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 7-8: God makes the Israelites lose a battle

So the Israelites have just destroyed Jericho. Before they attacked, Joshua specifically told them to not take anything from inside the city; they were to burn it all and leave it there. But some guy, Achan, didn't listen. He took something (a "devoted thing"... and idol or some holy symbol, maybe?), and now they must all suffer for it. Obviously.

Joshua sends a couple of guys out to spy on the next target, Ai (which is an awesome name for a city). These spies are better than the last; they return with no problems. They report that there aren't many people there, so they don't even have to use their entire army. Just send a few thousand people. So that's what they do...little do they know that God is pissed that Achan took something from Jericho, so he let a bunch of them die in the attack. Not only that, but they fail to conquer the city and are chased off.

Joshua says, "What the hell, God? I thought you were going to be helping us out!" God says, "Nope, I'm pissed because somebody took something from Jericho. I know I could have told you this before all those people died, but what fun would that be? Anyway, if you want my help you'll have to find them and destroy them." God tells Joshua to get the people ready, and tomorrow Joshua should present them family by family before him. If they are found with the stolen items, they will be burned to death. I do find it amusing that all-knowing God has to search people in this limited fashion, one family at a time.

So the next day, Achan's turn comes up, and he stupidly confesses. They take him and all his children to some valley and stone them all to death. Because that's fair; the children were totally to blame. Also, I thought God was going to burn them to death...guess not.

As far as I can see, this is just a story about superstitious people and stupid brutality. Superstitious people loose battle, find scapegoat, murder scapegoat. Fantastic.

Then God says, "Thanks for murdering that guy and his children! Now I'm not mad anymore!" He tells Joshua to send the entire army to Ai and conquer it. He also gives them permission to loot it. Weird.

So, this time 30,000 men go to Ai. 25,000 men led by Joshua run away and get all the men of Ai to chase them. Meanwhile, while everyone from Ai who know how to fight are away, the 5,000 other Israelites run in to Ai and slaughter the women and children. Then Joshua and his men stop running, fight the men from Ai, and kill them all. A successful mission!

It's amazing what 30,000 men and a tricky ambush can do, compared with 3,000 men doing a straightforward attack. Wait, I mean, it's all because God helped them out this time!!!! Yeah.

Anyway, after they kill everyone, they loot the city and burn it to the ground.

Then they go to Mount Ebal, build an alter and bless and curse themselves, just like Moses told them to.

Exodus 32-40: Moses throws a tantrum

So, Moses is up on the mountain talking to God for 40 days, though I don't know why it had to take that long.

Meanwhile, the Israelites are getting restless. They get Aaron to make them the golden calf idol, and they sacrifice to it, and there's all sorts of "revelry."

God tells Moses to "leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.” God is so predictable. But Moses convinces him that it's a bad idea. Wait, is it even possible to talk God out of something? Never mind.

So Moses goes down the mountain, back to the Israelites, with the covenant tablets. He sees the idol, and he sees them dancing, and flies into a rage (even though God already told him all about this, so I don't know why he's so surprised). He throws the tablets to the ground, breaking them. Then he ground up the idol to a powder and made everyone drink it. (I don't get this...why would you do that? Is it not good enough to destroy the idol...melt it down or something?)

Moses tells the Levites that God wants them to kill everyone. So they do that...they kill 3000 people. Of course, as far as the bible says, God never actually said that, Moses just made it up. God was going to just let it go! So that's just great.

Then Moses goes back up the mountain to talk to God some more. He asks God to forgive them, and God just says something about how anyone who sins will be "blotted out of his book." Err, what book? And he gives them a plague for good measure.

Then God tells them to go on to Canaan, but he won't be going with them, because they are "a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way." lol. Like God has any business calling anybody "stiff-necked."

Moses asks to see Gods "glory." So God says he's going to walk in front of Moses and say his (God's) name. But, since no one can see God's face and live (when did that happen?), God will be kind enough to cover Moses's face with his hand until he's passes, then Moses gets to see his back. There is a plan to do this, but it never says whether it actually happened.

Then Moses goes back up the mountain to make new tablets. They are supposed to be exactly the same as the ones that are broken. But, here's what God told Moses to write on this set of tablets:

• Do not make a treaty with the people already in Canaan; worship meee goddamnit!!!
  
