Exodus: God the Interior Decorator

Good day, and welcome back!

When we last left off, Moses had just finished drenching his followers and an altar with gallons of blood. Did your Sunday school teach you about that scene? None of mine did.

Anyway, after that Moses follows God’s instruction to bring Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders up to the mountain to worship. Here’s the passage:

“Ex 24:9 Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, 10 and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. 11 And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank.”

So seventy-four men saw God. That is kind of an important point, since later the Bible claims nobody has ever seen him. I’ll point that out if/when we get to it.

Then God tells Moses to come up further so he can give him stone tablets containing the text of the covenant. Moses took his assistant Joshua with him, and left instructions to the elders that Aaron and Hur are in charge while he’s gone. Moses was up on the mountain for six days before God called him into the cloud that he was hanging out in that covered the top of the mountain. Moses then heads into the cloud, and he was up there getting additional marching orders for forty days.

The first thing God tells Moses is that he should take up a collection of valuables such as gold, silver, bronze, yarn, wood, etc., in order to make implements of worship. And the first of these he instructs Moses to have built is the famous Ark of the Covenant, which will contain the stone tablets God is about to give him. It’s basically a big wooden box covered in gold, with poles and rings to carry it. God is very specific about the construction, which includes instructions to sculpt two gold cherubim to go on the lid.

Say… remember these words? “You shall not make for yourself any carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” And remember elsewhere in God’s law where it specifically says not to make any gold or silver idols to use in his worship? Yeah… fuck that. God’s gonna do what he’s gonna do, even make a container for his law that directly violates said law. At least he has a good solid sense of irony.

God moves on to specifying the construction of a wood table overlaid in gold. Then he demands a golden lamp stand, also described in great detail. From there he moves on to the construction of a tabernacle – basically a portable temple for the Hebrews to haul around with them while they travel to Canaan. Again this goes on in great detail, specifying the size and shape of all the components, construction materials, what images to embroider on the curtains (more cherubim), how to make the tent that covers the tabernacle, how to make the frames to support the curtains and the tent, and where in the tabernacle the Ark, table, and lamp stand are supposed to be placed when it’s set up.

The next item up is a bronze altar. Again described in detail, and those details make it pretty clear that its purpose is to have sacrifices burned on it. This is followed by another detailed specification, this time for a courtyard outside the tabernacle bordered with fine linen and supported by bronze pillars. Finally, oil for the lamp is specified, and the lamp is required to be kept lit from evening to morning every night forever.

Once God is done with the interior decorating portion of the law, he moves on to fashion design. Specifically, he describes the holy clothes and jewelry Aaron and his sons (acting as his priests) should wear. It’s pretty elaborate, really. The funny part is near the end, when God states that Aaron’s robe should be ringed about the hem with golden bells.

“Ex 28:35 And it shall be on Aaron when he ministers, and its sound shall be heard when he goes into the Holy Place before Yahweh, and when he comes out, so that he does not die.”

What the fuck? So that he does not die? It sounds suspiciously like God is putting bells on his priest so he can hear him coming, and not accidentally kill him when he walks in on God playing with himself (or whatever it is that God does when hanging out alone in the Holy Place).

It’s also specified that Aaron and his sons must wear holy underwear whenever they come to the Holy Place, “lest they bear guilt and die.” God’s antipathy to naked penises in the Holy Place is also a statute forever, so I suppose he never anticipates coming to terms with his neuroses about being exposed to organs that he himself created.

Wanna pause there and think about it a bit? What the fuck is God’s issue with penises? I mean, he supposedly made them, after all. Yet apparently he dislikes the look of them so much that he makes his people surgically modify their Johnsons before he’ll consider hanging out with them, but even that’s not good enough to prevent him from flying into a killing rage if he ever actually sees one. That’s some pretty neurotic shit, right there.

Anyhow, now that God has established the holy wardrobe scheme, we move on to how he actually wants the ceremony consecrating Aaron and his sons as priests performed. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it involves killing stuff – in this case a bull and a couple rams - and spreading their blood around. There are very specific instructions about what is to be done with the blood and body parts of each animal. Part of it involves sprinkling the blood of one of the rams over Aaron and his sons while they’re wearing the holy uniform. And if you know anything about how hard it can be to get out bloodstains even with modern laundry detergents, you pretty much realize that these guys will be presiding over every ceremony of their lives in blood-spattered garments. This makes them holy to God.

Also, a year old lamb is supposed to be sacrificed on the altar as a burnt offering every morning and every evening for all of eternity. Because burning flesh is a pleasing aroma to God. Seriously, it says that.

Once all this is laid out, God returns to his passion for interior decorating. He specifies the construction of an altar for burning incense, made of acacia wood covered in pure gold. Incense is to be burned every morning and every evening for all of time.

Then there’s a census tax. Every time a census is conducted, each person over twenty years old must pay a half a shekel. Supposedly this will prevent a plague? Wtf?

Then a bronze wash basin, followed by specifying recipes for various anointing oil and for incense that nobody is allowed to use for any other purpose. Toss off another reminder to keep the Sabbath (and add a decree that anyone who works on the Sabbath should be put to death), and finally God is done writing stuff on stone tablets.

For those keeping count, those tablets contain quite a lot more than just the Ten Commandments.

Anyway, it’s time for Moses to head back down the mountain and discover what the Israelites have been up to in his absence. It’s pretty fucking dumb, but we’ll get to that in the next installment. Until then, take care!

