“Doubtless ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein, …” (Numbers 14;30). He swore, but is not keeping his promise. Why? All of the spies (except Caleb) warn about an invincible host in Canaan, and the people worry that they’ll be killed, and their children enslaved. This really pisses off the Lord, and he’s ready to wipe them out, and start from scratch with Moses. After a lot of flattery and begging by Moses, He agrees to not kill the all, but instead make them wander the desert the rest of their lives, never to see the Promised Land. So much for promises.

This is not to say that the Israelites were without blame. When Moses tried to talk them out of going back to Egypt, they started discussing taking him outside and stoning him.

The next chapter, we get some reminders about rules. More information about types of offerings, and punishments for different disobeyings. And a little interlude where we stone a man for gathering wood on the sabbath. Because there is nothing worse than breaking the sabbath. I am the Lord your God.

Tomorrow: Numbers 16-17.

The funniest line so far is 12:3, where Moses declares himself the most humble man on Earth. The rest of the reading made up for the boredom of the first ten chapters of Numbers, in spite of a dozens verses of lists.

The Lord heard the people complaining, so he torched some of the outer buildings.

Later, they were complaining that all they’ve had to eat has been manna, and they’d like a little meat, please. That really pissed off the Lord, so he’s going to give you meat “until it come out at your nostrils.” Moses asks how He is going to do it, to which he replies: just you watch Me.

As it turns out, the Lord didn’t do this. Instead, he sent a flock of quails one night, and they made everyone so sick that they needed to dig mass graves for the victims of the Lord.

Next chapter, Aaron and Miriam complain about Moses’ schvartze wife, and this pisses off the Lord something fierce, so He gives the two of them a dressing down, and then afflicts Miriam with Leprosy.

Chapter 13 was about the spying expedition to Canaan. They spies found it was great country, but it was also densely populated, and didn’t see how they could drive out the current occupants. We’ll see tomorrow whether their exaggerations about the Canaanites’ size will be a problem.

Tomorrow: Numbers 14-15

Reading today, the Book sounded in my head like Brother Maynard reading Armaments 2:9-21 aloud. “Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three.”

There is a cloud that covers the tabernacle, and when it moves, the people must follow it. When it stops, they must reassemble the tabernacle under it.

I’ve just explained in two sentences what took the Lord half a chapter to explain.

And when the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle, then after that the children of Israel journeyed: and in the place where the cloud abode, there the children of Israel pitched their tents. At the commandment of the Lord the children of Israel journeyed, and at the commandment of the Lord they pitched: as long as the cloud abode upon the tabernacle they rested in their tents. And when the cloud tarried long upon the tabernacle many days, then the children of Israel kept the charge of the Lord, and journeyed not. (Numbers 9:17-19 (I left out the next four identical verses))

“Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three.”

There is more to these three chapters: a reminder of when to celebrate Passover, when to celebrate when you are out-of-town or ceremonially unclean, how and when to blow various trumpets, and fifteen verses naming the different leaders that went out when those trumpets were blown.

There is a bit of a throwaway story in 10:29-32, where Moses’ father-in-law wants to go home, but Moses convinces him to stay. Is this foreshadowing some event, or is it just filler?

Tomorrow: Numbers 11-13.

I have found the least important and least interesting reading yet. Eighty nine verses of the specific offerings of the twelve tribes. It was pretty impressive, but is nothing but bragging about how much they had to sacrifice.

I can’t even make a snarky comment.

Tomorrow: Numbers 8-10.

The Lord has some crazy ideas about jurisprudence. If a man suspects his wife of infidelity, she has to drink water that is mixed with dirt and ink. If she’s innocent, she’ll be fine, and if she’s guilty, she’ll get sick.

Wouldn’t it be nice if an all-knowing god could give accurate information? As I’ve said before, these people are innocently ignorant, not stupid. If this really were the word of god, it should be miraculously prescient. Instead, it sounds like it was written by bronze age goat herders.

Of course, if the accuser is wrong, “the husband will be innocent of any wrongdoing, but the woman will bear the consequences of her sin.‘” I’m not surprised that he has nothing to lose by the accusal.

The title of this post was inspired by my father’s most recent comment.

Tomorrow: Numbers 7.

Two chapters of dreary details about who is in charge of what parts of the tabernacle, and how they will pack things up to move them. Both chapters have been obsolete for millennia, but they’re still in here.

There are still three interesting parts of this. First, The death penalty for anyone who pretends to be a priest.

