Moses is retelling the story of Exodus and Numbers, but much less wordy than they first time through. No lists repeated three times. This is a better version, especially since we get to see some of the real goofiness.

For example, when retelling the story of the People being scared of the Amorites, we succinctly learn that their fear pissed off the Lord, since they didn’t trust his to protect them. So when they go to fight, He says He will not be with them. Damned if you don’t, and damned if you do.

Another retelling is the story of the attack on Heshbon. The Lord promises it to the Israelites, but they sent “messengers … with words of peace” to travel through their land. The Lord hardened the King’s heart, and he refused passage. So “we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain” (Deuteronomy 2:34 KJV)

That’s what you get when you don’t let the Israelites march through your town: genocide.

Note that the Lord had promised it to them, but they pretended they would peacefully walk through.

Next: Deuteronomy 3-4.

We have reached the end of Numbers, and there are just a few more rules to clear up. First, an accidental murder is not punishable by death, but the murderer is outcast. This is such a likely event that six cities are set aside for accidental murderers. That’s a lot.

Second, since women are now able to inherit (if there are no possible male heirs), they might marry outside the tribe and lose land for the tribe. So Zelophehad’s daughters are required to marry within the tribe. They all marry their first cousins. Yuck.

Next: Deuteronomy 1-2.

Two chapters of nothing. I’ve read this three times, in three different translations, and it never got good. Numbers 33 is a list of where the Israelites have been since Egypt. There is also a bit of a reminder from the Lord that the People need to kill or drive out everyone from the area that they invade. If not…

Moreover it shall come to pass, that I shall do unto you, as I thought to do unto them. (Numbers 33:56 KJV)

That is such a funny corruption of “do unto others” that in any other context, I would assume it was written to mock the Bible.

Numbers 34 is just the Lord restating the borders of the Promised Land, and then listing the leaders of the nine and a half tribes who will divide up the Stolen Land. Really dull.

Next: Numbers 35-36 (the end of the chapter)

The People go to war against the Midianites, because they were such a bad influence. They kill all the men, and bring the women and children back as prisoners. This really pisses off Moses, since they should have killed everyone except the virgin girls. So the Israelites kill all the boys, and “every woman that hath known man.”

And everyone that did all this killing at Moses’ request are unclean, and must stay outside camp for a week.

Of the 64,000 virgins captured, 32 went to Eleazar, 320 went to the general priest pool, and the rest were split evenly between the armies and the people who stayed home. Now we know how to handle war.

In the next chapter, we don’t get into details about splitting the booty, and counting the virgins. But we do get a story of some of the families willing to stop fighting because they are already in a good land. This also angers Moses, since the Lord promised them a different land, He’d be mad if they didn’t help fight for that land. So they promise to fight, if they can just build houses now and let their women and children (and cattle) stay behind. Moses thinks this is fine, but says three times (in one chapter) that if they don’t fight, they’d be in big trouble.

Next: Numbers 33-34.

Chapter 28 is the daily, weekly, and monthly food offerings for the Lord (which, if you recall, are eaten by the priests). Each day, the priests the Lord gets a pair of lambs, focaccia, and wine. On Saturday, it’s four lamb with extra flour and wine. On top of at, there’s a monthly pair of bulls, a goat, and seven lambs. Plus bread and wine.

The rest of the chapter and the next He describes twenty-two days of festivals, on which even more food is offered. Now we know why there are so many Jewish holidays: more food for the priests. It reminds me of an old Woody Allen joke:

I once got a job on Madison Avenue to sit at a desk and look Jewish. They had to let me go because of all the holidays I took.

In Numbers 27, we saw a dim glimmer of feminism. Numbers 30 shut that down quick. It has one verse that says a man’s word must be his bond. The other fourteen verses describe in detail exactly which man can break a woman’s vow at what time. “And I believe you should put a woman on a pedestal… high enough so you can look up her dress.” (Old Steve Martin monologue)

Next: Numbers 31-32

In these chapters, the Lord has Moses take a second census. He needs a second one because He’s killed so may Israelites for various reasons that He’s lost track. This second census is much more interesting to read than the first (Numbers 1-2), because the dry list of numbers is interspersed with reminders of whom the Lord has killed. Some of them, like Dathan and Abiram, get explanations of why and how they were killed. Er and Onan just “died”, like the Lord was an innocent bystander. I was a little disappointed, because I still don’t know what Er did. “And Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord slew him.” (Genesis 38:7)

After the census, the Lord has Moses divide up the land fairly amongst the people. He initially only gives it to the men. However, a man named Zelophehad had died earlier, and left no male heirs. His five daughters pled to receive their own share of land, and are granted it. Because of this the Lord says that a daughter will inherit her father’s property if she has no brothers. Today, this seems quaint, but back then, it was pretty liberal. It’s refreshing to see something that’s not reflexively misogynistic.