Exodus: On the Relationship Between Law and Bloodbaths

Usual disclaimer about the Yahweh/LORD substitution applies.

Ok, now, when we left off God had just delivered the Ten Commandments, and the people of Israel had just given Moses a handy excuse for the fact that nobody other than him could actually hear God speaking words. And as we move on… more laws.

First, there are laws about altars, for animal sacrifice no less. They must be earth or unworked stone, with no steps to walk up so that nobody can get an upskirt shot, and no gold or silver idols to represent God.

This is immediately followed by some laws about slaves. No… the law is not that you can’t own people. These laws are about how you go about owning other people. In this section it mostly talks about Hebrews owning other Hebrews. Male Hebrews bought as slaves only serve for six years, and then you’re supposed to set them free. Unless you managed to marry one of your slave girls off to him, and he actually doesn’t want to leave her and any kids they might have had together (because you own his wife and kids). In order to remain with his family, he basically has to agree to be your slave for life, and you mark him by driving an awl through his ear.

Now girls… girls have it different. I’m gonna quote the whole section, because it’s a bit confusing.

“Ex 21:7 When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. 8 If she does not please her master, who has designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her. 9 If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. 10 If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. 11 And if he does not do these things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.”

I’m a little confused about the nature of this situation. It’s clear that when a girl is sold into slavery, it’s for life unless the master chooses to sell her back to her father. What’s less clear is the actual nature of her slavery, due to the reference to her master taking “other wives.” Is she a slave, or is she a wife? Are the terms interchangeable? Or is she more like a concubine – a slave who essentially acts as a wife in all ways except she doesn’t have the same status as an actual wife? Then I recall that in earlier stories Jacob had his wives Rachel and Leah.  Each of them were had servants that they gave to Jacob “as wives,” but who were later still referred to as his servants. That makes me think the concubine situation is the most likely interpretation of this particular passage. But it’s pretty clearly in the law that men could have multiple wives/concubines, and men were allowed to sell their daughters into lifelong servitude of a likely sexual nature. Something tells me this isn’t the situation most people are thinking of when they toss around the term “Biblical marriage.”

Anyway, the laws continue. There’s some reasonable stuff about retribution for murders (penalty is death of course), human trafficking, striking pregnant women (though it treats that as a crime against her husband), theft, responsibility for loaned property, responsibility for damage caused by your livestock, etc. There’s also some less-than-stellar stuff, such as that, while you can’t beat your slave to death, if you stop short so that he survives a day or two then it’s OK whether he dies or not. Or that if he’s permanently disabled by your beating you have to let him go free (no restitution specified – I’m sure penniless and disabled former slaves got along quite swimmingly in ancient Palestine). Then there’s some batshit crazy awful stuff, like that anyone who curses or strikes their parents should be put to death (news flash: there are some parents out there who are frankly awful, and a few harsh words or a sock in the jaw is the minimum they deserve. Though I suppose it’s possible that, given the context, that the authors may believe that the word “curse” involves casting actual magic spells on their parents… which is still not a death-worthy thing because it’s nonsense).

Now, I should point out that my copy of the Bible includes these handy little heading titles to tell you what any given section is about. It’s worth mentioning now because the next section has the hilarious title (in the dark humor sense) of “Laws About Social Justice.” Yes, there is some good social justice stuff, like not letting widows and orphans starve, not oppressing travelers in their lands, and not committing perjury or manipulating lawsuits to favor the rich over the poor. But this is also the section that contains the famous line “Thou shalt not permit a sorceress to live,” (sorceress? Does that mean sorcerers – the male version of the same thing - are A-OK?), and makes it a crime worthy of death to worship any god other than Yahweh. And of course, from my perspective, that amounts to killing people over fictions.

From there we move on to laws about festivals and worship. In these the Hebrews are forbidden to even say the names of other gods. There are some feast days specified, notes on offering the blood of sacrifices, and the specification that the best of the first fruits of the harvest must be given to God. Oh, and for some reason this section ends with forbidding the boiling of young goats in their mother’s milk.

Now I don’t want to give you the wrong impression here. There are some good things in the laws laid down here. I’m not making an exhaustive list because this is a blog, and anyway the Bible will have it all spelled out for you. The point I’m trying to make, though, is that these laws simply are not universally good. It’s a mixed bag of good, bad, and downright fucking evil, which is pretty much what you might expect from laws written by a barbarian tribe 4000 or so years ago. Or by many if not most modern lawmakers, if truth be told.

Then there’s a break in the lawgiving to talk about the coming invasion of Canaan. The gist of it is that they’re supposed to enter Canaan and completely wipe out the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites, and God will send an angel with them to make sure they can pull off the genocide successfully. Of course, they are forbidden to adopt the gods of the people they wipe out. Yahweh is really big on hoarding the worship for himself.

God even promises that he will be sure to drive out the peoples of those lands only as fast as the Israelites expand, to make sure that the land they leave behind won’t have time to fill up with wild animals that might harm them. I actually find this hilarious. Firstly, it’s kind of a fact that people you’re warring against are far more dangerous to you than wild animals. Secondly, does this suggest that Yahweh would have been unable to prevent wild animals from taking over? Lastly, you know what else causes people to driven out of a land at the same rate that the invaders expand? Getting driven out by the fucking invaders! This line is nothing more than claiming the natural result of a successful invasion and giving the credit entirely to God. And very transparently so.

