Joshua Installment Three

 

The Beat Goes On

As we move on from the infrequently interrupted parade of genocide that entertained and inspired us in Chapters Six through Ten, we seque quite handily into...let's see...You're familiar with the phrase "Divide and Conquer" are you not? well, in Chapters Eleven through Nineteen Joshua switches that around to "Conquer and Divide."

    All will become clear.

    It seems the Land of Milk and Honey is lousy with kings, all of them seemingly reluctant to hand over their little kingdoms to the new arrivals. In Chapter Eleven Joshua and his mighty warriors settle the hash of a bunch of these minor monarchs from the northern reaches of Canaan. Here's the cast list:

• King Jabin of Hazor
• King Jobab of Madon
• King No Name Given of Shimron
• King Also No Name Given of Achshaph
• A whole bunch of kings we will call The Ensemble since they don't get individual billing of any sort.

    But of course no matter how many kings, with however many big strong men and iron chariots and noble horses come out to challenge Joshua on the field of battle, if God says you're gonna whup 'em, you can put good money of the fact that whupped they're gonna be. 

8) ...They struck them down, until they had left no one remaining. 9) And Joshua did to them as the Lord commanded him; he hamstrung their horses, and burned their chariots with fire.

     What in the world did those horse do to deserve that? Just asking. I mean, they're horses, it's not like they signed up for that duty and understood what they were getting themselves into. And in case you're wondering, all the opposing players of a Homo Sapiens persuasion were "stuck down with the edge of the sword" just to give their steeds a bit of company on the field of battle. 

    In Chapter Twelve we get an inventory of the kings that have found themselves voted out of office as a result of the surge of undocumented immigrants led first by Moses and then Joshua. The Moses list is presented in paragraph form and is, I think, a bit of a slog to plow through, whereas the Joshua list is done very neatly in a sort of bullet point presentation beginning with "the king of Jericho" and ending with "the king of Tirzah": we are even provided with a total at the end. That total being a big thirty-one.

    And even though it meant a whole five minutes of dealing with small print, I counted the kings voted off the island by Moses. It starts with King Sihon of the Amorites and ends with King Og of Bashan with nobody in between, just a whole lot of surveying talk.  So once you take the trouble to wade through all the verbiage the total for Moses as presented here is all of two.

    Advantage: Joshua.

    Not that we're keeping score.

    Chapter Thirteen opens with one of my favorite bits, just because.

Now Joshua was old and advanced in years; and the Lord said to him, "You are old and advanced in years"

    God goes on to tell Joshua that there is still a lot to do, more kings to skewer and territory to claim under the Middle Eastern edition of Manifest Destiny. God lists all the little kingdoms that have yet to be liberated from their current residents and then assures Joshua that he doesn't need to bother with the actual fighting at his advanced age, because God his own darned self "will drive them out from before the Israelites" and all Joshua needs to worry about is distributing the land once all the blood has been soaked up by the thirsty earth. And it's all of the fascinating real estate details we get in the next five thousand or so verses, a sort of surveying catalogue of which tribe gets what, and in some cases what they think of their share. Every once in a while we are reminded--because the author here is big advocate of learning through repetition--that the Levites aren't getting any territory to call their own, because "the Lord God of Israel is their inheritance." I bet they appreciate that.

    And just in case you think I exaggerate regarding the amount of ink given over to how the Land of Milk and Honey and dead horses is to be divided amongst the tribes, I'll just say that that's pretty much all you're going to find in Chapters Thirteen through Nineteen and we're not going to do a play by play here, thank you very much.

    If you're curious about how the Tribe of Zebulun made out I invite you to turn to Chapter Nineteen, verses 13-16 and you will be satisfied. Any fans of the Tribe of Dan should skip along in that chapter to verses 40-48. 

    Next time we meet up we'll learn all about the Cities of Refuge, a bit of real estate that actually does get set aside for the Levites, and, Spoiler Alert! Joshua exits this mortal coil. Whether or not there is a succession plan in place we hope to find out.

    

 

Joshua Installment Two

 

  *

Battlin' Joshua

"Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho.

Joshua fought the battle of Jericho,

And the walls came tumbling down."

