So, Gideon is dead and the Israelites are back to their horrible wicked ways. His son, Abimelek, decides he wants to be the leader now. To prevent his 70 (!) brothers from getting in the way, he murders them all, except for the youngest, Jotham, who escapes.
The people crown him their king. (I was wondering why they would want the horrible guy who murdered 70 of his brothers to be the king, but we learn later than they helped. So, that's great.) During the ceremony, Jotham shows up and tells a confusing parable (which, apparently, are not only for Jesus). It's about some trees who want to pick out a king, and they go around asking various trees if they'll do it, and they refuse. Finally they ask the thornbush to be the king, and it agrees, but promises to burn down the cedars of Lebanon, whatever that is. Whatever that's all about... I guess Abimelek is the piece of crap thornbush of the story. Or something.
Shockingly, Jotham fails to persuade the people that Abimelek will be a bad king (I'm just assuming that was his goal, I have no idea what's going on), probably because they didn't know what the crap he was talking about. So Jotham runs away and hides for 3 years.
Meanwhile, Abimelek is king, and God "stirs up animosity" between Abimelek and the people. He does it to avenge the 70 murdered brothers; in typical fashion, God chooses to exert his supposedly omnipotent power, not when it might have actually done any good, but for revenge when it's too late.
Now we get a little story that is, I suppose, the main result of this civil unrest. Someone named Gaal moves to a town called Shechem, which is under Abimelek's juristiction. At some party Gaal gets the people all riled up, saying that some other guy should be the leader. Viva la revolution! This guy Zebul hears this and, being loyal to Abimelek, sends him a message telling him to come attack Gaal. So they come the next morning, Gaal and his people fight them, and they (Gaal et al) are all killed or chased off.
You'd think the story would be over now, wouldn't you? But no. Abimelek has to destroy the entire city and kill everyone there, even though they had next to nothing to do with Gaal's harmless little comment. The next day he destroys the city when everyone goes out to work in the fields. The survivors go to some stronghold (Helm's Deep?). Abimelek goes there and sets it on fire with everyone inside.
Having utterly destroyed Shechem and all of its people for their tangential involvement with Gaal and his drunken boasting, he goes and attacks some city called Thebez. I cannot figure out what this place has to do with anything, other than Abimelek is on a roll and it's the next random target. All the people in the town lock themselves in a tower, and some woman drops a big stone on Abimelek and cracks his skull. Abimelek asks one of his men to kill him, so that no one will ever say that he was killed by a woman. Wow. Misogyny taken to the extreme, I guess? I don't even know what to say about that.
Showing posts with label fucking weird. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fucking weird. Show all posts
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Deuteronomy 14-25: Where to poop (and other rules)
Yeah, this is a really huge section of bible, but it's mostly a repeat of the rules from before, with a few new things thrown in. I marked the new things; you could just read those parts and not miss anything. That's pretty much what I did.
We get reminded what food is clean and unclean. It still says that rabbits chew the cud and bats are birds, just incase that wasn't wrong enough before.
Then it says that thing about "don't cook a baby goat in its mother's milk." That never gets any less weird, no matter how many times I read it.
NEW: Tithes. Reserve 1/10 of your harvest, and once a year travel to that one place where God is going to "put his Name," (since it doesn't have a name yet, I will call it "God's Special Place") and eat it there. If it's too far and you can't carry it all, go there with an equivalent amount of money and buy food there to eat in God's presence. Every year do that, except on the third year. On that year, store all the tithes in the cities so the Levites and other people who don't have much (widows, orphans) can use it. How nice.
If God really cared about the poor, he'd give all the tithes to them, not just 1/3 of them. Just a thought.
Every 7 years, all debts between Israelites are cancelled (debts with foreigners remain). This is kind of random, and seems to be pretty much a "because I'm God and I say so" thing. There is an admonition to not be tightfisted toward the end of those 7 years, because you won't be paid back...in fact, you should be extra generous then.