So at this point God seems to be done laying down the law, and tells Moses to go fetch Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders to come up and worship on the mountain. Though they must still worship from afar – only Moses can come close to God. So Moses heads down, and while he’s there he passes along all the laws to the people. They agree to follow them, and he then proceeds to write the laws down in a book. He then builds an altar and commands that a bunch of animals be gathered together as a sacrifice. I should point out that this includes multiple oxen, which are really damn big animals. I bring that up, because I want you to have a sense of the amount of blood that will be involved in the next verse.

“Ex 24:6 And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. 7 then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said ‘All that Yahweh has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.’ 8 And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said ‘Behold the blood of the covenant that Yahweh has made with you in accordance with all these words.’”

Do we have that image fully in mind here? Yahweh’s covenant with the Israelites was sealed by pouring gallons of blood over both his altar and the people themselves. That’s pretty fucking hardcore. Do you have any doubt that this is a blood god these people worshipped? And by extension, that Christians worship?

So with that lovely image in mind, I take my leave for another day. Hope you all remain well, until next time.

Exodus: The Ten Commandments

(Note: In case you haven’t read previous postings, you may notice that when I directly quote the Bible I use the name Yahweh a lot. You’re probably used to seeing “the LORD” in those passages. The reason for the substitution is simple: I actually read the translation notes for the version I’m reading and quoting from, where it states that the translators use “the LORD” wherever the original text uses God’s personal name YHWH – which we would say as Yahweh. So what I’m really up to is undoing a substitution the translators have made, which I believe they do for the purpose of emotional manipulation).

Alright, so we finally have the Israelites to the sides of Mount Sinai, the site at which God appears to deliver the Ten Commandments. But as usual there’s more to the story than most people remember and/or are told. So as usual I’m going to dwell on the details a bit. Here we go!

The Israelites arrive at Sinai about three months after leaving Egypt. While the people camped there, Moses went up the mountain to talk to God. And God’s message is to tell the Israelites that as long as they keep his covenant and obey his commandments, they will be his “treasured possession among all peoples,” and a holy nation. So Moses tells the people this, and they agree to go along with the deal. Moses relays their consent to God, who then tells him that in three days he will come down as a thick cloud so that the people can hear him speak to Moses and thus believe Moses (I guess it was somehow unclear so far whether Moses was actually speaking for God or not).

God then instructs Moses to tell the people to consecrate themselves and wash their clothes to be ready for his appearance on the third day. And also that Moses should set limits around the mountain and that anyone who tries to cross them and climb the mountain should be shot or stoned to death. So Moses goes back down the mountain to relay the message, and tosses in “Do not go near a woman.” I guess women deconsecrate men or something, and you don’t want to come near God with woman on you. God hates cooties.

“Ex 19:16 On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. 17 Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. 18 Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because Yahweh had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the show mountain trembled greatly. 19 And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder.”

Now… does this sound to anyone else like a bunch of primitives mucking around at the base of a volcano and thinking it’s a god? Note that in this passage God does not respond in words, but in thunder. Which is a perfectly natural occurrence. Then Moses goes up the mountain where suddenly God is talking to him in words again (where no one else can hear).

In these words, God tells Moses to go back down and warn the people once again not to try and break through the perimeter they set up, and that any priests who are to come near should consecrate themselves. Moses seems a bit confused about this mention of priests coming up, and he reminds God that he had forbidden anyone to come up on the mountain. So God is like “Oh yeah… umm… I mean go bring Aaron back. The priests have to stay back there with the people like I said before.” This passage makes God sound like kind of a dim bulb. Or something made up by a fallible author. Take your pick.

But now… we’re finally there: The Ten Commandments!

“Ex 20:1 And God spoke all these words, saying

2 ‘I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 You shall have no other gods before me.

4  ‘You shall not make for yourself any carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, Yahweh your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

7 ’You shall not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain, for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

8 ‘Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to Yahweh your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days Yahweh made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

12 ‘Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that Yahweh your god is giving you.

13 ‘You shall not murder.

14 ’You shall not commit adultery.

15 ‘You shall not steal.

16 ‘You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

17 ‘You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”

Now, for those of you who think American law is based on the Ten Commandments, take note of a few things here. The First Commandment is directly contradicted by the First Amendment to the Constitution. The second, third, fourth, and fifth have no representation in law. The sixth, eighth, and ninth do appear in American law… as well as in the laws of pretty much every society ever formed on the earth whether they had ever heard of Yahweh or not. The seventh shows up merely as grounds for divorce (and is also very common in non-Abrahamic law systems as well). And the tenth is a thought crime held to be completely unenforceable and therefore not written into American law, and violating it is pretty much the driving force behind our entire economic system. Coveting shit is pretty much what capitalism is all about.

Basically, there is absolutely nothing that is both unique to the Ten Commandments and part of American law. Because our founding fathers had better sense than that.

Now it’s a little unclear whether these words were actually spoken in the presence of the people of Israel. Although the delivery of the commandments is immediately followed by a bit about how the people saw thunder and lightning and the mountain smoking, and heard trumpet blasts, and got scared and moved far away. There’s nothing about them hearing God’s words. Though there’s a request from the people for Moses not to let God speak directly to them because they’d die, but rather for Moses to speak and they would listen to him. So I’m inclined to think that nobody but Moses heard actual words. The whole thing reads very much like some huckster taking advantage of the magnificent backdrop of an erupting volcano to con a bunch of hungry, desperate primitives into thinking he speaks for God.

