Judges 1-2: God apparently can't handle a few chariots

So, chapter 1 is all about the Simeonites and ... Judah-ites? ... killing more Canaanites. I really thought conquering time was over, but I guess not. Whatever. Hundreds of thousands of more people die or are enslaved.

Funny, apparently in all this fighting "the LORD was with them," but also they were unable to conquer the plains, because the Canaanites had chariots fitted with iron. So,

Chariots > God

Good to know.

Then God shows up to gloat some more over how great he is at keeping promises. God is so ridiculously proud of himself over this whole clusterfuck.

All the Israelites go their separate ways. A generation later, after everyone who was around for all the conquering was dead, no one knew about God and "did evil in the eyes of the LORD." That didn't take long.

This next part is just weird. God is pissed that they're worshipping other Gods, even though he already knew that this was inevitably going to happen, presumably because he himself set it up that way. So God helps out their enemies, and they lose a bunch of battles.

Then, just to make it confusing (cause what kind of bible story would this be if it weren't confusing?), God "raised up judges, which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them." So he's trying to help them out? Why? If he's so concerned about their wellbeing, he wouldn't have made them lose all their battles in the first place. I still think God has multiple personalities. Also, judges? What the fuck does that mean? The footnote says it could also be translated as "leaders."

Anyway, it doesn't work. The people ignore their new leaders and continue worshipping their other gods. Apparently this goes on for several generations, with God playing for both teams for some reason. Eventually God becomes not just angry, but "very angry," and decides that he's not going to help the Israelites at all anymore.

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.

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?

Numbers 15-19: God kills some more Israelites

Right, so we've just gone from Mt. Sinai to the promised land (or at least near the promised land) in like 2 chapters, God almost kills everyone a couple of times on the way there, then they get there and have a fight about whether they can conquer the natives, God tries to kill everyone again, but gets talked into doing it later rather than now. Action packed, that was.

But now, it's boring again. God demands more sacrifice now that they're in the promised land, but doesn't say why. Maybe it's because they have more because the land is so great. But I think it's because God thinks he deserves a reward for his fine behavior thus far. That seems more in line with his nature anyway.

Here's a charming little story about how the Israelites found some random guy gathering wood on the sabbath. It's not clear to me, but it looks like this guy isn't even Israelite, so he's probably not even aware of their stupid laws. Nonetheless, God decrees that everyone has to stone him to death. So they do. Aww.

I don't get why gathering wood counts as working on the sabbath, but throwing rocks and someone until their body is a useless pile of pulp is not working on the sabbath. Oh well.

Then God tells Moses that everyone has to put blue tassels on the "corners of their garments," as a continual reminder of God and his petty commandments. Random.

In chapter 16 God kills some more Israelites. Seriously, God has killed more Israelites than he has killed anyone else so far, and they are his chosen people!! WTF?!

Chapter 16 starts with Korah and 250 others who think that the privileged priest class is unfair, and that everyone is holy and thus should be equals. Lol, I think Jesus said something like that; sadly for Korah, he is way ahead of his time. Moses's solution to this obviously terrible problem is to have the dissenters and all the priests offer incense to God, and see who God picks. (But how will they tell? It doesn't say, but later we learn it's the ones that don't burn to death that are the winners.) So they do that, and God shows up and tells the priests to stand clear so he can destroy the dissenters. Apparently God has not lost his flair for the dramatic. Moses pleads with God to only destroy the leaders and spare the rest (this shit is so predictable). So God makes a hole in the earth to swallow up the leaders, and their families (God is, yet again, murdering innocent children). Then God goes ahead and burns the rest of the 250 dissenters to death, in a big "fuck you!" to Moses.

Interestingly, the bible has this to say about the hole he made for the dissenters to fall into:

They went down alive into the realm of the dead ... the earth closed over them, and they perished and were gone from the community.

Is this the first mention of some sort of afterlife? Or is this the first mention of hell? I don't really get that.

Anywho, after this happens, all the Israelites get upset, thinking that they're going to be next. Moses has another uprising on his hands. God shows up and starts smiting everyone with a plague. Moses, what a quick thinker, has Aaron make atonement for the Israelites. Apparently just when he does that the plague suddenly stops, but not before 14,700 people died.

Er, God? Just a thought...maybe if you didn't habitually murder your own people, they wouldn't "grumble" about you so much.

Chapter 17, God gets this brilliant idea for getting the people to stop their grumbling. He gets Moses to collect a staff from each of the 12 tribes and put them in the God-tent. Then, "The staff belonging to the man I choose will sprout, and I will rid myself of this constant grumbling against you by the Israelites." What the fuck is this supposed to prove?

So they do that, and surprise surprise, it's Aaron and the Levites staff that blossoms. And grows acorns, no less. So Moses shows this to everyone, then puts the Levites staff back in the tabernacle. "Put back Aaron’s staff in front of the ark of the covenant law, to be kept as a sign to the rebellious. This will put an end to their grumbling against me, so that they will not die."

I still have no idea what the fuck this is all about.

Apparently the Israelites don't get it either, because the story ends with this: “We will die! We are lost, we are all lost! Anyone who even comes near the tabernacle of the LORD will die. Are we all going to die?" Guess that didn't work.

Chapter 18 is all about the duties and privileges of the Levites and the priests. Nothing we haven't heard before really, except that they aren't going to get any land in Canaan.

Chapter 19 gives the recipe for "water of cleansing." Take one red heifer outside the camp and burn it with cedar, hyssop, and scarlet wool. Collect the ashes and mix with water.