Hold on, because the next five chapters in this book make the opening scenes in 

"Saving Private Ryan" look like a meet cute in a rom-com. It's battle after 

battle, after battle. Actually, more like a bunch of slaughtering interrupted 

by an early Bay of Pigs episode.

    The big one, the famous one, of course, comes in Chapter Six where  Jericho meets its doom. Where Joshua employs a unique choreographed 

and musical strategy.

    We start out with God telling Joshua not worry, that the city has been 

handed to him provided he follows these simple instructions.

3) "You shall march around the city, all the warriors circling the city once. 

Thus you shall do for six days, 4) with seven priests bearing seven 

trumpets of rams' horns before the ark. On the seventh day you shall 

march around the the city seven times, the priests blowing the trumpets 

(another word for rams' horns I suppose). 5) When they make a long blast 

with the rams' horn, as soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then

all the people will shout with a great shout."

    You've got to admit, it's a great plan, one that the king of Jericho 

couldn't have seen coming. He must have spent those first six days looking over the parapets at the parade going on outside his walls and shaking his head in wonder at the loopiness of it all. Chuckling and rolling his eyes at the silly Israelites tooting their horns and high stepping around the wall. Little did he know what day seven had in store for him and his people. Seven laps around the wall, some heavy tooting on the rams' horns, and a mighty shout and those walls came tumbling down.

    And once those walls tumbled down, the Israelites came surging in, and, following God's instructions, they kill everyone, man, woman and child that hadn't already been dispatched by the collapsing structures. They also kill all the livestock, once again, at God's instructions. And then all the brave Israelites gather anything of value they can find and bring it to the priests so God could have the shiny stuff. That was also part of the instructions. All looting was to be for the glory of God, not for personal enrichment.

    Oh, I almost forgot, Rahab the prostitute and her loved ones are spared, just like the two spies had promised. I'm not sure how the invading army knew which home was hers since from the earlier spy story we're told her home had an outside facing wall and any crimson rope she would have tied to the window would have been buried in the rubble, along with anyone inside the house, but the Bible says Rahab and her kinfolk were fine, so there you go. Just another detail over which we should not quibble. We will also be glad to know that not only was Rahab spared, but she went on to became a pillar of the community and in fact was voted first chairperson of the Milk and Honey Benevolent Society Auxiliary and Bookclub**.

    But the rest of the town was destroyed and everyone was killed, let's not lose sight of the important stuff.

27) So the Lord was with Joshua, and his fame was in all the land.

    Joshua is now officially not only good with God, but a also a celebrity. Destroying an entire city will do that.

    Remember the bit about bringing all of the good stuff (silver, gold, bronze, iron, Franklin Mint collectibles**) back to the priests? Well, in Chapter Seven we find out that one of the brave soldiers decided to keep a bit of the booty for himself. His name is Achan, and Achan soon finds out that one does not skim off the top when dealing with The Lord.

    But first.

    After the easy-peasy conquering of Jericho, Joshua sends some soldiers to add the city of Ai to his Win Column, but somehow things don't turn out so well, and not only do they lose thirty-six men, but the inhabitants of Ai chase them out of the town and taunt them whilst doing so. When Joshua asks God why he hadn't been with the Israelites, God tells him that someone had been naughty in regard to the shiny stuff from Jericho. God then tells Joshua to sift through the population until he ID's the culprit. You'll have to read verses 14-20 if you want to know just how he narrows down the field to our friend Achan, because it doesn't make much sense to me. But Achan fesses up, a public stoning and incineration follows, and...

26)...Then the Lord turned from his burning anger.

    Which meant God would start helping out with the conquering again.

    So it's back to Ai for another try in Chapter Eight. This time with a nifty plan provided by God, who now is back on the side of Joshua and the Israelites. He tells Joshua the best way to handle this one is to sneak a bunch of the army around back of the city, then camp everyone else out in front, where the Ailites (Aians? Aiarians?) can see them. The Ai army, over confident after swatting away the previous attempt to invade their city, will then rush out to chase away the enemy camped conveniently outside their front door. When they do that, the Israelites in front of Ai are to run away, drawing the Aitans away from the gate so the Israelites who have been lurking behind the town can rush around the corner, into the undefended city, set it aflame, then rush back out the gate and trap the Ai soldiers from behind. It's devious and effective and, you guessed it, everyone with an Ai zip code dies. Some special attention is given to the King of Ai that we won't dwell on here. Suffice to say it's a nasty way to go.