Sorta new: A small change from Leviticus... all servants go free after 6 years, including the women. That's the different part, used to be female servants were yours forever and ever. Like before, if a servant wants to stay, you have to nail their earlobe to the doorframe. Then they stay forever.
As we've heard before, God wants the firstborn of all the livestock. But here we finally find out what that means. You're supposed to take them with your tithe to God's Special Place, and eat them.
This is a TON of food they're supposed to eat in God's Special Place. How does that work? Or are they just supposed to stay there for months until it's all eaten? How inconvenient.
Once again, celebrate the Passover! No fucking yeast. It must be celebrated at God's Special Place. Also, celebrate the festival of weeks and the festival of tabernacles.
NEW: Select judges for each city, and they shall judge with fairness, justice, and no bribes. If a case is too hard for these judges, go to God's Special Place and bring the case to the Levitcal priests (apparently the Levites got a promotion). You must accept their ruling, anyone who doesn't will be killed.
Don't sacrifice any animal with a defect.
Stone to death anyone who worships other gods. You must have at least 2 witnesses to do so, and they must throw the first stone.
NEW: When you are set up in the promised land, you can have a king, but only the king that God chooses. That king may not have too many horses, too many wives, or too much money. He must have his own personal copy of all these rules, so he can become familiar with them. And even though he is the king, he may not break them.
Levites and priests don't get their own stuff. For food, they eat specific parts of the sacrifices and other offerings (grain, etc).
Do not follow the ways of the people you're about to wipe out. No other gods, no divination, child sacrifice, witchcraft, etc.
NEW: Apparently, there is going to be a prophet to talk for God, because at some point the people said they couldn't stand to talk to God themselves (I don't remember that). Any false prophet must be killed. You can tell the difference by whether what they say is true or not. Lol, clearly there are no problems with that.
Set up cities of refuge for people who accidentally kill someone to go to and be safe from revenge. Here it gives a ridiculous example of an accidental murder: you could be cutting down a tree, when the head of your axe flies off and kills someone! That's random.
You need at least 2 witnesses to convict someone of a crime. If a witness is found to be lying, they will suffer the same fate as though they had committed the crime they lied about.
NEW: When you go to war, don't worry if the opponent is stronger, because God is with you. You should bring a priest, and just before the fighting starts he should address the soldiers with an uplifting speech. And apparently after that, the officers will give everyone one last chance to desert. Weird. Then, before you attack, offer them peace. If they accept, you just got some new slaves!! Congratulations. If they refuse, you can kill all the men, and keep the women and children. If there's a woman you fancy, you can take her as your wife. Take her home, give her a month to mourn, then fuck her. If it wasn't to your satisfaction, throw her out. But you can't make her into a slave at this point, you have to just let her go free. This is disgusting.
However, in the conquest of the promised land (which I'm sure they'll get around to eventually), spare no one. Also disgusting.
NEW: This is weird. If a murdered person is found in the middle of nowhere, the leaders of the nearest city have to make atonement to God. I'm not sure why they are to blame. Anyway, they have to make atonement by finding a cow that has never worked, take it to a valley that has never been plowed and that has a stream, and break its neck. Random as ever.
NEW: You have to give your firstborn son a double share of the inheritance, even if he's not your favorite. It also casually mentions what to do if you have 2 wives here, so clearly the Bible still doesn't care about monogamy. Just an FYI.
If you have a "stubborn and rebellious son" and he just won't obey, everybody in town must stone him to death. That'll show him.
NEW: If you put someone to death for some crime, you may hang their corpse on a pole, but only til sundown, then you have to take it down and bury it. Don't want to stink up the place I guess.
If you see something that someone lost, return it to them.
If you see someone with an animal that fell down, go help them get it up again.
NEW: No transvestites. "A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this." Awesome, I will add this to my big list of reason God hates me. I honestly had no idea the bible says this, I'm surprised it's not brought up more often.
NEW: You can take eggs from a bird's nest, but don't get greedy and take the bird also. Random.
