3. God in a Snit
Alright, here we are with another installment of Dr. Jim’s Badass Bible passages.
15. Touching the Ark of the Covenant
Ok, everyone knows about the Ark of the Covenant. It was that funny box Indiana Jones was trying to keep from the Nazis (y’know, the bad guys).
The book of Exodus, the second book of the Old Testament / Jewish Bible goes on at great length how the Israelites made the Ark to the exact instructions of God mediated through Moses. The Ark was the repository for the tablets of the Torah Moses received and the physical X marks the spot of Yahweh’s manifestation on earth. A jar of “manna” (heavenly bread) and the magical staff of Aaron were also put in it (Ex. 16:32-34). Or perhaps not, as 1 Kings 8:9 says that only the tablets were in it.
The Israelites were to carry the thing around with them during their wilderness wanderings and house it in a special tent-tabernacle when they set up camp. Of course, it was holy, so it had to be handled with care and only the priests were allowed to actually lift it. It was carried in front of the Israelites into battle(well, you need something to hide behind!). Eventually, the Israelites settle in Israel–having wiped out a huge number of the existing residents, and the ark has a few adventures and misadventures with the Philistines. The capture it but it causes mayhem: it knocks over statues of the Philistine god Dagon, and hemorrhoids break out on the Philistines’ bottoms. Tehy send it back to the Israelites. It ends up at a place called Beth-shemesh and out of curiosity, they look in side it.
God is pissed and as 1 Samuel 6:19 says,
He struck down some of the men of Beth-shemesh because they had looked into the ark of the LORD. He struck down of all the people, 50,070 men, and the people mourned because the LORD had struck the people with a great slaughter.
COOL! 50, 700! What the fuck did they do, line up and take turns until all 50, 700 looked into it, and then God got in a snit? Why not start punishing them as they looked, then after only a few thousand of the curious are struck dead, the rest of them might take the hint? … hmmm, perhaps god struck dead a lot of people who didn’t look… Curious that a righteous God would do that!
An interesting thing about the passage is that some manuscripts say only 70 people were killed, and English renderings of the verse can vary as to which manuscript tradition they follow. The very “user-friendly” New International version has the lower number.
14. The Golden Calf (Exodus 32:27-35)
from here.
Anyway, when Moses was on Mt. Sinai getting the Torah from God the Israelites were down in their camp wondering what had happened to their leader. So, what do they do? They start a new religion. They gather together all their gold and give it to Aaron (Moses’ brother and the guy who will soon become Israel’s first official priest) and he makes a gold calf-idol:
Needless to say, God finds out and decides he is going to punish Israel. Moses convinces him that this would do his reputation no good, and God backs down. When Moses comes down the mountain and finds out for himself what is going on, he is pissed. He rallies some of the more loyal Israelites around him and the Levites answer the call, and we read (Exodus 32:27-35)
He said to them, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Every man of you put his sword upon his thigh, and go back and forth from gate to gate in the camp, and kill every man his brother, and every man his friend, and every man his neighbor.’” So the sons of Levi did as Moses instructed, and about three thousand men of the people fell that day. Then Moses said, “Dedicate yourselves today to the LORD–for every man has been against his son and against his brother–in order that He may bestow a blessing upon you today.” On the next day Moses said to the people, “(You yourselves have committed a great sin; and now I am going up to the LORD, perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” Then Moses returned to the LORD, and said, “Alas, this people has committed a great sin, and they have made a god of gold for themselves. “But now, if You will, forgive their sin–and if not, please blot me out from Your book which You have written!” The LORD said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book. “But go now, lead the people where I told you Behold, My angel shall go before you; nevertheless in the day when I punish, I will punish them for their sin.” Then the LORD smote the people, because of what they did with the calf which Aaron had made.
Very interesting. Moses successfully intercedes, then kills 3000 people then tattles on them to a god who already knows they have sinned and then this God smites them again! Aaron who made the damn thing in the first place, however, is not killed! Oh what a funny little god he is!
