“For forty years?” I laughed. “The Israelites must be stupid.”

“We are the Israelites.”

“We are?”

“Yes.”

“I have to go find my mother,” I said.

“When you come back, let’s play Moses and Pharaoh.”

The angel has confided in me that he is going to ask the Lord if he can become Spider-Man. He watches the television constantly, even when I sleep, and he has become obsessed with the story of the hero who fights demons from the rooftops. The angel says that evil looms larger now than it did in my time, and that calls for greater heroes. The children need heroes, he says. I think he just wants to swing from buildings in tight red jammies.

What hero could touch these children anyway, with their machines and medicine and distances made invisible? (Raziel: not here a week and he would trade the Sword of God to be a web slinger.) In my time, our heroes were few, but they were real—some of us could even trace our kinship to them. Joshua always played the heroes—David, Joshua, Moses—while I played the evil ones: Pharaoh, Ahab, and Nebuchadnezzar. If I had a shekel for every time I was slain as a Philistine, well, I’d not be riding a camel through the eye of a needle anytime soon, I’ll tell you that. As I think back, I see that Joshua was practicing for what he would become.

“Let my people go,” said Joshua, as Moses.

“Okay.”

“You can’t just say, ‘Okay.’”

“I can’t?”

“No, the Lord has hardened your heart against my demands.”

“Why’d he do that?”

“I don’t know, he just did. Now, let my people go.”

“Nope.” I crossed my arms and turned away like someone whose heart is hardened.

“Behold as I turn this stick into a snake. Now, let my people go!”

“Okay.”

“You can’t just say ‘okay’!”

“Why? That was a pretty good trick with the stick.”

“But that’s not how it goes.”