    We take a little detour in Chapter Nine with a story about how some folks from Gibeon, upon hearing just how ruthless the Israelites have been behaving, decide that while all the other towns in the vicinity are getting ready to defend their territory against the powerful and devious Israelites, the best way to avoid becoming next on the Conquer and Slaughter Tour, is trick Joshua into thinking they have just arrived from a distant country, specifically to devote themselves to the Israelites' cause.  Joshua buys this unlikely story and promises they can become a part of the community, albeit as low wage workers. When he finds out they were fibbing he can't do anything about it because he is a Man of Honor who will not go back on a promise. Besides, it will be good to have a readymade lower class of "hewers of wood and drawers of water" when they finish up with their slaughtering and settle down to a peaceful, agrarian existence.

    Chapter Ten is titled "The Sun Stands Still", which kinda makes a person want to keep reading, doesn't it? Conjures up the pivotal scene in Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" where the hero Hank Morgan takes advantage of a convenient solar eclipse to make the sun go away at his command and secure his place as a man to be reckoned with. 

    Back to the book at hand.

    The chapter opens up with the King of Jerusalem, a city which at this time has yet to come under new, Israelite management. He's heard about the Gibeon/Joshua contract and it rankles. So he gets a bunch of other area kings together and they go make war on Gibeon, just to show they don't appreciate the fact that their neighbors have thrown in with the invaders. The Gibeonites (this is what they are called in verse 6) send to Joshua for some help so he gathers up a bunch of mighty warriors and heads their way. He is confident things will go well because God has told him in verse 8 "Do not fear them, for I have handed them over to you; not one of them shall stand before you." Which is God's way of saying, "The fix is in. You can make it look like a real battle if you want to, but in any case make sure you kill everyone."

    So Joshua and his warriors chase the gathered armies of Jerusalem, Jarmuth, Hebron, Lachish, and Eglon away from the gates of Gibeon, and God helps out by pelting the retreating armies with "huge stones from heaven." 

    And now for the Sun Standing Still part. Joshua made up a nice poem, calling on the sun to, well, I'll just give you the song itself...

12) On the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the Israelites, Joshua spoke to the Lord; and he said in the sight of Israel,

"Sun stand still at Gibeon,

and Moon, in the valley of

Aijalon."

13) And the sun stood still, and the

moon stopped,

until the nation took vengeance on their enemies.

    So, if I'm reading this correctly, Joshua wanted good light to last for a longer seasonally reasonable, so his mighty warriors would have an easier time wiping out the opposing army.

    The chapter gets even jollier.

    

    The five kings whose armies had been defeated outside of Gibeon go and hide inside a cave. Joshua has his men roll a big rock in front of the cave to trap the kings, then goes about the territory killing their armies. Then they extract the kings, Joshua "struck them down" and "hung them on five trees" until sunset, at which time down come the royal corpses, to be tossed back in the cave and sealed in with some more big rocks "which remain to this day."

    Just in case you think that's quite enough regicide and general slaughter for one chapter, you would be mistaken. Joshua and his Invincible Army proceeds to dispatch...

• Makkedah and its king
• Libnah and its king
• Lachish (king already dispatched)
• Gezer and its king
• Eglon (see note re Lachish)
• Hebron (for some reason that king gets a mention here, so perhaps that municipality had two kings, one that stayed at home while the other went to meet his fate at Gibeon?)
• Debir and its king

   Chapter Ten concludes with this celebratory paragraph.

40) So Joshua defeated the whole land, the hill country and the Negeb and the low-land and the slopes,

and all their kings; he left no one remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded.  41) And Joshua defeated them from Kadesh-barnea to Gaza, and all the country of Goshen, as far as Gibeon. Joshua took all these kings and their land at one time, because the Lord God of Israel fought for Israel. 43) Then Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, to the camp at Gilgal.***

*A Cliff Chipmunk. I thought it might be a nice antidote to the goings on in this installment.

**I shouldn't have to say this, but bits like this should not be taken as anything other than an exercise of Authorial Voice.

