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?

Genesis 20-22: Isaac is born, God tests Abraham

Abraham moved to someplace called Gerar, where he and Sarah worked the same con as before...they pretend to be siblings, and the king takes her (apparently as a concubine or something, since he's already married). God comes along as tells the king, (paraphrasing) "Sarah is actually married, and even though you couldn't possibly have known about it, I'm going to kill you and everyone else here." Good old God. This stuff is getting downright predictable.

The king actually sticks up for himself...good for him. He makes the point that he couldn't have possibly known she was married because he was lied to, and that he hadn't even touched Sarah yet anyway. God says, yeah you haven't touched her because of me. You return her, or you'll all die. That's friendly.

So the king gives Sarah back to Abraham, and he gives him a bunch of animals, slaves, and money, and lets him live anywhere in his land.

This is also the first time Abraham is referred to as a prophet.

Sarah got pregnant and had a son...they named him Isaac and circumcised him, aww.

After Isaac was born, Sarah wanted to have Hagar and Ishmael sent away, apparently so Isaac won't have to compete with Ishmael. Abraham didn't really want to do that, but God (what a dick) thought it was a fine idea, so that's what they did.

After wandering around in the desert for a while, Hagar and Ishmael run out of food and water, and it makes it sound like they are just about dead before an angel comes by and encourages them, and then God made Hagar notice a well that was right there. I think saying, "hey, look at that well over there," is the nicest thing God has done so far (never mind that God wanted them sent away in the first place). So Ishmael grew up in the desert, became an archer, and married some chick is mom found in Egypt. Alright then.

Meanwhile, that King that Abraham and Sarah conned out of a bunch of stuff, and who's land they are living in, asks them to swear that they will play nice, which they do.

Then Abraham asks the King to return a well that he (Abraham) dug, that the king's men had captured. The king says, I don't know what you're talking about, but OK. Abraham plants a tree to commemorate this apparently very important occasion.

Next is one of my favorite heart-warming stories...God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham, the sucker, falls for it. Abraham and Isaac start hiking up this mountain, with wood for a sacrifice. Isaac asks his father where the lamb is (what a thinker), and Abraham says "God will provide." They get to the place, and Abraham has tied up Isaac and is on the verge of killing him, when an angel comes along and says (paraphrasing), "Stop that." So Abraham sacrifices a handy ram that happens to wander by. Then the angel comes back and says (paraphrasing), "Now that I know you really fear me, I'll be sure to do all that stuff I keep going on about (numerous descendants, land, etc)."

So, God ups the ante on this covenant again. It's not enough that they have to be enslaved for 400 years, or that to prove their loyalty they have to chop a bit of their penis off, now Abraham has to further prove how faithful he is by being willing to kill is son. Seriously...let it never be said that God doesn't test people.

How insecure must God be to need this much reassurance that his people really, truly fear him?

Genesis 12-13: God's abritrarily "chosen people"

God comes to Abram and says that he will be blessed, and his name will be great, and so on. He tells Abram to go away to some land that he will show him, and live there. So Abram goes away with his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot. Eventually they get to a place, where God appears and says, all this land I give to you and your children. There are other people already living in this place of course, I wonder what is going to happen to them?

So, why is Abram so blessed, why is he chosen? There is no reason given whatsoever. By my count, Abram is 9 generations removed from Noah’s sons…if you start with 3 couples, 9 generations later there must be thousands of people. Out of all of these, God chooses Abram to be his chosen people, and fuck the rest. Why? It’s a mystery.

Then Abram and Sarai pull off this con in Egypt. They go there, and Abram says something about how he’s afraid that if the people know they are married, they will kill Abram to have Sarai, because she is so beautiful. So he convinces her that they should pretend to be siblings. The pharaoh marries Sarai, and Abram, as the royal brother-in-law, gets all sorts of amazing riches.

God decides to be pissed at the pharaoh (why? For all the pharaoh knew, she was unmarried. Abram and Sarai are the ones who lied to him.), so he unleashes a bunch of horrible diseases on the pharaoh’s household. So the pharaoh says to Abram, you suck, take your wife and go. So they left, and they also got to keep all the stuff they were given. What a couple of con artists.

So Abram, Sarai, and Lot leave Eypgt. There was no mention of what Lot was up to in Egypt, but he must not have done too bad for himself…between Abram and Lot they had so many possessions that the land could not support them, and they had to split up. Lot went toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abram went to the land of Canaan.

After they separate, God comes and reiterates his promise to Abram; all this land (where people already live, but fuck them) I give to you and your offspring. Your offspring will be as numerous as grains of dust on the earth, etc, etc.