NEW: When you build a new house, include a parapet (a wall around the roof) so no one will fall off the roof and hurt themselves. Also random.
Don't crossbreed your crops.
Don't yoke a donkey and ox to the same plow.
No fabric blends.
Attach tassels to the corners of your cloak, to remind you of God's rules somehow.
NEW: If a man, after sleeping with his new wife, suspects she is not a virgin, he can accuse her of being a whore. Now the burden of proof falls on her father. He must "display the cloth before the elders of the town." Apparently that proves it somehow. I don't know what cloth it's talking about. Anyway, if it can be proved that she was a virgin, the man must pay a fine and is never allowed to divorce her. If it cannot be proved, she must be stoned to death in front of her father's house. Yay, biblical morality. I guess "innocent until proven guilty" hasn't been invented yet.
If a man sleeps with a married woman, they both need to die.
NEW: Here's an interesting rhetorical question for you: if a woman is raped in a forest and there's no one around to hear it, is she still guilty? Guilty of what, you might wonder? Don't think about it or you'll just get angry. Here's what the bible says:
Hey bible, what happens if a woman who isn't a virgin is raped? Or what if a man is raped? I guess that just doesn't matter. It's almost like the bible doesn't care about rape for the reasons a normal human being would (because rape is obviously horrible), but because virginity is some sort of commodity that is stolen, and you must be punished for the theft of it. Or for not protecting it by screaming loud enough, I guess.
Don't marry your father's wife.
NEW: The following people may not enter the "assembly of God," whatever that is:
Don't give foreign runaway slaves back to their masters. That's actually pretty good.
Don't be a shrine prostitute. I don't know what that is.
Don't charge an Israelite interest when you loan them money.
If you make a vow to God, do whatever it is quickly.
You can go eat from someone else's field, but just eat there and don't take anything away with you. Like a buffet!
NEW: Say a man and woman get divorced, the woman remarries, then divorced again. The first guy isn't allowed to marry her again "because she has been defiled." I really don't know why it matters.
NEW: A man can't be drafted for 1 year after being married, because he should have a chance to be happy with his wife. Aww.
Kidnappers must die.
Be nice to the poor, foreigners, widows, and orphans. Let them forage in your fields.
NEW: Don't punish the parents for the children's sins or vice versa.
NEW: The maximum number of lashes as punishment is 40.
If a man dies, is brother has to marry his widow. If he doesn't want to marry her, God will kill him!!! Ahem, or, she goes and complains to the town elders, and the elders try to talk him into it. If he still doesn't want to, she gets to spit in his face in front of everybody. She also takes one of his sandals, and his family will ever after be known as "The Family of the Unsandaled." Oh snap! (I assume someone from that time and place would say) That is fucking silly, is what I, from this time and place, would say. But at least God changed his mind about killing people in this situation. Good.
If a man is in a fight and his wife tries to help out by grabbing the other guy's junk, her hand must be cut off. "Show no mercy!!"
Use honest weights and measures.
God still hates the Amalekites.
And that's about it, I think. The whole rulebook for the Israelites. Interestingly, as much as it repeated the stuff from Leviticus, there's a bunch of stuff that got left out. Like the bit about "man shall not lie with man, blah blah, etc." Totally not in Deuteronomy (so far, but I think rule-making time is over). I guess that's just not as important as "no fabric blends," which did make the final cut. Oh yeah! That's right. God does care more about fabric blends than homosexuality. Bwah haha.
Anyway, most of this stuff is either just plain weird or morally reprehensible. This is where people claim to get their morals from? I would fear for my safety if I thought that was true. And I'm the immoral one, because I don't believe in this shit. Really?
We get reminded what food is clean and unclean. It still says that rabbits chew the cud and bats are birds, just incase that wasn't wrong enough before.
Then it says that thing about "don't cook a baby goat in its mother's milk." That never gets any less weird, no matter how many times I read it.