Anyhow, that’s far enough for today. Not sure exactly how I’m going to handle the next section, which is a pretty tedious recital of laws and remarkably specific instructions for precisely how God wants to be worshipped. I’ll probably try to hit the highlights without going into too much eye-glazing detail.

Exodus: Munchin’ on Manna

We rejoin the Israelites fresh from the God-induced suicide of the Egyptian army as they set out into the wilderness east of the Red Sea. They travel for three days without water before coming to Marah, where there’s water but it’s too bitter to drink. So now they go to their leader Moses demanding to know what they’re supposed to drink. Moses turns around to God:

“Ex 15:25 And he cried to Yahweh, and Yahweh showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.”

Ummm… ok. What’s the business with the log? If God wanted to make the water sweet, couldn’t he have just done it? Why the log? Meh, whatever.

The verse goes on to say that God tested them there to see if they would keep him commandments, promising that if they did he wouldn’t give them the diseases he’d given the Eqyptians. Afterwards they moved on to the springs at Elim. After watering there, they started traveling again in the direction of Sinai. But now that they had water, they had a new complaint: lack of food. Although they’re traveling with all their livestock, but I guess it isn’t enough to feed them.

So they complain to Moses that they’d have been better off in Egypt than starving to death in the wilderness. God then tells Moses that he’s going to provide them with meat that night, and bread thereafter. And there are specific rules about gathering the bread. They are to gather enough to eat for six days. On the sixth day they will be provided twice as much as on any other day so that on the seventh day they can eat without going out to gather. Because they’re supposed to rest on the seventh day as a Sabbath.

So Moses relays the instructions to the Israelites, and accompanies them with a statement that the Israelites shouldn’t complain about his and Aaron’s leadership, because complaining about them is the same as complaining about God. Again there’s extra stuff he says beyond what’s in the conversation with God, such as the instruction that they aren’t to try and save any food from one day to the next because God will always provide as much as they need every day.

So anyway, what actually happened is that God provided a flock of quail that evening, and every morning some fine flaky stuff from which the Israelites could make bread that they called manna. So every morning they go out and gather this stuff, which has some interesting properties. Such as the fact that everyone gets exactly as much as they need to eat that day – no matter how hard you worked at gathering tons of it you don’t end up with extra, and however little you gather you end up with enough. Divinely enforced communism! Also, if you try to save any for the next day, whatever you save will go rotten and be full of worms. Except on the sixth day, when the leftovers will remain fresh so you don’t have to gather on the seventh.

Of course, some Israelites try to save extra, and Moses gets pissed at them for not doing what God said. And some try to gather on the seventh day, and likewise God and Moses get pissed at them for that. But once that routine was settled in, Moses gave a new commandment about the manna.

“Ex 16:32 Moses said ‘This is what Yahweh has commanded: “Let an omer of it be kept throughout your generations, so that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.”’”

And Aaron then put some of it in a jar to be kept. So unless something happened to it later on, does that mean that somewhere out there is a physical example of the miraculous food? Would be interesting to know.

They travel on through the wilderness until they come to a place called Rephidim to set up camp. But they discover there’s no water there. So once more the people go to Moses.

“Ex 17:2 Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said ‘Give us water to drink,’ and Moses said to them ‘Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test Yahweh?’”

For some reason, the Israelites failed to be assuaged by Moses treating a critical survival necessity as just some random complaint they had drummed up just to be a pain in his ass. So Moses turns to God and asks what to do about it. God tells him to take his staff, go over to mount Horeb, and strike a rock with it. He does, and water comes out of the rock for the people to drink.

After this the Amalekites came to attack the Israelites (which doesn’t seem terribly unreasonable when you realize that from their perspective their lands had just been essentially invaded by well over a million people). Moses chooses Joshua to lead the Israelites in the fight. But the real key to victory apparently isn’t who leads the fight, but whether or not Moses can stand on a hillside overlooking the fight all day holding his staff raised in the air. Whenever he holds up his staff the Israelites do well, but whenever he lowers it the Amalekites do well. So when his arms get too tired to hold up anymore, he sits on a stone while Aaron and Hur hold his hands up in the air for him. Thus magical thinking (and the Israelites) prevail. Then we see what I think may be one of the most unintentionally hilarious lines I’ve ever seen.

“Ex 17:14 Then Yahweh said to Moses ‘Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.’”

He’s going to blot out the memory of them… and write it down in a fucking book? Books preserve memory! If you write it down, that’s the exact opposite of blotting out the memory of it! Did the author even think before writing some of this shit?

Sigh. So afterwards while they’re still encamped near Horeb (the so-called mountain of God), Moses’ father-in-law (still called Jethro) comes out to meet him. He brings along Moses’ wife and sons, whom the author mentions Moses had sent back home at some point while he was in Egypt. I don’t recall it being mentioned back when reading that story, but the author(s) of this book do have a tendency to leave out plot points at the time when they’re happening only to mention them later. Recall Joseph and the interpreter. Maybe that was the height of the literary form at the time, but it sure comes off as bad storytelling now.

So Moses tells Jethro all about what’s been happening, and Jethro makes a burnt offering to God while kissing the divine derriere a bit. Over the next few days, Jethro watches Moses spending most of his time moderating disputes between his followers. So he decides to intervene, telling Moses that he’s just gonna burn himself out like that. He suggests instead he should appoint “chiefs” for groups of ten, fifty, a hundred, and a thousand people, and have them moderate all the minor disputes and only bring the really major stuff to Moses. Moses agrees this is a fine idea, and implements the plan.