***For some well deserved R&R

Joshua, Installment One

 

  ***

It's Joshua's Turn

Looks like we're back to installments, at least for a while. Deuteronomy gave me false hope that I could polish off a book in one post, but that only worked because so much of Deuteronomy was a rehash of old material. Now we've turned things over to Moses' apprentice Joshua, who we really didn't hear much about in the earlier books, maybe because Moses wasn't interested in having any attention drawn away from himself, I don't know, but in any case it looks like there is going to be a fair amount of new goings-on so we're back to installments.

    I'm still going to try to keep things concise. Good luck to me on that one.

Speaking of keeping things concise, in Chapter One God gets right down to business as he hands Joshua the keys to the caravan.

2) "My servant Moses is dead. Now proceed to cross the Jordan."

6) "...for you shall put this people in possession of the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them."

    Something I think we should all keep in mind if God ever promises us anything is to find out just how many generations will need to come and go before he sees fit to make good on the promise. He doesn't seem to be one for immediate gratification, at least where other folks are concerned.

    Joshua goes to the officers' club tent and tells the captains and majors and whatnot to get ready for some real action. He also makes it clear as well water that what he says goes. Backtalk, or even hesitation will not be tolerated. The officers assure him,

18) "Whoever rebels against your orders and disobeys your words whatever you command, shall be put to death."

    So nothing has changed on the whole progression of disciplinary actions front.

Chapter Two has Joshua doing the old "send spies into the place you're about to attack" thing he learned from Moses. I'm not a military scholar, but I guess it's a solid strategy, used all the time even now. He sends two trusty fellows to go get a lay of the land in Jericho.

    The first place his two spies stop in order to get the lay of the land is at a prostitute's house. That's what it says. The prostitute's name is Rahab. She does the spies a solid by hiding them from soldiers the King of Jericho has sent around after he being warned that there might be spies in town. It seems the King and all the Jerichoians (Jerichoites?) are scared silly about the fearsome Israelites lurking across the border. Word of a Great Replacement Conspiracy designed to make the native born Jerichoinos, including the King, lose their place at the top of the Rights And Privileges Pyramid has the electorate all worked up.

    After successfully avoiding detection by hiding on the roof under stacks of flax, the spies decide that they've learned all they need to learn about the place and so they're happy to take Rahab's offer to lower them to the ground outside the city walls from one of her windows. They promise her that when they come back with the rest of the battalion everyone in her home will be spared from the scheduled slaughter. She just needs to tie a crimson rope outside the window to mark her home as a slaughter-free zone. 

Back at camp in Chapter Three. Joshua tells everyone they will know it is time to cross the River Jordan when they see the priests heading that way with the Ark of the Covenant. They should follow the ark, but stay two thousands cubits back. That's about three thousand feet, if we're talking the long arm cubit*.

    

    So we've got, what did we say, something like 2.4 million people who are to follow the priests across the river, but they must stay a minimum of ten football fields length distant from the priests and the ark. Cool.

    At this point, nobody seems to have given a thought to just how they're all going to get from one side of the river to the other. No mention has been made of any bridge building activities or commissions for local ferry businesses. We find out here that God is going to use this challenge to help Joshua establish himself as a leader worthy of the name. Reaching back into God's old Red Sea bag of miracles, Joshua and his ark bearing Levites stride up to the near bank of the river and the waters draw back.

    It must have been a pretty good sized chunk of dry riverbed, because the priests went halfway across and just hung around while the other 2.4 million hoofed it to the other side, all the while maintaining that two thousand cubit respectful distance. Seems to me at that distance the priests could hardly see the rest of the crowd, maybe just the dust their sandals kicked up. almost five million sandals are bound to kick up quite a cloud. I'm thinking the priests must have settled in and played gin rummy or something because getting all 2.4 million from one side to the other must have taken the better part of the afternoon.