• Do not make idols
• Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread
• The first offspring of every womb belongs to me (I still don't know what this is about...God's been going on about this since the very beginning of Exodus, but I still don't get the point, or even what that means)
  
• Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest
• Celebrate the Festival of Weeks with the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Festival of Ingathering at the turn of the year
• Three times a year all your men are to appear before the Sovereign LORD, the God of Israel.
• Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast
• Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the LORD your God
• Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk

So I know he said all this stuff before. But there's nothing about not killing, stealing, or any of the other stuff that makes sense on it's own. Nope. There's this, which is apparently the most important part. Seriously. And the bible actually calls these 10 things I've just listed "the 10 commandments." This is totally different than the 10 commandments that everyone knows (which the bible doesn't actually call "the 1o commandments"). That is just crazy.

I gotta say, the idea that the 10 commandments form a good basis of morality, or of US law, or anything else besides batshit-crazy-mumbo-jumbo, is completely ludicrous.

God also promises that he is going to go ahead of them and "drive out" all the people already in Canaan. And you people be damn sure to destroy all their temples and idols!!! For I am a ridiculously jealous and insecure god.

And Moses is up there for 40 days again, without food or water. Wow. That sounds horrible.

Actually, here's a great video summing up all this Mount Sinai stuff.



Lol. "They're the hos, I'm the pimp. And people needs to know who their pimp is." Yep, I could not have summarized Exodus any better than that.

Anyway, When Moses comes down from the mountain this time, he glows in the dark. Actually, he's "radiant" because he was talking to God. So after that, Moses took to wearing a veil, which he only removed to talk to God. I guess he didn't want to freak people out.

So then Moses goes about soliciting donations for the tabernacle, and getting people to build all that stuff. And it goes on for 6 chapters about how they made it, and how much stuff was used, and what the finished product was like. It is all extremely repetitive from before (like it wasn't boring enough to read one time. Seriously, this is a terrible book.)

Then God tells them that they are to set this up on the first day of the month. In all their travels, they set up the tabernacle on the first of the month, and then the "cloud of the lord" would descend on the tent, and they would wait (sometimes for days) for it to lift before they moved on.

I don't get the point of setting up a tent so God can visit, because I thought God wasn't going to be with them in their travels. Oh well.

I also don't get why they are hanging around at Mount Sinai to build all this stuff, when God clearly told them like 8 chapters ago that they have to get a move on to Canaan.

So I'm getting a clearer idea of why it took them 40 years to get to Canaan...not only do they have to haul all this stuff around, but every month they have to hang around for some indeterminate number of days waiting for God to clear off so they can keep going.

Anyway, this is the end of exodus. Pretty boring toward the end. If I had to sum up Exodus in just 2 sentences, it would have to be:

• "They're the hos, I'm the pimp. And people needs to know who their pimp is."
• No fucking yeast!
  

Exodus 21-23: Some more commandments

So, God just said the 10 commandments to the Israelites, and now he's still talking to Moses by himself. Looks like God has a lot more law to lay down. Check this out, anybody who thinks that the 10 commandments were so brilliantly simple that the Israelites just didn't need any other laws, and neither do we!

About servants: you buy a servant, they serve you 6 years, then they go free. But only if it's a man, if it's a woman you keep her forever (cause that's fair). If he already had a wife, the wife goes free too. If they marry during those 6 years, you get to keep the wife, and any kids, apparently forever. Seriously. If, after 6 years, a servant decides he doesn't want to abandon his wife and kids, he can stay on as a servant too, forever, but only after you pierce his ear with an awl. WTF. If your son marries a female servant, that servant attains the status of daughter. Friendly.

Punishment for personal injuries:

• murder = death
• manslaughter (accidental killing) = "flee to a place I [God] will designate." WTF.
• kidnapping = death
• cursing your father or mother = death (woah, seriously?)
  