After this Jethro and the Israelites part ways, and the Israelites proceed on to Sinai.

I know I said I’d try to get to the events at Sinai today, but there was just too much stuff leading up to that in this post to try and dive into it now. So until next time… take care and be well!

Exodus: Death… Now With 100% More Pillaging!

So if you’ve followed along this far, you know that God had just rained nine plagues down on Egypt because Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites go out into the wilderness to make sacrifices to him. Of course, throughout the plagues God was tinkering with Pharaoh’s brain to cause him to keep refusing permission, so God would have an excuse to inflict more plagues (or, as he called it, “multiply his wonders”). A philosophy that holds more in common with The Party from George Orwell’s 1984 than the loving God Christians claim to worship.

So now things are coming down to the climax of this grand farce. God tells Moses that there’s one more plague coming, and afterwards Pharaoh will finally be able to let them go. So to prepare, he should tell the Israelites to go “ask” the Egyptians for their gold and silver. And because the Egyptians are scared shitless of Moses and the plagues, they give up the treasure.

Then Moses goes in to see Pharaoh and deliver the superfluous warning of the coming plague. And that plague will be the death of the firstborn of every single household in Egypt, from the Pharaoh on down to the servants and prisoners and even the livestock. You know… the livestock who all died in an earlier plague… and then were killed in the plague of hail as well. Someone ought to look into these apparently regenerating livestock – we could be overlooking the solution to world hunger.

Of course, Pharaoh once again ignores the warning because God hardened his heart, and Moses leaves him “in a hot anger.” I don’t blame Moses for being mad; he knows these warnings and demands are a farce since Pharaoh has been denied the freedom to acquiesce to them, and being forced by Yahweh to go back over and over again to play out the same tragic puppet show must be really frustrating.

Next God gives some very specific orders about how the Israelites should protect themselves from having their firstborn killed. Every household is supposed to take an unblemished year old lamb (either goat or sheep), kill it, and mark their doorposts and lintels with the blood. Then they are to eat the lamb – all of it including the head and guts. And it must be roasted; not raw and not boiled. They are to have a side of unleavened bread and use bitter herbs. And anything that’s left over must be burned before morning. And they have to eat it with their belts fastened, their sandals on their feet, and their staffs in their hand. And they have to eat it quickly. This is the Passover, so named because while they’re having this little feast God will pass over their houses on his mission to kill all the firstborn of Egypt. And the reason for eating quickly while fully dressed is because God said after the firstborn were killed the Egyptians would kick them out of Egypt immediately.

Then they are given instructions that every year for the rest of time they are to celebrate the event by eating only unleavened bread for seven days. Anyone who doesn’t is supposed to be cut off from Israel. Oh yeah… and their slaves can partake of it as well. Here we are, the Israelites haven’t even been released from their own slavery and they’re already making statutes for stuff their slaves are allowed to do. Well, at least we know God and the Israelites have no issue with slavery, just with themselves being slaves.

So, all the instructions having been given, the appointed night comes and sure enough god kills all the firstborn.

“Ex 12:29 At midnight Yahweh struck down 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, an all the firstborn of the livestock.”

There are those regenerating livestock again. Some of them are being killed for the third time! Also interesting to note that the captives in the dungeon – you know, people who are explicitly not participating in the society that was oppressing the Israelites – were also punished.

Anyway, at this point Pharaoh summons Moses and Aaron, and he tells them to take their people and get the fuck out right now. So the Israelites depart with the gold and silver they plundered from the Egyptians. According to the Bible, there were six hundred thousand men, plus women and children (who aren’t numbered, since only the men are important in the Bible). So… let’s say between 1.5 and 2 million people. According to the Bible, they had lived in Egypt as a people for 430 years.

So then Yahweh gives Moses some additional instructions about the Passover feast. Foreigners and hired servants aren’t allowed to eat it unless they are circumcised. Slaves can eat it (after they are circumcised). It has to be eaten in one house, and no part of it can be taken outside. None of the lamb’s bones can be broken. He also instructs Moses that all the firstborn, whether humans or livestock, are to be consecrated (i.e. sacrificed) to him.

Moses passes on all the instructions to the Israelites, though he makes some alterations (are we supposed to assume that God told him all of these details and the Bible just didn’t bother to record that part of the conversation, or that Moses just made this shit up?).  For example: though all the firstborn supposedly belong to God, Moses tells the Israelites that a donkey can be redeemed (bought back) by substituting a lamb. But if you can’t afford the lamb, you have to break the donkey’s neck. The very next thing he says is that you redeem a child with a lamb as well, but nothing is said about what you do if you can’t afford the lamb. Do you have to break the child’s neck? He doesn’t say. I guess you just better make damn sure you can get a lamb somewhere.

So the Israelites set out from Egypt with God leading them on, appearing in the form of a pillar of smoke during the day and a column of fire by night. But instead of leading them directly toward Canaan (they would have to pass through Philistine lands, and God doesn’t want them deciding to go back to Egypt to avoid war with the Philistines), he leads them toward the Red Sea where he has them set up camp. Then:

“Ex 14:4 ‘And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them [the Israelites], and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am Yahweh.’ And they did so.”

