DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12664#0300
THE STONE OF THE TABB.ES.
283
of peace is the distribution of 2500 rolls of bread
among the poor around the mountain. I did not
think so much of this price when I saw the bread,
hard, black, and mouldy, and such as the meanest
beggar in our country would not accept from the
hand of charity. But the Bedouins took it, and
thanked God and the monks for it.
Hurrying away from these grateful pensioners,
we descended by the defile through which we had
entered ; and again passing the ruins of the house
of Aaron, and the spot from which he preached to
the assembled people, we came to a long flat
stone, with a few holes indented in its surface ;
which the superior pointed out as that on which
Moses threw down and broke the tablets of the
law, when he descended from the mountain and
found the Israelites worshipping the golden calf.
About half an hour farther on was another stone
much holier than this; at first I understood the
interpreter that it was the petrifaction of the gol-
den calf, but gathered, with some difficulty, from
the superior, that it was the mould in which the
head of the golden calf was run. He pointed out
to me the prints of the head, ears, and horns, clear
even to the eyes of a man of sixty; and told me
the story of the golden calf, somewhat differently
from the Bible account. He said that the people,
wanting another god, came up with one accord
and threw their golden ornaments upon that stone,
and agreed by acclamation that when it was
melted they would worship whatever should come
283
of peace is the distribution of 2500 rolls of bread
among the poor around the mountain. I did not
think so much of this price when I saw the bread,
hard, black, and mouldy, and such as the meanest
beggar in our country would not accept from the
hand of charity. But the Bedouins took it, and
thanked God and the monks for it.
Hurrying away from these grateful pensioners,
we descended by the defile through which we had
entered ; and again passing the ruins of the house
of Aaron, and the spot from which he preached to
the assembled people, we came to a long flat
stone, with a few holes indented in its surface ;
which the superior pointed out as that on which
Moses threw down and broke the tablets of the
law, when he descended from the mountain and
found the Israelites worshipping the golden calf.
About half an hour farther on was another stone
much holier than this; at first I understood the
interpreter that it was the petrifaction of the gol-
den calf, but gathered, with some difficulty, from
the superior, that it was the mould in which the
head of the golden calf was run. He pointed out
to me the prints of the head, ears, and horns, clear
even to the eyes of a man of sixty; and told me
the story of the golden calf, somewhat differently
from the Bible account. He said that the people,
wanting another god, came up with one accord
and threw their golden ornaments upon that stone,
and agreed by acclamation that when it was
melted they would worship whatever should come