Then, in Chapter Four, God gives out instructions about what he wants done with a dozen stones to mark the location of this miraculous crossing. I'm still just a bit confused as to whether the stones were stacked up in the middle of the riverbed where the priests loitered while they watched everyone else cross way over there, or if the stones were stacked on the river bank to mark where they emerged on the other side, or, more likely, that there were two stacks of a dozen stones, one in the river and one not. A third or fourth reading may clear things up, but that's not happening. If any of my Dear Readers here find yourselves vacationing near the River Jordan close by the town of Shittim and you happen to have your scuba gear with you, take a look and see if you can be the first to spot the stack of stones in the actual river that marks where the priests opened their camping chairs. (See Verse 9.)

    If you don't have your tanks and regulators handy maybe you can still look around in Gilgal for the stack that was put up on dry land. (See Verses 19-22.)

9) [Joshua set up twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests bearing the ark of the covenant had stood; and they are there to this day.]

19) and they camped in Gilgal on the east border of Jericho. 20) Those twelve stones, which they had taken out of the Jordan, Joshua set up in Gilgal, 21) saying to the Israelites, "When your children ask their parents in time to come, 'What do these stones mean?' 22) then you shall let your children know, 'Israel crossed over the Jordan here on dry ground.'

We now come to Chapter Five. Let's bullet point this one.

• God tells Joshua that it's time for the next generation to get the flint knife treatment. So I guess it's been a decade or three since anyone thought to get the boy kiddos circumcised and now we've got a backlog of hundreds of thousands of foreskins to deal with.
• Camp stays in one place while the cosmetic surgery is done and the necessary recuperation time has elapsed.
• They celebrate their first Passover in the Promised Land.
• They have their first meal made from something other than manna.
• I know, this isn't consistent with all the talk about sacrifices and what you can and cannot eat after you kill a goat or ox or bunny rabbit, and there have been all sorts of references to the bounty of the fields in the previous two or three books, but we're told here that this is actually when the manna from heaven supply was cut off and they were able to add some variety to their diet.
• Joshua has a vision in which he meets a fellow with a sword. The fellow identifies himself as the commander of the army of the Lord. The commander tells Joshua to take off his shoes.
• He does.

Next time we'll see how Jericho's walls fell down and why it's important to give the good stuff to the church.

*There is also a short arm cubit, which is about twelve inches, give or take.

***A photo of the Garden of the Gods in Colorado. Just because.

Deuteronomy

 

In One Swell Foop

I'm back. It felt wrong to abandon this project. Well, not wrong exactly, because what's the point of a blog that doesn't get read and/or doesn't get folks talking. but wrong in the sense that, if nothing else, doing this blog serves as both an incentive to complete and a way to record my goal of reading the entire Bible, cover to cover. It's not easy to reconcile myself to the fact that I may never get past an audience of one (plus a lurker or two.) But reconcile I will.

    One difference as I get back to my project is summed up in the title of this installment. I am going to try even harder to condense, and whenever possible to actually sum up each of the remaining 62 books in one installment instead of the bazillions I took to get through the first four books. If that isn't possible, it isn't possible, but I'm gonna give it a good try. That means I'm going to be super selective in what I present here and if I actually do get any readers here and they crave more info, well, they're gonna have to crack open the Good Book themselves.

    And now, without further ado, let's have us some Deuteronomy.

    First off, the name. Quick, without Googling, who knows why it is called Deuteronomy? And no, it has nothing to do with the old feline in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical everyone loves to hate. The word translates to something like "The Laws Repeated." And that's what it is, old material trotted out for a repeat viewing. Kinda makes a person wonder if Moses was being paid by the word. Anyway, along with the laws we get a retelling of "Our Story Up Until Now" and a rehashing of "What Will Happen to You If You Screw Up." If you want the particulars you know where to go, either the earlier installments covering Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers here or the dusty family Bible sitting in the cedar chest at the foot of your ancestral bed.

    Let's get on with what's in Deuteronomy. Today I'm trying bullet points. No guarantee that will be a consistent approach for subsequent books.

• Moses appoints tribal leaders.
• Moses reminds everyone why God made them wander for 40 years.
• Mostly so everyone who pissed him off by not hustling straight into the Land of Milk and Honey in spite of the natives being big and mean looking would be dead by the time the group came back to the border.
• Moses recounts the big military victories they enjoyed over King Sidon and King Og, with an emphasis on the fact that they killed everyone, women and children included.
• The people are reminded (for the umpteenth time) they had darned well better do everything God says.
• In Chapter 5 we get the Ten Commandments again. The wording is just a bit different in places from the version in Exodus but the gist of each of them is the same.
• Chapter 6 brings us The Great Commandment, which is one of those gems that has enjoyed a whole lot more exposure than the "Kill everyone" or "Take 'em out and stone 'em" portions.
  