Oh… did you think he was done fucking with Pharaoh’s mind? Not at all! Pharaoh set out to pursue the Israelites because God once again took over his mind and forced him to do it. In fact, it’s repeated at least two more times in the story that God changed Pharaoh’s mind and forced him to pursue the Israelites. Apparently this fact is very important in the original text, but for some reason it was never part of my Sunday school lessons on Exodus. Possibly because it’s indefensible.

So Pharaoh gathers up his army and sets out after them. When the Israelites saw the army approaching, they got scared and started asking Moses why he’d dragged them out here into the wilderness if all they were going to get out of it was being killed by Pharaoh’s army. Moses responds that they should just trust that God will fight for them.

God then commands Moses to hold out his staff over the sea, and it will part for them so that the Israelites can cross. Now… we all have this image in our heads from things like the Charlton Heston movie The Ten Commandments where the sea leaps up at his command. What’s actually described is that God brings up a strong east wind that pushes the sea apart slowly over the course of an entire night. He (in the form of the pillar of fire/smoke) moves between the Israelites and the army in order to keep the Egyptians from attacking while this process is going on.

Then the Israelites begin to cross the sea. And once they’re across God gets out of the way so the Egyptians can pursue them. Now… I always thought even as a child that these Egyptians were pretty stupid. I mean, epically dumb on a level seen only in Congress. After all these plagues and with the sure knowledge that God will happily kill people by the cartloads, they then choose to follow the Israelites between these massive walls of water. Well, the Bible provides an answer to that stupidity.

“Ex 14:17 ‘And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they shall go in after them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, his chariots, and his horsemen.’”

That’s right. The secret to the Egyptians’ stupidity turns out to be God. Because he thinks it brings him glory to take over their wills and march them like mindless little lemmings into an obviously suicidal situation.

So there we go. God marches the Egyptians into the sea. Then he sends them into a panic while he sends the water crashing back in on them. The Egyptian army and the Pharaoh all drown, and the Israelites are free. So they sing him a song, and the captivity in Egypt is over.

In the next post, we start the Israelites’ journey to Canaan. If we’re lucky we’ll get as far as the Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments, but that depends how much commentary is needed along the way. Quite a bit actually happens between here and there, though it’s not all that dramatic so we don’t hear about it a lot.

Take care all!

Exodus: A Plethora of Plagues

Well, well, here we are again. Spent a lot of time in the last post railing on the parade of horrible storytelling, translation choices, and moral implications in what I was reading, and so didn’t get very far in the actual story. But today we start getting into the meat of the Exodus tale.

After securing Moses’ agreement to do his part in freeing the Israelites, God checks in with Moses’ brother Aaron and tells him to go out to meet Moses. So they meet up, and Moses explains the marching orders to his brother. Then they go and meet up with the elders of Israel and do their little magic show to convince them to go along.

Next stop is Pharaoh, to inform him that Yahweh has given orders that the Israelites are to go out into the wilderness for three days to worship him. Pharaoh is like “Who’s this Yahweh  character, and why should I care what he has to say?” Then he goes on to say that clearly the Israelites clearly have too much time on their hands if they’re worried about taking three days off to worship their god, so the solution is to give them more work to do. So he orders the overseers, who had previously supplied the Israelites with straw to use in making bricks, to tell the slaves to gather their own damn straw without lowering the brick quota at all. Then he had the Israelite foremen beaten when they couldn’t keep up with the work. The result was that the Israelites got pissed at Moses and Aaron for bringing the punishment on them.

So Moses turns around and whines to God about about how could he bring such evil on his people. And God basically says words to the effect of “Just you wait. I’m a total badass and I’m about to bust Pharaoh up something good. Then you guys will finally get the land of Canaan that I promised your ancestors. Go tell the Israelites that,” (except that in the Bible he takes a lot more words to say it). But the Israelites didn’t believe it because the Egyptians had crushed their spirits.

God then tells Moses to go back to Pharaoh to demand his people’s release again. Moses protests that if the Israelites won’t even believe him, how the hell will he convince Pharaoh? But God will hear nothing of it, and sends him anyway.

Next, totally out of the blue, the narrative is interrupted to spend about fifteen verses on the genealogy of Moses and Aaron. And when the text finally gets back to God sending Moses and Aaron to talk to Pharaoh we get this verse:

“Ex 7:1 And Yahweh said to Moses ‘See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother shall be your prophet. 2 You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land. 3 But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, 4 Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my host, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of Judgment.’”

Remember in my last post where I put up a verse in which God promised to take away Pharaoh’s ability to choose to let the Israelites go, and then punish him for not letting them go? Well, just in case you thought that verse was an anomaly, here we see that promise repeated again. And later, you will see him explicitly fulfill it.

Now, I’d like you to take a moment to think about the implications. When this God character feels he has a point to make, he is perfectly willing to fuck with people’s minds to change their thoughts and decisions. Ironically, I’ve often heard Christians claim that they can have absolute certainty because of God. But this tells us the exact opposite is true – a world that contains this God would be a world in which your thoughts and decisions can be arbitrarily changed at the whim of this deity. And what’s more, your holy book explicitly states that he does do this. And that he punishes people for the decisions that he forces them to make! This is an arbitrary, horrific, Orwellian nightmare of a world!

