When Moses went up into the Mount, a cloud received him, and bore him into heaven. On his way, he met the door-keeper Kemuel, chief of twelve thousands of angels of destruction; they were angels of fire; and he would have prevented Moses from advancing: then Moses pronounced the Name in twelve letters, revealed to him by God from the Burning Bush, and the angel and his host recoiled before that word twelve thousand leagues. But some say that Moses smote the angel, and wounded him.
A little further, Moses met another angel; this was Hadarniel, who had a terrible voice, and every word he uttered split into twelve thousand lightnings; he reigned six hundred thousand leagues higher than Kemuel. Moses, in fear, wept at his voice, and would have fallen out of the cloud, had not God restrained him. Then the prophet pronounced the Name of seventy-two letters, and the angel fled.
Next he came to the fiery angel Sandalfon, and he would have fallen out of the cloud, but God held him up. Then he reached the river of flame, called Rigjon, which flows from the beasts which are beneath the Throne, and is filled with their sweat; across this God led him.[[529]]
It is asserted by the Rabbis that Moses learnt the whole law in the forty days that he was in the Mount, but as he descended from the immediate presence of God, he entered the region where stood the angels guarding the Mount, and when he saw the Angel of Fear, the Angel of Sweat, the Angel of Trembling, and the Angel of Cold Shuddering, he was so filled with consternation, that he forgot all that he had learnt.
Then God sent the Angel Jephipha, who brought back all to his remembrance; and, armed with the law, Moses passed the ranks of all the angels, and each gave him some secret or mystery; one the art of mixing simples, one that of reading in the stars, another that of compounding antidotes, a fourth the secret of name, or the Kabalistic mystery.[[530]]
It is said by the Mussulmans, that when the law was declared to the children of Israel by Moses, they refused to receive it; then Mount Sinai rose into the air, and moved above them, and they fled from it; but it followed them, and hung over their heads ready to crush them. And Moses said, “Accept the law, or the mountain will fall on you and destroy you.”
Then they fell on their faces and placed the right side of the brow and right cheek against the ground and looked up with the left eye at the mountain that hung above them, and said, “We will accept the law.” This is the manner in which the Jews to this day perform their worship, says Tabari; they place the brow and right cheek and eye upon the ground, and turn the left cheek and eye to heaven, and in this position they pray.[[531]]
7. THE MANNA. (Exod. xvi.)
All the time that Israel wandered in the wilderness they were given manna, or angels’ food. This food is ground by the angels in heaven, as Moses saw when he was there. For when Moses was in heaven, he knew not when it was night and when it was day, till he listened to the song of the angels; and when they sang “Holy God,” then he knew it was morning below on earth; and when they sang “Blessed be thou,” he knew it was evening below. Also he observed the angels grinding the manna and casting it down; and then he knew it was night, and they were strewing it for the Israelites to gather in the morning.[[532]] It is in the third firmament, called Schechakim (clouds), that the mills are in which manna is ground.[[533]] Along with the manna fell pearls and diamonds, and on the mountains it was heaped so high that it could be seen from afar.[[534]]
And the manna, this bread from heaven, contained in itself all sweetness; and whatsoever any man desired to eat, the manna tasted to him as if it were that food.[[535]] Thus, if any one said, “I wish I had a fat bird,” the manna tasted like a fat bird. But usually it had the taste of cakes made of oil, honey, and fine flour, according to the words of the Lord, “My meat also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey wherewith I fed thee” (Ezek. xvi. 10).[[536]] The Targum of Palestine thus describes the fall of the manna:—In the morning there was a fall of holy dew, prepared as a table,[[537]] round about the camp; and the clouds ascended and caused manna to descend upon the dew; and there was upon the face of the desert a minute substance in lines, minute as the hoar frost upon the ground. And the sons of Israel beheld, and wondered, and said to one another, “Man hu?” (What is it?) for they knew not what it was. And Moses said to them, “It is the bread which hath been laid up for you from the beginning in the heavens on high, and now the Lord will give it you to eat. This is the word which the Lord hath dictated: You are to gather of it; every man according to the number of the persons of his tabernacle.”