NEW: Tithes. Reserve 1/10 of your harvest, and once a year travel to that one place where God is going to "put his Name," (since it doesn't have a name yet, I will call it "God's Special Place") and eat it there. If it's too far and you can't carry it all, go there with an equivalent amount of money and buy food there to eat in God's presence. Every year do that, except on the third year. On that year, store all the tithes in the cities so the Levites and other people who don't have much (widows, orphans) can use it. How nice.
If God really cared about the poor, he'd give all the tithes to them, not just 1/3 of them. Just a thought.
Every 7 years, all debts between Israelites are cancelled (debts with foreigners remain). This is kind of random, and seems to be pretty much a "because I'm God and I say so" thing. There is an admonition to not be tightfisted toward the end of those 7 years, because you won't be paid back...in fact, you should be extra generous then.
Sorta new: A small change from Leviticus... all servants go free after 6 years, including the women. That's the different part, used to be female servants were yours forever and ever. Like before, if a servant wants to stay, you have to nail their earlobe to the doorframe. Then they stay forever.
As we've heard before, God wants the firstborn of all the livestock. But here we finally find out what that means. You're supposed to take them with your tithe to God's Special Place, and eat them.
This is a TON of food they're supposed to eat in God's Special Place. How does that work? Or are they just supposed to stay there for months until it's all eaten? How inconvenient.
Once again, celebrate the Passover! No fucking yeast. It must be celebrated at God's Special Place. Also, celebrate the festival of weeks and the festival of tabernacles.
NEW: Select judges for each city, and they shall judge with fairness, justice, and no bribes. If a case is too hard for these judges, go to God's Special Place and bring the case to the Levitcal priests (apparently the Levites got a promotion). You must accept their ruling, anyone who doesn't will be killed.
Don't sacrifice any animal with a defect.
Stone to death anyone who worships other gods. You must have at least 2 witnesses to do so, and they must throw the first stone.
NEW: When you are set up in the promised land, you can have a king, but only the king that God chooses. That king may not have too many horses, too many wives, or too much money. He must have his own personal copy of all these rules, so he can become familiar with them. And even though he is the king, he may not break them.
Levites and priests don't get their own stuff. For food, they eat specific parts of the sacrifices and other offerings (grain, etc).
Do not follow the ways of the people you're about to wipe out. No other gods, no divination, child sacrifice, witchcraft, etc.
NEW: Apparently, there is going to be a prophet to talk for God, because at some point the people said they couldn't stand to talk to God themselves (I don't remember that). Any false prophet must be killed. You can tell the difference by whether what they say is true or not. Lol, clearly there are no problems with that.
Set up cities of refuge for people who accidentally kill someone to go to and be safe from revenge. Here it gives a ridiculous example of an accidental murder: you could be cutting down a tree, when the head of your axe flies off and kills someone! That's random.
You need at least 2 witnesses to convict someone of a crime. If a witness is found to be lying, they will suffer the same fate as though they had committed the crime they lied about.
NEW: When you go to war, don't worry if the opponent is stronger, because God is with you. You should bring a priest, and just before the fighting starts he should address the soldiers with an uplifting speech. And apparently after that, the officers will give everyone one last chance to desert. Weird. Then, before you attack, offer them peace. If they accept, you just got some new slaves!! Congratulations. If they refuse, you can kill all the men, and keep the women and children. If there's a woman you fancy, you can take her as your wife. Take her home, give her a month to mourn, then fuck her. If it wasn't to your satisfaction, throw her out. But you can't make her into a slave at this point, you have to just let her go free. This is disgusting.
However, in the conquest of the promised land (which I'm sure they'll get around to eventually), spare no one. Also disgusting.
NEW: This is weird. If a murdered person is found in the middle of nowhere, the leaders of the nearest city have to make atonement to God. I'm not sure why they are to blame. Anyway, they have to make atonement by finding a cow that has never worked, take it to a valley that has never been plowed and that has a stream, and break its neck. Random as ever.