• 4) Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. 5) You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
• Because if you don't, you're toast*
• *editorial note
• Chapter 7 gives us the reminder that the reason God told the Israelites to kill all of the Hittites and Gergashites, etc, is because they weren't the Chosen People. So that clears that up, in case anyone had any misgivings about that whole slaughtering whole towns thing.
• Those who are doing well financially are warned in Chapter 8 not to skimp on the tithing and commandment keeping.
• Chapters 9-11 give us more about the importance of obeying God's Rules.
• Chapter 12 is about places of worship. Destroy other peoples' churches and act properly in your own.
• No idols or false prophets, please.
• A review of what a sabbatical year is all about is in Chapter 15.
• We also get some verses that likely were used against the Jewish people later to stereotype them as money lenders who deal unfairly with those of a different faith.
• Ah, and a bit I don't recall from earlier about how one should treat a slave who is eligible for freedom but chooses to stay on as the family retainer.
• 17) then you shall take an awl and thrust it through his earlobe into the door, and he shall be your slave forever. You shall do the same with regard to your female slave.
• I think we can agree that is a quaint custom just waiting to be revived.
• Chapter 16 reviews Passover, The Festival of Weeks and The Festival of Booths
• In Chapter 17 we get a variety pack.
• A review of what is and isn't acceptable in a sacrifice. 
• A caution against defying priests or judges. Because if you do you're gonna die.
• An okay to elect a king, as long as the king remembers not to assume any airs.
• 20) neither exalting himself above other members of the community nor turning aside from the commandment
• Another mixed bag in Chapter 18.
• Privileges to be accorded to priests (Levites)
• Don't sacrifice children and don't mess around with soothsayers and such.
• You're gonna get a new, shiny prophet to replace Moses.
• Those cities where folks who have committed homicide can go gets a review in Chapter 19
• As does a warning not to mess with other folks' property lines
• And some instructions about how many witnesses are necessary to convict someone.
• There is some space given in Chapter 20 to make clear exactly when it's okay to kill just the men in a city you've conquered and when you really ought to kill everyone.
• Chapter 21, verses 1-9 should be required reading for every modern murder mystery writer. Who knew it was possible to solve a crime by breaking the neck of an otherwise unoffending heifer?
• Oh, and we also get instructions on how to proceed when a hot young woman happens to be a part of the spoils of war. It's really quite enlightened. For its time. I guess.
• Everyone should keep in mind that if the first born in a family is from one of the wives the daddy isn't that crazy about he's still firstborn and shouldn't be cheated out of his birthright just because Dad thinks one or more of the other Mommys in the household is sweeter.
• Rebellious children should be stoned.
• Don't leave a criminal who has been hanged hanging around past sunset. It's bad form.
• Next we get "Miscellaneous Laws". I have chosen a few.
• 4) You shall not see your neighbor's donkey or ox fallen on the road and ignore it; you shall help to lift it up.
• 11) You shall not wear clothes made of wool and linen together.
• 12) You shall make tassels on the four corners of the cloak with which you cover yourself.
• Please take a moment to check your closet to make sure all of your cloaks are in compliance.
• Lots and lots of "Suppose a" situations relating to sex are covered in verses 13-30. Here's the last one.
• 30) A man shall not marry his father's wife, thereby violating his father's rights.
• Some really good info in Chapter 23. Here are my top three.
• 1) No one whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord.
• 12) You shall have a designated area outside the camp to which you shall go (potty)
• 24) If you go into your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, as many as you wish, but you shall not put any in a container.
• More miscellaneous laws are in Chapter 24. They cover things like divorce, leprosy prevention and leaving some of the harvest behind for those less fortunate.
• This are my favorite verses in Chapter 25
• 4) You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.
• I didn't know that. Did you know that?
• 9) Then his brother's wife shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, pull his sandal off his foot, spit in his face, and declare, "This is what is done to the man who does not build up his brother's house." 10) Throughout Israel his family shall be known as "the house of him whose sandal was pulled off."
• More about harvests and tithing in Chapter 26
• In Chapter 27 Moses announces that all of these laws and fun anecdotes and and "Supposing a" scenarios are going to be etched in stone,
• We also get the ever popular Twelve Curses. Here is one of 'em.
• 23) "Cursed be anyone who lies with his mother-in-law." All the people shall say "Amen!"
• More about the good stuff that happens when you obey and the lousy stuff that happens when you don't is what's in Chapter 28. The disobedience section is way longer.
• Covenant renewed is covered in Chapter 29.
• God gives his promise to keep his part of the deal in Chapter 30.
• 5) The Lord your God will bring you into the land that your ancestors possessed, and you will possess it; he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors.
• There is that whole Prosperity Religion horse hockey popping up again.
• It seems a bit of a shame that Joshua being declared the Next Prophet doesn't get a chapter all to himself, but he shares Chapter 31 with a reminder to read all these laws every seven years, which I guess makes sense since that will be one of his responsibilities.
• Getting ready to wrap things up here.
• In Chapter 32 Moses sings a song all about all sorts of things. Honestly, I had trouble getting through it, but all in all the tone was kinda violent and if there was a tune to be found I couldn't locate it.
• Then God tells Moses where to go to die.
• 50) you shall die there on the mountain that you ascend  (Mount Nebo) and shall be gathered to your kin.
• Moses gives the Twelve Tribes each their individual blessing in Chapter 33. Example" 
• 8) And of Levi he said: Give Levi your Thummin and your Urim to your loyal one.
• I have no idea what a Thummin or a Urim might be.
• Moses dies and gets buried in the last chapter (34).
• 6) He was buried in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor, but no one knows his burial place to this day.
• Not sure what "this day" is, but, well, whatever.
• And lastly, we're reminded that Moses was a One-of-a-Kind-His-Like-Never-To-Be-Seen-Again sort of prophet.
• 10) Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.
• These last two bits I find really interesting since Moses is generally accepted to be the author of the first five books of the Old Testament, of which Deuteronomy is numero five. I think it's fair to say he delegated that last chapter to whoever he designated as his official biographer.