• injury = "he must pay the injured man for the loss of his time"
• beating a slave to death = "punishment" (that is so specific)
• accidentally hitting a pregnant woman so that she gives birth too early, but there is no serious injury = "the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows."
• accidentally hitting a pregnant woman so that she gives birth too early, and there is a serious injury = "life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."
• hitting a servant and knocking out an eye or tooth = the servant goes free
• a bull goring someone to death = death for the bull, but nothing for the owner
• a bull goring someone to death, and the bull had a habit of goring = death for the bull and the owner
• a bull gores a slave = death for the bull, and the owner must pay 30 shekels of silver
  
• digging a pit and not covering it properly, so an ox or donkey falls in = pay the owner of the animal, but you get to keep the dead animal!
• a bull gores another bull = the 2 owners sell the remaining bull and split the money and the dead bull
• a bull gores another bull and he already had a habit of goring things = the owner must pay the other guy for his loss

Holy crap that was tedious. What's with all the "if a bull gores this, do this" rules? Did that really come up that much?

OK, rules regarding theft:

• stealing an ox = pay back 5 ox
• stealing a sheep = pay back 4 sheep
• killing an intruder at night = no punishment
• killing an intruder during the day = death (Why does it matter what time it is??)
  
• grazing your livestock in someone else's field = make restitution with stuff from your own field
• starting a fire that burns down someone else's crops = make restitution
• keeping something for someone else, and it gets stolen = if the thief is found, he must pay back double! If he is not found, you have to go before the judges, and you may be responsible.
• keeping an animal for someone, and it is injured or died = take an oath before God that you didn't do it. If the other person accepts this, nothing happens. If not, you must make restitution.
• keeping an animal for someone and it is ripped apart by wild animals = save the pieces as evidence, and there will be no punishment

"Social Responsibility"

• seducing a virgin = pay the father and take her as your wife. If the father refuses to give her to you as a wife, you must pay him anyway.
  
• "Do not allow a sorceress to live." Nice, simple, to the point.
• bestiality = death
• making sacrifices to anything other than God = death
• "Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him." Hey, that actually is friendly. Hmm, unless he is a sorcerer, or sacrificing something to his foreign God, or any number of other things. Then kill the bastard!!
  
• taking advantage of a widow or orphan = God will kill you himself. Maybe God is so touchy because he was once an orphan. That's how it would be if this were a cheesy movie, anyway.
  
• If you lend a fellow Israelite money, do not charge interest.
• "Do not blaspheme God." Shockingly, there is no punishment given for this one.
• "Do not curse the ruler of your people." Lay off Moses already!
• "Do not hold back offerings from your granaries or your vats." OK then.
• Give God your firstborn son. He's been going on about this for a while now, and I still don't know what he's on about. Does he want them all to become priests? Does he want them all as burnt offerings? No idea.
• "Do not eat the meat of an animal torn by wild beasts."

"Justice and Mercy"

• Don't spread rumors.
• "Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong."
• If you see your enemy's ox wandering off, bring it back to him. Friendly.
• Do not deny justice to the poor.
• Do not put an innocent or honest person to death. Hmm, that's interesting, given how many offenses are punishable by death. This is the whole problem with the death penalty. Thanks for pointing it out, Bible. Guess this invalidates all that other stuff punishable by death? Guess not.
  
• No bribes.

The Sabbath

• Plant your crops for 6 years, but leave the fields unplowed the 7th year, so poor people and wild animals can forage in them. Weird.
• Work 6 days, rest on the 7th. You know, I've heard this a bunch of times already, and they still haven't actually said "Sunday". Just "the 7th day." Well, I declare that the sabbath is Thursday. Why the hell not?
  
• Do not invoke the names of other Gods.

3 times a year celebrate a festival to God: Passover, the first harvest, and the last harvest. Also, do not offer a sacrifice with anything involving yeast. No fucking yeast! - this is clearly one of the central tenets of the Christian religion. Also, do not cook a baby goat in it's mother's milk.

God also tells Moses about how he is going to have his angel lead them to the promised land, and guard them on the way. Obey him and me, and all will go well for you (but if not...oh boy). The Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites (lol, Jebus) are already living in the promised land, but God is going to "wipe them out," so it's no problem. But you people be damned sure not to start worshiping their gods. Knock down their temples. Worship me, and you'll get food and water, no sickness, no miscarriages, no infertility, and a full life span.

Jolly good then, let's go wipe out thousands of people in the name of God, just because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then in a few thousand years, let's yell incessantly at people who dare to say our God and religion is not one of love. Hmm.