Next: Numbers 28-30.

Balaam was hired by Balak to curse the Israelites. Three times, he tells Balak to built seven altars and sacrifice seven bulls, and three times, the Lord has him bless the Israelites instead of curse them. I can understand Balaam blessing them, since the Lord was going to kill him and his donkey in the last chapter, but I don’t understand why he’s being such a jerk about having Balak build the altars and sacrifice, knowing he’s not going to curse anyone.

In Numbers 25, the Israelites have sex with the women of Moab, and worship Baal, their god. Yu can imagine how pissed off the Lord is. He sends a plague through the camp (VD?), and has the leaders killed. The only reason that no more than 24,000 Israelites died of the plague is because Phinhesus, grandson of Aaron, kills an Israelite and his wicked Moab woman.

Tomorrow: Numbers 24-25

The people must have complained enough, because the Lord is finally sending their armies into the towns to wipe them out. I lost count of the number of cities whose entire armies or populations are slaughtered. Of course the Israeli armies are always successful, according to their own writings.

What’s more interesting is how the Lord is acting in all this. After they take Arad, the people get uppity again, so the Lord sends venomous snakes. Moses pleads with Him to spare the people, so He has Moses build a bronze snake for everyone to pray to, and they are healed. Of course, this violates the third commandment, but the Lord never needs to be consistent.

I read the first half of the story of Balaam, how Balak of Moab wants to hire him to curse the IsraeliteS. The first time Balak tries to hire him, the Lord tells him not to go. The second time, the Lord tells him to go, but only speak what He tells him to.

On the road to Moab, the Lord sends an angel to stop him. The angel tells him he is being reckless for going. Balaam apologizes and says he’ll go home. The Lord tells him to go anyway. What’s the point here, that the Lord likes playing with people’s heads?

Later today: Numbers 23-25

Two chapters on rules about the priests — what they should do, and how they should be fed. Every time I read more details about the sacrifices, it seems that the priests keep more and more, and the Lord gets to smell the aroma less and less.

There is some cleanliness instructions about dead bodies. Anyone who touches one, or is near one, is unclean for a week. What does the mortician do?

In chapter 20, a number of things happen. Miriam dies, and gets a half a sentence about her death. She’s Moses and Aaron’s sister, and she gets no obituary.

Later, the Israelites have run out of water, and are understandably complaining to Moses. When Moses brings up the water situation with Him, He gets all bend out of shape and gives them water, but then tells Moses that he’ll never see the promised land. So now we know that absolutely no one over the age of 20 will see it, and that includes Moses.

Later, they ask to go through Edom to get to the promised land, but the King is no dummy, and won’t let the people go through his territory. That’s no shock to me, given how many people Moses claims to have.

Finally, we end with another death: Aaron. Unlike his sister, he gets eight verses and thirty days of mourning.

Tomorrow: Numbers 21-22

The Lord is in full psychopath mode today. The people who He told Moses to set up as a council start questioning Moses’ rule, and He tells Moses to “Separate yourselves from this assembly so I can put an end to them at once.” He will kill them all. Moses manages to convince Him not to.

Instead, the Lord kills the ringleaders, and then kills the 250 representatives of the people. The truly evil parts of killing them was that he didn’t like their incense offerings that Moses told them to perform. But he does have their censers beaten into decorations for the altar as a reminder for everyone else. It appears He forgot to put their heads on stakes outside the tabernacle.

Te next day, everyone complains that the Lord killed all these people for no good reason. So after Moses stops him from slaying them all, He only sends a plague that kills 14,700 people.

I could see the spittle coming out of His mouth during this whole chapter. The Lord is a petty tyrant with omnipotence.

Late tonight: Numbers 18-20.