    There you go. Next up, the book of Joshua. I'm curious to find out if he's the one who "fit the battle of Jericho" and if so, whether anyone in the town survives.

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Wrapping Up Numbers

 

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Counting Down Numbers

    I said we were going to finish Numbers before I put this little experiment to bed, and by golly that's what we're going to do. Hold onto your hats, because we're gonna fly.

    The last sixteen chapters of this book have a fair amount of action (meaning killing) in them. Lots of land gets conquered, lots of peoples are tossed unceremoniously out of their homes and then killed or taken hostage, so let's get down to the fun.

    In Chapter 21 the Israelites, who I guess we should just call Israel since that's what they're called in the New Revised Standard Version, beat up on the Canaanites with some help from God. But then they start to complain about their rations again so God sends a bunch of deadly snakes to bite them, which doesn't improve their morale at all. Moses asks God not to do this and God says Moses should make a brass snake, put it on a pole, and the people who died or are in the process of dying from the snakebites can look at the brass snake and feel all better.

    There's a lesson here, but I've no idea what it is.

    There is some singing and then Israel conquers the Amorites and King Og of Sashan.

    Chapter 22 introduces us to Balak son of Zippor. He seems to be part of one of the tribes being hunted by Israel. He calls on some seer or local prophet or whatnot name of Balaam to curse Israel. Balaam consults with God, who tells him not to do it. Balaam tells Balak he'd rather not piss off God but Balak invites him to come visit so maybe they can find common ground, and while Balaam is riding his donkey to see Balak an angel with a sword shows up on the path they are on and even though Balaam doesn't see the angel the donkey does and he takes some nifty evasive measures which irritate Balaam. God explains what's going on and Balaam understands and apologizes to his donkey. I rather liked reading this part because in the writings of P.G. Wodehouse his character Bertie Wooster refers to Balaam's ass pretty regularly and now I have a little bit better idea of what that reference is about. This sort of thing is a major motivation for this Bible Reading project of mine.

    Where were we? That's right. Balaam won't curse Israel.

