrew women, and asks Moses to return her to her place as an elite. Similarly, Aaron worries that Joshua’s prestige is outshining his own, and demands to be elevated back to his former position as a high priest. These demands—which center Miriam and Aaron’s personal desires—offer a stark contrast to Moses, whose primary concern is following God’s directive to lead the Hebrews from their temporary home in Sinai to the promised land in Canaan. Hurston frames these internal conflicts in the Hebrew camp in the final section of the book as internal struggles necessary for a people to be free.

Due to the lack of external conflict for the Hebrews in this final section, the anonymous voices of the Hebrews act as a kind of Greek chorus, expressing opposition to Moses’s choices. Throughout the novel, Hurston includes unattributed dialogue representing the thoughts of the people on the events of the plot. In this final section of the novel, these unattributed background voices express opposition to Moses, as in Chapter 34, when the Hebrews grow impatient with the promises of Moses’s God and call for the creation of a golden calf. Like Aaron and Miriam, this anonymous chorus acts as a manifestation of the internal conflicts preventing the Hebrews from achieving true freedom.

Hurston shifts the narrative perspective midway through this section from the Hebrews to Moses, emphasizing the climax of this conflict. In Chapter 34, when the Hebrews lose faith in the God of Moses and accept Aaron’s suggestion to build and worship a golden calf, Hurston initially presents the idol worship from the perspective of the Hebrews as “a real old down home Egyptian ceremony” (219). This homey, familiar description positions the worship as innocent and nostalgic from the Hebrews perspective. Even in the chaos of the ceremony, Hurston’s descriptions present the idol worship as a joyful endeavor: “[the Hebrews] cast off clothes and they cast off care. Drums and cymbals and harps and voices singing loud and happy” (219). From this perspective, the ceremony is guided by genuine “joy” (219) and love, rather than an explicit rejection of God. In the next chapter, however, Hurston offers a different perspective as Moses sees “bodies drunk on the liquor of feeling rocked and reeled and contorted about him with eyes glazed and covered” (222). This dramatic shift in perspective highlights the cultural distance that still remains between Moses and the Hebrews. Although the Hebrews feel joy and comfort in their return to Egyptian traditions, Moses sees their worship as a dangerous, chaotic tradition that threatens the formation of their emerging theocratic nation and must be rejected. Ultimately, Moses orders the murder of everyone involved in the idol worship, suggesting that total dedication to the rule of God is the only way freedom can be achieved.

Moses’s isolation on the mountain, communing with God and receiving the tablets that will ultimately govern the emerging nation, emphasizes the novel’s thematic interest in The Presence of God’s Power in Nature. Moses’s need to travel into nature, away from the makeshift civilization of the Hebrew camp in Sinai, to God underscores the connection that Hurston draws between God’s power and the natural world throughout the novel. She reinforces this connection with each demonstration of God’s power—leading the Hebrews forward as a pillar of fire or light-filled cloud, the parting waters of the Red Sea, and the arrival of quail and mana from the sky and fresh water from the rock. The glow on Moses’s face as he descends from the mountain further reinforces the link between the mountain and the divine presence and power of Moses’s God.