Judges 6-8: Did Gideon get away with building an idol?

So, as per usual, the Israelites are "evil" for 7 years, and God makes the Midianites oppress them. The Israelites ask God for help, and he sends another leader, Gideon. An angel appears to Gideon, and says "the Lord is with you." Gideon is like, if God is with us, then why do our lives suck so badly? Smart man. I like him already. The angel's proof that God is with them is that he will give Gideon the strength to overcome the enemies that God himself sent. Yep, impeccable logic, that.

Gideon, however, is still not convinced. He asks the angel to wait while he prepares an offering. He puts his offering on a rock, and when the angel touches the rock with his staff, the bread is consumed with fire and the angel vanishes. Now he is convinced! And also freaked out, because apparently you can't see God and live, so he thinks he's going to die now. But God is like, relax! You're not going to die.

Yep, it just keeps switching back and forth about whether you can see God and live. My guess is that you die after looking at God if God already wanted to kill you anyway.

Also, as usual, the bible can't seem to tell the difference between angels and God. I still haven't figured that one out.

Anywho, God tells him to destroy his father's alter to Baal (the main competitor god) and build one to him in its place. So he does this, the people find out it was Gideon and they tell his father to bring him out to be killed. His father is like, “What the hell kind of crap god is Baal if he can't even defend his own alter?” This is a truly excellent point, and everyone clearly saw the truth of his words and did not kill Gideon. Actually, I'm not sure why they didn't kill him, but that's what I like to think.

So Gideon summons a bunch of the Israelites to him to attack the Midianites. But first, he asks God for more proof that he's doing the right thing...he tells God he's going to put some wool out overnight, and if only the wool is damp with dew and the ground is dry then he'll believe him. And guess what, that happened. The next day he says he's going to leave the wool out and this time he wants dew on only the ground, and guess what, that happened too. Fairly smart actually, to make sure that the wool wouldn't just soak up the dew whether God was involved or not.

Now that Gideon is good and convinced, we can get on to the part where they lay waste to those Midianites for their horrible crime of being a pawn in God's stupid "fuck with the Israelites" game. But first, God is concerned that the victory won't glorify him sufficiently, so he reduces their number from 32,000 to 300.

God wakes Gideon up in the middle of the night and tells him to go attack the enemy, who are apparently “thick as locusts.” If, God says, he is nervous for some silly reason, he should go spy on their camp. He goes and overhears one guy telling another guy about a dream he had in which a loaf of bread knocks down a tent, and they decide that obviously it all means that God is on the Israelites' side. Clearly the bread had no yeast in it.

So, I guess hearing that his enemy was scared of him made him feel better. He attacks, and what an attack it is. His 300 people stand around with trumpets in one hand and torches in the other (so apparently no weapons) and just wait while their enemies kill each other. Some of them run away and they are killed by Israelites, and a bunch of other people are killed too. Great.

Now that things are all peachy again, the Israelites ask Gideon to lead them. He says "no!" and then proceeds to be the leader anyway. He got some of the gold from all their killing and looting, and makes what sounds suspiciously like an idol ("Gideon made the gold into an ephod, which he placed in Ophrah, his town. All Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his family."), but apparently God doesn't care. He doesn't say anything about it, at any rate.

So, while Gideon lived (4o years) everything was great! Then he dies, and immediately the Israelites start worshipping Baal again. Sigh. This whole story is so lame (still). The Israelites turn from God for some reason, God punishes them but for some reason doesn't destroy them entirely even though he would clearly like to, then the Israelites come back to God for some unknown and unfathomable reason. Repeat forever. This shit has been going on since Exodus, it sucked then and it sucks now. The characters suck, the plot sucks, and there's no motivation for anything that happens.

Furthermore, God promised them such horrible doom (eating their own babies and such) if they ever turned from him. They have done that several times now, and basically all God has done about it is to send some people with chariots to generally be a nuisance now and then. Where's all the doom? I was expecting doom. Seriously.