    Chapter 23  has two oracles of Balaam's, provided courtesy of seven special made altars and fourteen slaughtered animals. He still declines to curse Israel.

    Two more Balaamic Oracles in Chapter 24. Still no curse.

    Unless...I may have missed something in Chapter 24, but apparently in Chapter 25 Balaam has persuaded the women of Moab to have sex with the men of Israel, and God's not having it. Eleazar's son Phineas, anxious to prove himself worthy of his inherited priesthood status, charges into a tent where a couple of newlyweds that happen to be of Israel and Midian extraction are staying, and skewers them. This makes God happy and the plague he had started gets cancelled, but not before 24,000 have passed.

    Chapter 26 brings us another census, which is how we started this whole book of Numbers, so it's nice to see it again. And just like before, the only ones worthy of being counted are men over the age of twenty. Military age, in other words.

    

    In case you're wondering, after an interminable number of verses in which we learn way more about how many are each tribe than we really care about, the total is forthcoming: 601,730. Exactly.

    In Chapter 27 the daughters of the late Zelophahad ask Moses to make a special rule so they can inherit their father's land. They have no brothers, and wouldn't it be a shame if they were to miss out on a share of the land about to be taken away from the nasty Canaanites or Midianites or Calcifites or whoever. Moses says he's okay with it.

    Chapter 28 is, at least from what I could tell and remember, nothing but a rehash of how God likes his offerings.

    And since we all know how much God thinks about his offerings, it should come as no surprise that this rehashing of instructions spills over into Chapter 29.

    After the forward thinking way in which Moses handled the whole Daughters of Zelophahad situation, it was disappointing to find out in Chapter 30 that if a daughter or wife (and in this society what other roles could a female aspire to?) makes a vow and her dad or husband hears and doesn't think it's a good idea, he can nullify that vow. No such rule is mentioned concerning mothers or wives hearing their sons or husbands making ill-considered vows. This strikes me as most likely where the whole "Gotta have your husband's permission to have a credit card" nonsense came from.

    Chapter 31 is all about the enlightened approach Moses takes when it comes to dealing with conquered peoples, in this case it's the people of Midian, which just happens to be where his late wife Zipporah is from and where he himself spent some time when he thought he wasn't welcome in Egypt. Taking all that personal history and flushing it down the loo, when his soldiers come back from conquering Midian, killing all the kings (the place was lousy with royalty) and dispatching all the military aged men, Moses gives his generals a stern talking to for daring to bring mothers and young boys back as part of their booty. The only Midianites he wants to live are the young girls. What a dude.

    Just as the super successful conquering Israel army is getting ready to cross the Jordan, the leaders of Teams Reuben and Gad ask Moses if they can have some of the land that has already been conquered. They promise to help wipe out the inhabitants currently living across the Jordan just to help the other tribes. Moses says okay. This all happens in Chapter 32.

    My eyes were kind of glazing over by now, but it seems to me that Chapter 33 was pretty much nothing but "Our Story Up Until Now" or "In Case You Want To Draw a Line Tracing Israel's Path on Your Map of the Holy Land" guide.

    The boundaries of the Land o' Milk and Honey are spelled out in Chapter 34.

    Chapter 35 tells us there will be some cities set aside for the Levites and six cities designated as places where murderers can be safe. If you want the details you know where to look.

    We wrap up the Book of Numbers with a little bit of Reassertion of Patriarchal Power in Chapter 36. The tribal leaders, having heard about the way in which Moses caved to the requests of the Lovely Zelophahal Daughters, point out that it would be just awful if any women who inherit their father's land married outside of the tribe. After all, then the land would go to their husbands and the original tribe would be down a few acres and That's Just Not Right.

   Taking a firm stand, Moses says the women with land can marry anyone they want to, as long as it is a man from their tribe.

And that, I think, is a fitting way for us to end this blog. Women once again getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop. 

If this has inspired you to dive deeper, or even quite shallowly, into the Good Book, that's great. If I have something I just have to share as I continue to forge ahead with my own reading maybe I'll drop a short entry in here just for the heck of it. All with the understanding on my part that chances are nobody will read it.

Shalom!

*A lovely Black and White view of the Superstition Mountains