13. Killing of the Egyptian firstborn (Exodus 11:1-10)
Ok, this is a scary one, and perhaps it should be higher on the list, but I have it at unlucky thirteen, and I’m not about to change it now.
Again, this is from the Exodus story. The Israelites are enslaved by the Egyptians and Moses and his brother have been trying for pages to convince Pharaoh to let them go. They have pleaded begged and plagued them with frogs, bugs, and so forth, but the Egyptians are being a bit stubborn. In fact, it is God who is making them stubborn “hardening the heart of Pharoah” so the king won’t let the people go so God can show what a badass dude he is. So there will be one more plague.
Now the LORD said to Moses, “One more plague I will bring on Pharaoh and on Egypt; after that he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will surely drive you out from here completely. “Speak now in the hearing of the people that each man ask from his neighbor and each woman from her neighbor for articles of silver and articles of gold.” The LORD gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians Furthermore, the man Moses himself was greatly esteemed in the land of Egypt, both in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants and in the sight of the people. Moses said, “Thus says the LORD, ‘About midnight I am going out into the midst of Egypt, and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of the Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the millstones; all the firstborn of the cattle as well. ‘Moreover, there shall be a great cry in all the land of Egypt, such as there has not been before and such as shall never be again. But against any of the sons of Israel a dog will not even bark, whether against man or beast, that you may understand how the LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.’ “All these your servants will come down to me and bow themselves before me, saying, ‘Go out, you and all the people who follow you,’ and after that I will go out ” And he went out from Pharaoh in hot anger. Then the LORD said to Moses, “Pharaoh will not listen to you, so that My wonders will be multiplied in the land of Egypt.” Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh; yet the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the sons of Israel go out of his land (11:1-10)
The plague will not touch the Israelite houses, however, if they follow the prescriptions for the first Passover: slaughter a lamb for dinner and put some of the blood on the doorposts of their houses so God can see it.That night, Yahweh carries out his dirty deed. Best let the Brick Testament help tell the story.
Even prisoners are not safe:
But the Israelites are. Yippee! Now how about that? God slaughters a shitload of people for no other crime than being alive and Egyptian when God decides he is going to make their king obstinate enough to piss God off. On the other hand, he makes the Egyptian like the Israelites so that they give them their money. Three cheers for biblical ethics!
Now it came about at midnight that the LORD struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of cattle. Pharaoh arose in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was no home where there was not someone dead! Then he called for Moses and Aaron at night and said, “Rise up, get out from among my people, both you and the sons of Israel; and go, worship the LORD, as you have said (12:29-31). .
Jeepers, wouldn’t it have been easier for God to make Pharaoh agreeable to letting his slaves go?
12. Baal Peor (Numbers 25:1-9).
While Israel remained at Shittim, the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab. For they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor, and the LORD was angry against Israel. And the LORD said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of the people and execute them in broad daylight before the LORD, so that the fierce anger of the LORD may turn away from Israel.” So Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you slay his men who have joined themselves to Baal of Peor.” Then behold, one of the sons of Israel came and brought to his relatives a Midianite woman, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the sons of Israel, while they were weeping at the doorway of the tent of meeting. When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he arose from the midst of the congregation, and took a spear in his hand; 8 and he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and pierced both of them through, the man of Israel and the woman, through the body. So the plague on the sons of Israel was checked. And those who died by the plague were 24,000.
That just about says it all, don’t it? Notice the association between illicit religion and sex with strangers. And notice the punishment. Again people are murdered by people and God gets in on the action by smiting folks on his own.
The connection between sex and improper religion is made again and again in the bible, and we will encounter it again in upcoming installments of my Badass Bible Passages.
Back to the
21 Really Badass Bible Start Page
Part 2. All in the Family #18-#16
Forward to:
Part 4. Weird and Spooky #11-#9 (coming soon)