NEW: You have to give your firstborn son a double share of the inheritance, even if he's not your favorite. It also casually mentions what to do if you have 2 wives here, so clearly the Bible still doesn't care about monogamy. Just an FYI.
If you have a "stubborn and rebellious son" and he just won't obey, everybody in town must stone him to death. That'll show him.
NEW: If you put someone to death for some crime, you may hang their corpse on a pole, but only til sundown, then you have to take it down and bury it. Don't want to stink up the place I guess.
If you see something that someone lost, return it to them.
If you see someone with an animal that fell down, go help them get it up again.
NEW: No transvestites. "A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this." Awesome, I will add this to my big list of reason God hates me. I honestly had no idea the bible says this, I'm surprised it's not brought up more often.
NEW: You can take eggs from a bird's nest, but don't get greedy and take the bird also. Random.
NEW: When you build a new house, include a parapet (a wall around the roof) so no one will fall off the roof and hurt themselves. Also random.
Don't crossbreed your crops.
Don't yoke a donkey and ox to the same plow.
No fabric blends.
Attach tassels to the corners of your cloak, to remind you of God's rules somehow.
NEW: If a man, after sleeping with his new wife, suspects she is not a virgin, he can accuse her of being a whore. Now the burden of proof falls on her father. He must "display the cloth before the elders of the town." Apparently that proves it somehow. I don't know what cloth it's talking about. Anyway, if it can be proved that she was a virgin, the man must pay a fine and is never allowed to divorce her. If it cannot be proved, she must be stoned to death in front of her father's house. Yay, biblical morality. I guess "innocent until proven guilty" hasn't been invented yet.
If a man sleeps with a married woman, they both need to die.
NEW: Here's an interesting rhetorical question for you: if a woman is raped in a forest and there's no one around to hear it, is she still guilty? Guilty of what, you might wonder? Don't think about it or you'll just get angry. Here's what the bible says:
- If a virgin is raped inside a city: they both get stoned to death. (The woman must be punished because she didn't call for help, obviously.)
- If a virgin is raped outside a city: only the man is killed, do not punish the woman. (Because, clearly, there was no one to hear her scream.)
Hey bible, what happens if a woman who isn't a virgin is raped? Or what if a man is raped? I guess that just doesn't matter. It's almost like the bible doesn't care about rape for the reasons a normal human being would (because rape is obviously horrible), but because virginity is some sort of commodity that is stolen, and you must be punished for the theft of it. Or for not protecting it by screaming loud enough, I guess.
Don't marry your father's wife.
NEW: The following people may not enter the "assembly of God," whatever that is:
- anyone who has lost his testicles in an accident (random)
- no bastards, or any of their kids for 10 generations
- no Ammonites or Moabites, no matter how many generations later
- Edomites and Egyptians can join after 3 generations
Don't give foreign runaway slaves back to their masters. That's actually pretty good.
Don't be a shrine prostitute. I don't know what that is.
Don't charge an Israelite interest when you loan them money.
If you make a vow to God, do whatever it is quickly.
You can go eat from someone else's field, but just eat there and don't take anything away with you. Like a buffet!
NEW: Say a man and woman get divorced, the woman remarries, then divorced again. The first guy isn't allowed to marry her again "because she has been defiled." I really don't know why it matters.
NEW: A man can't be drafted for 1 year after being married, because he should have a chance to be happy with his wife. Aww.
Kidnappers must die.
Be nice to the poor, foreigners, widows, and orphans. Let them forage in your fields.
NEW: Don't punish the parents for the children's sins or vice versa.
NEW: The maximum number of lashes as punishment is 40.
If a man dies, is brother has to marry his widow. If he doesn't want to marry her, God will kill him!!! Ahem, or, she goes and complains to the town elders, and the elders try to talk him into it. If he still doesn't want to, she gets to spit in his face in front of everybody. She also takes one of his sandals, and his family will ever after be known as "The Family of the Unsandaled." Oh snap! (I assume someone from that time and place would say) That is fucking silly, is what I, from this time and place, would say. But at least God changed his mind about killing people in this situation. Good.