Speaking of Orwell, how many of you have read 1984? There’s a scene where the bad guy is explaining to the protagonist about how the most important thing in the world is power. He then goes on to say that it is by making people suffer that you demonstrate power, because they would wish to stop you from doing it and be unable to. Think about that as we go through the Exodus story, because it’s pretty much the same philosophy.

Back to the Bible: Moses and Aaron go back to the Pharaoh who demands that they prove they represent their god by performing a miracle. So Aaron throws down his staff and it becomes a snake. But Pharaoh’s magicians turn their own staffs into snakes to show that there’s nothing special about Aaron’s trick. And even though Aaron’s snake then eats theirs, the Pharaoh remains unconvinced.

Now we start getting into the plagues. God has Moses and Aaron confront Pharaoh in the morning when he goes down to the river and wave their staff over the Nile to turn it to blood. Which they do. And according to the text not only does all the water in the Nile turn to blood but so does all the water throughout Egypt “even in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone,” (Ex 7:19) But then the Pharaoh’s magicians “did the same by their secret arts’ (Ex 7:22), though how the hell they could turn all the water in Egypt into blood when all the water in Egypt was already blood is never really explained (because the author is a crap storyteller, as I may already have mentioned). So Pharaoh is unconvinced of Yahweh’s power and still refuses to let the Israelites go.

Seven days later, Yahweh orders Moses and Aaron to go tell Pharaoh that if he doesn’t let the people go, he will plague the land with frogs. The narrative then skips any mention of them actually talking to Pharaoh and/or him refusing to let the people go, jumping straight to God giving Aaron the order to commence the plague. So Aaron waves his staff about, plagues of frogs wash over the land, and then the Pharaoh’s magicians do the same thing again (how the hell did anyone tell the difference between Yahweh’s plague of frogs and the magicians’ plague of frogs?).

Pharaoh then calls in Moses and Aaron and tells them he’ll let the Israelites go make their sacrifices to God if they’ll plead with Yahweh to end the plague of frogs. So they plead with God, he kills all the frogs (leaving everyone to clean up mounds of rotting frog corpses), and Pharaoh immediately reneges on his word.

So Yahweh orders Moses to tell Aaron to strike the dust of the earth with his staff and turn it into gnats. Which he does. The magicians, who are able to turns vast quantities of water into blood and produces plagues of frogs, for some reason are unable to make gnats. So now they finally believe the plagues are from God because Moses and Aaron had a trick they didn’t. But Pharaoh still wouldn’t listen.

Next came the plague of flies. And now Pharaoh seems to be bending – he tries to negotiate with Moses and Aaron by saying the Israelites can take time off to make their sacrifices, they just aren’t allowed to leave Egypt to do it. Moses replies that their sacrifices are so repugnant to the Egyptian people that they’d be stoned to death if they did them where the Egyptians could see, so they really do need to leave Egypt to do them. Pharaoh acquiesces, Moses talks to God, and the plague of flies ends. Then the Pharaoh goes back on his word again. I’d say he’s being a dick and/or exceptionally thick, but recall that these constant refusals are the result of God “hardening his heart.”

So Yahweh sends Moses and Aaron to warn Pharaoh that he’s going to kill all the Egyptian livestock. Which he does, while sparing all the Israelite livestock. Of course, Pharaoh the meat puppet continues to play his role and refuse to let the Israelites go.

Next, Moses and Aaron are sent to Pharaoh with handfuls of soot from a kiln, which they throw up in the air and it spreads out over all of Egypt, causing everyone it touches to erupt into boils. After which:

“Ex 9:12 But Yahweh hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as Yahweh had spoken to Moses.”

These repeated warnings and demands issued to Pharaoh have become a sad farce. A stupid, scripted little puppet play in which Yahweh sends Moses and Aaron to issue demands and punishments to a man whom Yahweh himself is preventing from complying. It’s both pathetic, and sick.

The next plague is hail, which somehow manages to kill Egyptian livestock in the fields despite the fact that all of the Egyptian livestock was summarily killed two plagues ago. And once again the sad farce of Pharaoh pleading with Moses to end the plague in exchange for letting the Israelites go sacrifice to Yahweh, followed by Pharaoh once more having his heart hardened and going back on the promise so Yahweh can punish him some more.

I can’t believe there are people who find this shit inspirational.

Eighth plague. Unheeded warning issued to Pharaoh, plague of locusts devour all the crops, Pharaoh pleads for plague to end, plague ends, Yahweh makes Pharaoh go back on his word yet again. Do you see yet why I found this book so depressing?

Ninth plague is darkness. Lather, rinse, repeat.

If you’re at all familiar with the story, you know what’s coming. If not, wait for tomorrow – I’ve typed long enough for today, and frankly it’s starting to get me down.

Exodus: Name Shame

We rejoin Moses as he’s tending his father-in-law Jethro’s flocks by the mountain of… wait… did I just say his father-in-law was named Jethro? Yep. But didn’t I say in the previous post that he’d married Reuel’s daughter? Yep. Hmmm… something doesn’t jibe here. Maybe I read the earlier passage wrong. So I went back and looked. Nope, it’s pretty clear that Moses’ father-in-law was Reuel. So what’s the deal?

Enter the internet. Turns out, Moses’ father-in-law is referred to in multiple places in the Bible, and by many different names. And nobody seems to agree on why. Some think the passages actually refer to different people, some think it’s the same guy with multiple names, some think that some references are names and others are titles, and some think it’s just the kind of errors that creep in when multiple oral tradition stories get cobbled together into written form by different authors.

