The tidings I bring are not yet ripe for the ears of a third person." Hur drew his figure to a still greater height and, interrupting Hosea, asked Miriam whether she desired to hear the son of Nun without witnesses; she answered with a quiet "yes." Then Hur turned haughtily and coldly to the warrior: "I think that Miriam knows the Lord's will, as well as her brother's, and is aware of what beseems the women of Israel.

If I am not mistaken, it was under this tree that your own father, the worthy Nun, gave to my son Uri the sole answer which Moses must also make to every bearer of a message akin to yours." "Do you know it ?" asked Hosea in a tone of curt reproof.
"No," replied the other, "but I suspect its purport, and look here." While speaking he stooped with youthful agility and, raising two large stones with his powerful arms, propped them against each other, rolled several smaller ones to their sides, and then, with panting breath, exclaimed: "Let this heap be a witness between me and thee, like the stones named Mizpah which Jacob and Laban erected.

And as the latter called upon the Lord to watch between him and the other, so do I likewise.

I point to this heap that you may remember it, when we are parted one from the other.

I lay my hand upon these stones and bear witness that I, Hur, son of Caleb and Ephrath, put my trust in no other than the Lord, the God of our fathers, and am ready to obey His command, which calls us forth from the kingdom of Pharaoh into a land which He promised to us.