If a man is in a fight and his wife tries to help out by grabbing the other guy's junk, her hand must be cut off. "Show no mercy!!"
Use honest weights and measures.
God still hates the Amalekites.
And that's about it, I think. The whole rulebook for the Israelites. Interestingly, as much as it repeated the stuff from Leviticus, there's a bunch of stuff that got left out. Like the bit about "man shall not lie with man, blah blah, etc." Totally not in Deuteronomy (so far, but I think rule-making time is over). I guess that's just not as important as "no fabric blends," which did make the final cut. Oh yeah! That's right. God does care more about fabric blends than homosexuality. Bwah haha.
Anyway, most of this stuff is either just plain weird or morally reprehensible. This is where people claim to get their morals from? I would fear for my safety if I thought that was true. And I'm the immoral one, because I don't believe in this shit. Really?
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Numbers 22-25: Shrek and the talking donkey
Right, where was I? Oh yes, the Israelites have just started their ruthless conquest of the promised land.
The Israelites are now camped in Moab near Jericho. I guess their reputation has preceded them, because the people of Moab are pretty freaked out. The king of Moab, Balak, sends some messengers out to some guy named Balaam, who is apparently some sort of holy man, or divination guy, or something. Balak knows he can't defeat the Israelites on his own, so he wants Balaam to curse them before they fight.
The funny thing about Balaam is that he talks to the same God as the Israelites do. I don't get why there is some guy who is on God's good side already in the promised land, with all the people who are so horrible that they all need to die. I wonder what happens to God's BFF Balaam when the Israelites take over? And I wonder if there are any other secret friends of God in the promised land? There must be. This is just weird. I was expecting Balaam to either be talking to some other God, or to himself.
So Balaam asks God if he should go with Balak and curse the Israelites, and God is like, "Don't curse the Israelites! They're my favorite! Even though I've personally killed hundreds of thousands of them..." So Balaam says no. Undeterred, Balak sends fancier messengers with money. This time God tells Balaam to go with them, but not to do anything without his OK.
This next part is just weird. Balaam, as per God's instructions, goes off with the messengers to see Balak. But God is pissed off for some reason. Is anyone surprised... So God sends a couple of angels to stand in the road and get in the way. Somehow Balaam doesn't see them, but his donkey does and stops. And Balaam beats the donkey to get it going again. 3 times this happens, then God speaks out of the donkey's mouth and makes it ask, "what did I ever do to you, you jerk?" Shrek - err, Balaam - has a nice little conversation with his donkey about how frustrated he is that the donkey won't move. Like as though this happens all the time. If that happened to me, the first thing out of my mouth would be something along the lines of "holy crap, a talking donkey!" But no.
Anyway, then suddenly Balaam can see the angels in the road. The angels tell him that he shouldn't be going with the messengers, and that they are here to "oppose" him, and that they would have killed him for going on, except the donkey stopped. I so don't get this...God told Balaam to go with the messengers. Balaam says just that, and the angel is like, "OK fine, go with them." Seriously.
He gets there without being murdered by God for following God's own instructions, and then makes Balak build 7 alters (that seems extravagant), then they sacrifice a bull and a ram on each one. Then Balaam, speaking for God, says nice things about the Israelites. Balak is like, WTF!? You're supposed to curse them! I know, come stand over here; maybe it's a location problem. (Weird.) They go somewhere else, built 7 more alters, and try again...and the same thing happens. So they do it all again. Then Balak is like, "go away, you suck." *pout* But Balaam has more to say, mostly about how the Israelites will crush their enemies (which is himself. Great.) Then they part ways and go home.
Lol. While all this is going on, the Israelites are apparently getting bored again. Again! (I've said before, I really don't know who I hate more, God or the Israelites.) "The men indulge in sexual immorality" with the Moab women (men having sex with women? what's the problem!) and participate in sacrifices to somebody named Baal. God makes Moses kill all the Israelite elders for allowing this to happen.