I’m going with the error theory, myself. Because even if one of the other theories are correct, there’s no fucking way to tell from what I’ve read so far in the Bible. And that is an error in its own right.

Anyway, Moses is tending the father-in-law-of-many-names’ flocks on the mountain of Horeb. And “the angel of the LORD” appeared to him in the form of a flame burning in a bush without consuming it. So naturally Moses pauses to give this curious sight a gander. As he draws close, God announces himself to Moses and starts the conversation by telling him to take off his sandals because he’s on holy ground. Then he actually explains who he is, and Moses is scared.

God goes on to explain that he’s noticed how the Israelites are suffering in Egypt, and wants Moses to go lead them out of captivity into the lands he’d promised their ancestors. Moses immediately starts whining about who is he to do bring the children of Israel out of Egypt. When God assures him that he’ll be with him, Moses brings up his next complaint that when he talks to the Israelites, who should he tell them sent him? This results in the famous “I AM WHO I AM!” response. Followed by:

“Ex 3:15 God also said to Moses ‘Say this to the people of Israel, “The LORD of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.” This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.’”

Now, this struck me as pretty awkward. His name is “The LORD of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?” That’s a real mouthful. Not to mention kind of a stupid name. But then I remembered that the translation notes in the introduction said something about the meaning of seeing LORD in all caps like that. So I went back and reread it.

It turns out that the translators chose to substitute “the LORD” wherever the Hebrew text used God’s actual personal name YHWH (or as we might say it today ‘Yahweh’). Their excuse was basically that when ancient Hebrews read the text aloud they always substituted the Hebrew phrase “the lord” in place of the name because they believed Yahweh’s personal name was too holy to be spoken. This obfuscation takes place in a book that claims to be striving for the most literal possible translation of the text.

Yes, I said obfuscation. As in deceit. Sure, they explain in the Foreword that they’re making the substitution, but who reads or remembers Forewords? And really, even now that I’m fully conscious of it, there’s still a substantial difference in tone and impact between reading God declaring “I am the LORD,” instead of “I am Yahweh.” One is just a statement of identity, and the other is a claim to be the universal embodiment of authority. And there’s a lot of repetition of that phrase or something like it throughout the Exodus story. It’s a retelling of the text designed to hammer the reader over the head constantly with that declaration of authority – pure emotional manipulation. I think that throughout this section, when I quote the text I will reverse that substitution. So that passage above becomes

“Ex 3:15 God also said to Moses ‘Say this to the people of Israel, “Yahweh, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.” This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.’”

This translation also has the virtue of making sense. Incidentally, the true translation fits in with the theory that Yahweh was just one of many gods worshipped throughout the region at the time, and therefore a personal name was needed to differentiate him from the others. Just a thought.

So where was I? Oh yeah, God had just ordered Moses to tell the elders of Israel that Yahweh had sent him to lead them out of captivity. Moses complains that they won’t believe him, so God gives him some parlor tricks to persuade them. He gives him the trick of turning his staff into a snake, and another one where he can put his hand inside his cloak and when he pulls it out it will appear pale and sickly, then he puts it back in his cloak and it comes out looking normal again. Stuff that would get him laughed off a Vegas stage, but probably looked pretty impressive back then.

So now Moses has a couple miracles to work with, but he’s not done weaseling. He claims that he’s not a good speaker, and can’t persuade people. When Yahweh promises to give him the right words, that’s still not good enough and Moses asks him to send someone else. Yahweh gets pissed at the wrangling at this point, and tells Moses that he can use his brother Aaron to speak for him, but he still has to go and do the deeds.

At last, Moses agrees and goes to ask his father-in-law (still Jethro) for permission to go to Egypt and check on his relatives. Jethro readily agrees, and Moses sets off with his family. Now get this as Moses starts his journey:

“Ex 4:21 And Yahweh said to Moses ‘When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.’”

God then goes on to say that if Pharaoh will not let his people go (and remember, he’s just said that he will take away Pharaoh’s ability to choose to let them go), then God will kill his firstborn son. Free will? Fuck that noise! God has a point to make, and if that means he has to take away Pharaoh’s free will in order to justify raining down holy destruction and misery, then so be it!

Though I suppose it’s worth pointing out at this point that nowhere so far has the Bible said humans have free will at all. But it very clearly is saying here that God is quite willing to punish people harshly for shit that he himself makes them do!

OK, back to the story, because there’s more nonsense to come. So Moses has agreed to Yahweh’s demands, and has set out for Egypt with his family. The very next verse after God tell him he’ll kill Pharaoh’s firstborn, with absolutely no transition, explanation, or indication that God has any reason to be further upset with Moses, reads as follows:

“Ex 4:24 At a lodging place on the way Yahweh met him and sought to put him to death. 25 Then Zipporah [Moses’ wife] took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it and said ‘Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!’ 26 So he let him alone. It was then that she said ‘A bridegroom of blood,’ because of the circumcision.”

Yeah… it makes exactly that much sense. I suppose you could take it to mean God was pissed that Moses hadn’t circumcised his sons yet, but this would be about as nonsensical a way as you could come up with to go about explaining it. Divinely inspired brilliance in writing yet again.

The sheer density of nonsense in these few passages has made it difficult to make much progress in the story today. Hopefully the next entry will move it forward some more – at the very least we’ll get Moses met up with his brother Aaron and into Egypt to begin the divine terror campaign!