Judges 3-5: God hires an assassin

Chapter 2 was like an overview of the many years after the conquest of the promised land. It said basically that God kept giving them leaders, and while the leader lived things were more or less OK, but as soon as they died the Israelites were right back into their "evil" ways...I guess until God picks out the next leader (which you'd think he could have done more quickly, without such a big gap for "evilness" inbetween, but whatever). Starting in chapter 3, we get some details.

We get some detail about the assassination of Eglod, which is at least a story. At some point, the Israelites let some foreigner (gasp!), Eglod, be their king. They didn't like him apparently, because they "cried out" to God, and he sent an assassin, Ehud. He went to see the king with a short sword hidden under his clothing, and told him that he had a "secret message" for him. So the king sent all this people away (idiot). When they're alone, Ehud says he has a message from God, and stabs him in the stomach. BAM!

Next time someone says they have a message from God, look out, they may be about to stab you. You never know.

And now for the clever escape...he closes the door when he leaves, and all his servants assume the king is going to the bathroom, so they wait "to the point of embarrassment." Meanwhile, Ehud gets away. How exciting. They should make that into a movie! Anyway, then he convinces the Israelites that they should attack Moab, and they kill everyone there, just like the old days.

Ehud is leader for a while, and things are good while he's alive. After he dies, the Israelites start being all "evil" again. God gets pissed, again, and gets some people with chariots (oh god no, chariots!) to "cruelly oppress" them. This goes on until the Israelites "cry out" to God, which apparently takes 20 years.

At this point, the Israelites happen to be lead by a woman, Deborah. I cannot express how surprised I am that there was ever a woman leading the Israelites. Anyway, she says that they need to go attack these people with the chariots. This whole story is really confusing and poorly written. Deborah tells this guy Barak that he needs to go attack the chariot people, who she will be leading (how the hell does she intend to pull that off? who knows.) and thus they will win. Barak says that he will only do it if Deborah leads their people with him. She agrees (but what about her mighty and nonsensical plan?), but warns him that he will get no honor from this. Because there was going to be honor for Barak in leading an army into a sham battle against a force that Deborah has already co-opted. Whatever. I clearly don't understand "honor."

They go, there's a battle, and with God's help they kill everyone except the leader, Sisera. So, apparently God can handle the chariots, he's just chosen not to all this time. Great. Anyway, Sisera gets away and makes it to Jael, who is the wife of some ally, and he takes a nap in her tent. While he's sleeping, she drives a tent peg through his head. We never get to find out why she would do this and ruin her husband's alliances, she just does it for no apparent reason. Good story-telling, that.

Then Deborah and Barak spend a chapter singing a song about how awesome they are. I don't think it's about much else.

Joshua 9-12: Unusual biblical conciseness

Just an aside... I don't know if anyone reads this, but if someone does and has been wondering where I've been, the length between posts here varies depending on how much free time I have, and my interest. Sometimes, I need or want to do other things besides read the bible, shocking I know. Anyway, my point is that even though there's big long gaps with no updates, I will not give up!

Anyway, onwards.

The people of Gibeon decide to trick the Israelites into making a peace treaty with them. They dress up like they've been traveling for a long time, and say, "We're from really far away, and we've heard of how great your god is. We want to join you! Look, our worn out clothes and moldy, stale bread proves our story!" The Israelites buy their lame story for some reason, and make a treaty. 3 days later, they find out the Gibeons were from nearby. They apparently can't kill them now, because they promised not too! They're all sad about it. But they get to turn them into slaves forever.

The king of Jerusalem is freaked out that Gibeon is allied with Israel now, because apparently Gibeon is big and powerful. So he gets a bunch of other cities to team up with him to attack Gibeon. The Israelites come to Gibeon's rescue; they kill a bunch of people, then God kills all the rest with hailstones as they run away. Fantastic.