Just as this is being decided, some poor sap comes into the camp with a Midianite woman. One of the priests stabs them both with a spear. "Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped," though it never started. Oh well. God is thoroughly impressed with this display of zealotry, and decides not to kill anyone else today (though he already killed 24,000 with that plague, so he's still way ahead). And he decides to reward that priest and all his descendants by making them priests forever. Though he's already a descendant of Aaron, so I thought this already happened. Hmm. God is clearly expert at giving you what you already have, and making it seem like a big treat.
The Israelites are now camped in Moab near Jericho. I guess their reputation has preceded them, because the people of Moab are pretty freaked out. The king of Moab, Balak, sends some messengers out to some guy named Balaam, who is apparently some sort of holy man, or divination guy, or something. Balak knows he can't defeat the Israelites on his own, so he wants Balaam to curse them before they fight.
The funny thing about Balaam is that he talks to the same God as the Israelites do. I don't get why there is some guy who is on God's good side already in the promised land, with all the people who are so horrible that they all need to die. I wonder what happens to God's BFF Balaam when the Israelites take over? And I wonder if there are any other secret friends of God in the promised land? There must be. This is just weird. I was expecting Balaam to either be talking to some other God, or to himself.
So Balaam asks God if he should go with Balak and curse the Israelites, and God is like, "Don't curse the Israelites! They're my favorite! Even though I've personally killed hundreds of thousands of them..." So Balaam says no. Undeterred, Balak sends fancier messengers with money. This time God tells Balaam to go with them, but not to do anything without his OK.
This next part is just weird. Balaam, as per God's instructions, goes off with the messengers to see Balak. But God is pissed off for some reason. Is anyone surprised... So God sends a couple of angels to stand in the road and get in the way. Somehow Balaam doesn't see them, but his donkey does and stops. And Balaam beats the donkey to get it going again. 3 times this happens, then God speaks out of the donkey's mouth and makes it ask, "what did I ever do to you, you jerk?" Shrek - err, Balaam - has a nice little conversation with his donkey about how frustrated he is that the donkey won't move. Like as though this happens all the time. If that happened to me, the first thing out of my mouth would be something along the lines of "holy crap, a talking donkey!" But no.
Anyway, then suddenly Balaam can see the angels in the road. The angels tell him that he shouldn't be going with the messengers, and that they are here to "oppose" him, and that they would have killed him for going on, except the donkey stopped. I so don't get this...God told Balaam to go with the messengers. Balaam says just that, and the angel is like, "OK fine, go with them." Seriously.
He gets there without being murdered by God for following God's own instructions, and then makes Balak build 7 alters (that seems extravagant), then they sacrifice a bull and a ram on each one. Then Balaam, speaking for God, says nice things about the Israelites. Balak is like, WTF!? You're supposed to curse them! I know, come stand over here; maybe it's a location problem. (Weird.) They go somewhere else, built 7 more alters, and try again...and the same thing happens. So they do it all again. Then Balak is like, "go away, you suck." *pout* But Balaam has more to say, mostly about how the Israelites will crush their enemies (which is himself. Great.) Then they part ways and go home.
Lol. While all this is going on, the Israelites are apparently getting bored again. Again! (I've said before, I really don't know who I hate more, God or the Israelites.) "The men indulge in sexual immorality" with the Moab women (men having sex with women? what's the problem!) and participate in sacrifices to somebody named Baal. God makes Moses kill all the Israelite elders for allowing this to happen.
Just as this is being decided, some poor sap comes into the camp with a Midianite woman. One of the priests stabs them both with a spear. "Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped," though it never started. Oh well. God is thoroughly impressed with this display of zealotry, and decides not to kill anyone else today (though he already killed 24,000 with that plague, so he's still way ahead). And he decides to reward that priest and all his descendants by making them priests forever. Though he's already a descendant of Aaron, so I thought this already happened. Hmm. God is clearly expert at giving you what you already have, and making it seem like a big treat.
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