Counted With the Stars (Out From Egypt, #1)

by Connilyn Cossette

My heart had sung that song every day, but my gods were

silent. Their hearts had sung that song, and their God had heard.

The water heaped up on either side of us, but the ground under my feet was dry. The icy wind had done its work and prevented the ground from pooling into mud.

What frightening power this God, this Yahweh, possessed—the strength to part the sea. He was more powerful than Pharaoh, who stood helpless, trapped behind a pillar of

light and cloud. More powerful than the sea and the winds. Each of the gods of Egypt had crumbled beneath his crushing might. A faceless, invisible god had defeated them all.

At least my sandals survived. The leather straps should have unraveled long ago with the constant friction of walking. Curious . . . Since the night I’d braved the silent streets of Iunu, I had not endured so much as a blister. Tired and sore feet were my constant companions, but they were not raw and bleeding as they should be.

“When our first ancestors HaAdam and Chavah lusted in the garden after the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they were cursed, along with the serpent that tempted them to sin. Fellowship with Elohim was broken, and man was sent out of the beautiful garden Elohim had planted with his own hands to delight his children. The heart of Elohim was broken, and he desired to heal the rift between himself and his creation, for not only was man cursed, but the entire universe resonated with the evil unleashed there.”

he had already arranged a plan to bring us back together. Instead of killing HaAdam and Chavah as they deserved, in an act of pure grace, he made them leave the garden, so they would not live forever and eat of the Tree of Life in their sinful state. He made the first of the sacrifices with his own hand,

spoke of a Coming One who would defeat HaSatan, the adversary, and his followers. It is this story that is written in the stars,

“There is the constellation known to Egypt as the woman Shes-Nu with her desired son in her lap, but in our language she is Bethulah, the virgin waiting for the Promised One. In her right hand she holds the bright star Tsemech, the Branch, for out of Avraham’s sons will come a Branch who will rejoin the people to Elohim. Another star in Bethulah is Bezah, the despised, but in Hebrew we call it Asmeath, or sin offering, for the shedding of blood is necessary, as it was in the Garden. An innocent—a

perfect sacrifice must be made to pay the penalty for our sin. It covers our shame, if only for a time, for it must be repeated time and time again.”

All my life, I had been told that animals must be sacrificed to appease the gods, to please them and coerce them to answer our prayers. But this god called Elohim, or Yahweh as I now knew him, asked for sacrifice not to please himself or t...

“Smat, as the Egyptians call him, or the one who rules—we call him Bo, for he comes to tread underfoot the Adversary with a sickle and spear in his hand. Then there is Tulku, the sacred mound of your creation myth.”

“Tulku in Hebrew is called Mozahaim, the scales which weigh our deeds and show us wanting. There is a price to be paid now, a ransom to be bought. Each time

a sacrifice is given and blood is spilled, it is a reminder that we owe a debt to the Righteous One and that one day, a greater sacrifice will be made.”

No one knew what to call the delicious substance, so we called it manna. It was beyond earthly description and could be baked into bread better than any Egyptian sweet roll. I didn’t even miss the nuts and fruits that were usually folded into such a delicacy. No honey was needed to sweeten it, no spices to heighten the aromas, no salt to liven the taste; it was everything we needed to eat. It filled me up and satisfied every craving. I was never so full of energy, and I noticed that everyone around me looked healthier than ever before.

“I believe he is a powerful god—perhaps the most powerful. But he frightens me. I am not sure I can submit to a deity who slaughtered my people so wantonly.” “And your Pharaoh did not slaughter my people?” His eyes pinned me. “Yes . . . but . . .” “Do you not think our freedom was worth the price that was paid? That our murdered sons and fathers, our violated women, did not deserve justice? Blood for blood? A life for a life?” Anger drew his brows together, and he pulled away from me. “I don’t . . . I don’t know . . . Must blood always be shed?” “Yes. Yahweh is the creator of life, and it is his alone to give and take away. Your worthless gods have no such power.”

“Your god cares only for his own people.” “You are here, are you not? Your brother, your mother, they are safe? And many of your countrymen followed us as well. It has always been so—anyone who follows Yahweh is welcome.”

“Even Avra...

not a Hebrew, his father was a maker of idols and he came out of the land of Ur. From our very beginnings, those who answered...

Yahweh could not be contained in an image, that his glory outweighed all the gold on the earth, that a mere piece of wood or stone carving could never capture the perfection and majesty of his being.

The God who parted the sea could surely mend the rift in my heart.

A Voice emanated from the Cloud, knocking me to my knees. An earthquake shook the valley, rattling the mountains and tossing boulders about like pebbles.

Most everyone was on their knees, or on their faces, many pleading or crying, some screaming in terror.

My stomach quelled violently at just how depraved I could be. I was black inside, filled with hate and pettiness.

The Voice did this; with only one pure syllable it stripped me bare, and I was undone. I hadn’t even discerned the word spoken by Yahweh.

The Voice broke me into a million pieces, but the girls were enraptured. In fact, all of the children were looking up, their faces bright with the same

fierce joy.

“It’s as if the Voice is the only thing that is real and this”—I gestured to the mountains and the camp below—“this is only an illusion.”

I simply appreciated them for what they were: lights to tell the story of the God who made them and to point ahead to the coming of a Redeemer

“What I know is that after the shame of being laid bare, when the Voice faded away, I felt as if my black heart had been washed clean.

There is, however, exciting new evidence being brought to light by archeologists and scholars that does support the Biblical timeline. I would encourage curious readers to look into the recent documentary called Patterns of Evidence: Exodus, which highlights these interesting discoveries.

I believe that God purposefully chisled Pharoah’s name from the Word, and therefore, history.

The names of the kings that Moses interacted with will never be known for sure, so their achievements are unknown as well. But conversely, take a moment and read Exodus 1:15–21. Whose names are written in the Word of God, for all posterity? Shifrah and

Puah—the brave midwives who stood against the most powerful man in the world and, out of fear for God, lied to Pharoah’s face to protect Hebrew lives. The Pharaohs of the Exodus account are nameless...