For some random reason, on this day Joshua asks God to make the sun and the moon stand still for the whole day. There's no context or reason for it, really. It's not supposed to help them with the battle or anything. Apparently it's just to glorify God some more. Is anyone surprised.

Anyway, after the battle, they hang the kings' corpses up on poles for the day, then threw them in a cave.

Next, in a rare bit of biblical relative conciseness, Joshua and the Israelites utterly destroy all the cities in the south in only half a chapter, and all the cities in the north in the next chapter. And there you have it, the promised land totally destroyed in only 1 1/2 chapters.

Concise time is over! Now we get a big chapter long list of all the kings and territories they conquered.

Numbers 20-21: God kills MORE Israelites, then he finally kills someone else

Miriam (sister of Moses and Aaron) is dead. Nobody cares. Surprise.

Once again, the Israelites have no water and are bitching about it. Moses does the old trick of hitting a rock with a staff (this time the magic Levite staff from chapter 17) and makes water come out of it. But apparently this time he fucks it up somehow, because God comes along and says that Moses and Aaron are going to die before they get to the promised land. Clearly, that is totally warranted.

Then the Israelites try to negotiate passage through the land of Edom (as I recall, Edom was Jacob's brother, aka Esau) but they are denied. They don't stop badgering the King of Edom about it until he sends his army out to threaten them.

Then God makes Aaron climb a mountain just to die naked on top of it, as (clearly) fair and just punishment for Moses somehow fucking up the whole 'making water come out of a rock' thing. He's naked because he has to hike up there with his son, and once up there, he has to give his priestly clothes to his son so he can be the next priest. Like they couldn't have done that before. Fantastic.

I like how everything Moses and Aaron do seems to take place on top of a mountain, or shut away inside of a tent...away from the prying eyes of the Israelites, in other words. These 2 sound like a couple of con artists to me. Aaron probably just took his son up there to tell him about the scam and then vanished into comfortable retirement or something.

The King of Arad hears that the Israelites are coming, so he sends out an army to capture some of them. Then the Israelites "completely destroyed them and their towns," with God's eager help of course. Fantastic.

While they are going around Edom, they start bitching once more about the lack of water and how sick they are of manna. So, obviously, God sends a bunch of poisonous snakes to bite them all. "And many Israelites died." Again. God is always killing his chosen people. And, as usual, the people repent and ask Moses to pray to God for them. He does, and God tells him to make a bronze snake, so all the people who were bitten and haven't died yet could look at it and be cured. Oh what a miracle, God saves a few people from the snakebites that he himself caused! God didn't kill quite as many of his own chosen people as he was going to! What. The. Fuck.

Seriously, I am so sick of this lame story. Israelites complain, God kills a bunch of Israelites, Israelites repent, God somehow manages to stop short of killing everybody, and for some stupid reason everybody is grateful. Ugh. How many times is this going to happen? I don't know who I hate more, God or the Israelites.

They hike on through the wilderness of 5 different places for who knows how long, until they come to a place called Beer (seriously). Here, God magnanimously decides he's going to give the Israelites water. Hey, good job God! You finally figured out the #1 reason the Israelites complain about you: you never give them water, even though you clearly have the power to. Then everyone sings a silly little song about a well. It never says whether they actually got their water, or if they were just promised it and then sang about it...I'll just assume they did get it.

Then they walk through 4 more places. After that, they ask the King of the Amorites for passage through his land. I don't get whey they walked through 9 places without talking to anybody, and then all of the sudden they do. Actually, I'm not even sure where they are going, it doesn't say. Are they just wandering around the holy land looking for a fight? It sure seems that way.

Anyway, he says no, and sends his army out to attack. The Israelites fight back, and apparently win, because they take over all the Amorite cities and "settled" there. They also left no survivors. Wonderful.

I guess after all that the Israelites aren't finished with the Amorites, because they also attack the surrounding areas to get the Amorites who managed to get away. Then they go to Bashan, fight their army, win, and again leave no survivors and take over their land. And they do it all with God's help. Hey, God is finally at least helping to kill somebody besides the Israelites.