Why, oh why, would anyone want to make this, you ask? Why, it is used to cleanse people who are unclean because they've been in contact with dead bodies. (That is so specific. I remember like 30 ways to become unclean, but you only use the "water of cleansing" for one of them?) There's a bunch of ritual given involving sprinking the water on the unclean person, and presto, clean again!

Numbers 9-14: Arrival at the promised land, some actual story

So now it's a year and one month after they left Egypt, even though Numbers started off a year and two months after Egypt. Can't this shit even be chronological? It's confusing enough as it is.

They are also still, in fact, at Mt. Sinai. Seriously.

God says, "you people be fucking sure to celebrate the passover, even though I've told you about it 10,000 times already!" Small point of order: what if I've become unclean because someone close to me died? Can I still celebrate the passover? The answer is yes, but one month later.

In their travels, God apparently controlled when they traveled and when they camped. When there was a cloud that also looked like fire (huh?) over the tabernacle, they camped until the cloud left (so what, they didn't even disassemble it to carry it? Or did God just descend upon the wagon that the pieces of the tent were in...). When the cloud left, they immediately set out again, even if it was the middle of the night. They camped as long as the cloud stayed, "Whether the cloud stayed over the tabernacle for two days or a month or a year." And hence a journey of a few months dragged out for 40 years, apparently.

God handily suggests they make trumpets for letting people know when it's time to set out. Interestingly, God himself seems to not have either the will or the ability to let more than just a few people know when it's time to go. He also suggests they use the trumpets for other things, such as communicating in battle, or celebrating festivals. What a handy God.

Now they travel from Sinai to the Desert of Paran. And they give the marching order, again. Ugh.

People complain, and God burns some of them to death. Then Moses prays and the fire dies down. Aww.

Now here's a fantastic story. People are complaining about the manna...they want meat. Moses complains to God about how the people are upset and it's all too much for him, and he never asked to be in charge anyway. So God says he's going to help Moses out by "taking some of the power of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them [70 Israelite elders]. They will share the burden of the people with you so that you will not have to carry it alone." Um, what Spirit? The Holy Spirit? This is the first we've heard of it...and far from being in everybody, as I was taught, it seems to only be in a select elite. Wonderful.

Now God turns his attention to everyone else and their complaining about not having meat. God, in an incredibly spiteful move, promises to give them so much quail to eat for the next month, that "it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it." Really? So, God makes a wind that blows the quail in from the sea, and quail cover the ground 3 feet thick for at least a day's walk in any direction from their camp. And then, for even more spite, just when they are about to eat some of it, God suddenly smites them with a plague. And all sorts of people die. Seriously. What the fuck is that all about?

Here's another weird story. Aaron and Miriam (Moses and Aaron's sister) talk about Moses behind his back. Apparently God overheard, because he calls all 3 of them together and says "Moses is my prophet! How dare you speak poorly of him!" Then he gets mad and leaves. Suddenly, Miriam has leprosy. (Why not Aaron too?) Moses asks God to heal her. God says, "I'll do it in 7 days. Let her suffer til then!" So she has to go outside the camp for 7 days, and they all have to wait. Again, what the fuck.

So now they're at Paran. God tells Moses to send some people out to scout Canaan. So what...are they there already? No idea. They return in 40 days though, so I guess they can't be far. They come back and report on all the awesome fruit that grows there, and they have an argument about whether they could conquer the people or not. (So, what, they're not even going to try talking to these people before they attack? I knew that's what they were going to do, but it still seems ridiculous.) Anyway, they describe the cities as large and fortified, and the people as so large that "we seemed like grasshoppers." Yep, you could totally take them.

The people hear this report, and suddenly Moses has an uprising on his hands. The people don't want to die in battle, and who can blame them. Some wanted to elect a new leader and go back to Egypt. (Yeah, I'm sure you'll get a warm welcome there.) Joshua and Caleb (2 of the guys in the scouting party) tell everyone again how incredibly awesome the land is and reassure everyone that they will totally win, because God is on their side. The people react to this inspiring speech by wanting to stone them to death (lol).

God comes along and says "WTF? I'm going to kill all the Israelites with a plague and start again." Cause that's his answer to everything...wipe it out and start over. Once again, Moses talks him out of it (I still don't get how it is even possible to talk God out of something). Interestingly, part of Moses' plea to God was this: "just as you have declared: ‘The LORD is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion'" Lol, when did God, or anyone, ever say that? I don't remember it. And it sure as fuck is not evident in his actions.

So God says, "Yeah, alright, I forgive them. BUT! Everyone who is at least 20 years old and has grumbled against me will die before we get to the promised land...which is pretty much everybody except for Joshua and Caleb." Yep, that is surely true forgiveness. Err, wait, I mean that is "God getting exactly what he wanted in the first place," except he spared the children. I still think God (OT God, anyway) is literally incapable of forgiveness.

Also, all of the 12 men who went scouting and came back with a "bad report" (i.e. a realistic report) about it, which started this whole thing...they were all struck with a plague right then and there. That's all of them, except for Joshua and Caleb. Wonderful. God apparently would prefer blind optimism over reality. Actually, that's not so surprising.

So Moses tells all this to the Israelites, they get upset (presumably because they don't want to die, and who can blame them), so they are like "we've learned our lesson, we want to go to the promised land now!!!" So they went on without Moses or the tabernacle, and in the direction God told them not to go. Why? I dunno. Maybe they panicked. Maybe Moses forgot to tell them the part about which direction they were supposed to go next while he was telling them that God is going to kill them soon. Anyway, they get attacked by the people living in the area, and I assume, many were killed. Fantastic.

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!