Let the conquest begin, I guess. I wonder how long this goes on for?

Exodus 17-20: The 10 commandments

So, once again, the Israelites have no water. But rather than asking God for water, they complain about Moses. So God tells Moses to hit a rock with his magical staff, and water comes out. Fantastic.

You know, I have to wonder... since God can apparently make it rain quail and bread every day, can't he also make it rain rain every day?? Then they would always have something to drink. How is making water come out of a rock one time any solution, since they're traveling, and thus not going to be there the next day? Oh well.

Then they are attacked by the Amalekites. Moses sends Joshua out to fight them. While the fighting is going on, Moses stands well back, but he "helps" by holding up his hands. Apparently whenever Moses's hands were up, the battle was going well, and whenever Moses's hands were down, the battle went badly. Really? So they win, and it's clearly all because Moses managed to hold his hands up the whole time. And then when it's all over, God decides that he really hates the Amalekites, so he will "be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation." Well that's friendly.

Apparently Moses didn't bother to bring his wife and kids with him when he left Egypt. So they came and found him in the desert, and the father-in-law, Jethro, came too. Jethro noticed that Moses was acting as the only judge for everyone's disputes. It said earlier that there were 600,000 men, not to mention the women and children of course, who left Egypt with Moses, so it was all more than Moses alone could handle. So Jethro suggests that he pick out some other judges to handle the simple cases. So that's what he did, yay.

Then, even though he was apparently a total convert (he went on about how great it was, what God did it Egypt, and he gave God burnt offerings!), Jethro goes back to Egypt (or wherever he came from).

This next story is a bit weird. They are near Mount Sinai, and Moses is having a friendly chat with God. God tells Moses to go tell everyone that so long as they "obey me fully," then "out of all nations you will be my treasured possession." Err, I thought this was already thoroughly established in Genesis. So Moses does that, and everyone is like, "yeah, sure."

Then God tells Moses that he is going to appear to everybody as a "dense cloud," so that they will stop giving Moses shit, basically. And they should prepare for this by being "consecrated" by Moses, washing their clothes, and abstaining from sex, for 2 days, until God appears on the 3rd day. That is so random. I mean, I already knew God is totally obsessed with the sex that his followers are having (what a perv), but why does he care if their clothes are clean? Is this like people dressing up to go to church? Cause I never understood that either.

God also tells Moses that he is going to be appearing on the mountain, and that Moses should tell all the people that they are not allowed to so much as touch the mountain, or they will die (apparently by a hail of stones or arrows). Well, that's convenient.

On the third day there is a cloud, and thunder and lightning, over the mountain. Then there's a trumpet, then a whole lot of smoke, apparently because God descended on the mountain "in fire." Then God is on top of the mountain and says "Moses, get up here!"

Wait...so Moses is allowed to go up the mountain, but no one else is? Again, that is very convenient.

God tells Moses to go tell everyone (again) to not come up the mountain. Apparently God is very concerned that they will charge up there to try to see him, and then die. Because God himself would kill them. He could just... not kill them. But what fun would that be.

So, again, Moses is acting as messenger. How is this "appearing to everybody" thing any different than usual?

Ah, here we go. God does address everybody, with the 10 commandments, which everyone knows about.

There was this funny tidbit in the "no idols" one:

I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Got that right.

Then God is talking to just Moses again. God says, tell them "no idols!" again. Apparently that is the most important one. God also says to tell them to be sure to build alters to me, and to sacrifice burnt offerings on it. But, random alter rules: "you will defile it if you use a tool on it" and "do not go up to my altar on steps, lest your nakedness be exposed on it." WTF? I don't even know what that second one means. I imagine someone going up on an alter by a set of stairs, and then suddenly their clothes vanish. I guess God is a fan of sight gags? And really hates stairs?