Next, the Lord decides that He doesn’t need all the firstborn that have been promised him, so their parents must buy them back. So Moses collected the money, “And Moses gave the money of them that were redeemed unto Aaron and to his sons, according to the word of the Lord, as the Lord commanded Moses.” Of course, this is what the priests want you to believe.

What is the craziest part is how the Kohathites get the heavy lifting duty, but if they accidentally catch a glimpse of anything they are carrying, they will die. As usual.

One note about my blogging software and grammar checking: it is constantly telling me that I am using the passive voice, but I blame the Lord! He’s constantly saying things like “they shall be put to death”, “Nadab and Abihu died before the Lord”, “shall be put to death”, or “lest they die”. It’s like it’s someone else’s fault that all this is happening, and not His.

Tomorrow: Number 5-6.

I have found the most repetitious book of the Bible, and it is Numbers 2. In Numbers 1, the twelve tribes of Israel are to take a census of men of fighting age. Each tribe has a person named to do the count, and then they list the count of each tribe. The most populous tribe had 74,600 adult men. If one person could write a name every ten seconds, it would take almost nine days straight to count.

But that’s besides the point. Note that only adult men who can fight are counted. Not women, not children, not slaves. Total count is 603,550. Add in each man’s wife (or wives), and children, and slaves, and you have a few million people wandering the desert. Plus their goats. That’s an enormous city back then. Where did their sewage go? Did the goats eat the manna, too?

I guess the Lord provided.

In Numbers 2, it repeats, almost word for word, the count of people in each tribe, but this time, it tells us where they should assemble. Thirty four verses of nothing. This has to get better.

Tomorrow: Numbers 3-4.

The Lord always seems to have a lot more to say about how He will punish people and not how he will reward them.

Lev 26 has 11 verses about how nice the Lord will be to the people if they obey him. It also has 26 verses about the world of pain they will find if they disobey. He has five increasing levels of punishment, with the worst having the Lord stacking their dead bodies like cord wood while they are forced to become cannibals. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

Favorite verse:

I will turn your cities into ruins and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will take no delight in the pleasing aroma of your offerings. (Lev 26:31)

As usual, it’s all about Him.

Leviticus 27 is a puzzlement. It appears that we have not just animal sacrifice, but human as well. You can redeem people promised for various amounts, depending on age and gender, and redeem animals and lands for various prices. But there are some promises for which there are no backsies, “but shall surely be put to death.” Why didn’t I learn about this in summer camp? Why don’t the rabbis and priests discuss this chapter more thoroughly? It’s like they don’t want people to know this is still a bronze age religion with bronze age morality.

Thus ends the Book of Leviticus. Tomorrow, we start with Numbers 1-2.

My apologies for skipping a day. This is a double entry, but it’s all the same.

For the most part, these four chapters are all descriptions of how and when to bring food to the Lord for offerings. But they will be eaten by the priests. Nothing new here.

Lev 24:10-16 is a pretty gruesome interlude. Two men are fighting, and one curses the Name. He is brought before Moses so that he could get a ruling from the Lord. The ruling is that the man is to be stoned to death. Any Israelite, or goyim living with them, who blasphemes is to be put to death.

That reminds the Lord to spell out some more punishments. He said, “eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.” He never was the forgiving type.

In Lev 25, we begin to understand the entire Israel-Palestinine conflict. Every fifty years is the Jubilee, where you are supposed to return land you bought to its original owners. After 4000 years, who are the original owners?

When it comes to slaves, feel free to keep the foreigners forever, but Israeli slaves must be able to buy their own freedom.

I am the Lord your God.

Tomorrow: Leviticus 26-27

Lev 19 starts with some reasonable proscriptions. Some are moral (don’t steal, don’t swear false oaths), and some are logical (don’t eat three day old leftovers, don’t mix wool and linen). But then we run off the rails in Lev 19:20-22. It has detailed explanations about how to punish a man who sleeps with a slave of another man. Is this a problem at happens often?

Lev 20 is much more fun, because now we learn the punishments for all the proscribed actions. Mostly, they will be put to death, and their blood will be on their own heads. So there!

This makes sense for people who sacrifice their own children. But for the rest of the crimes, it seems a little excessive. Adultery? Death. Incest? Death. Bestiality? Death. Gay sex? Death. Insult your parents? Death.

Two interesting points here: first, the same people today who use the Bible to keep gay marriage illegal have no wish to make marrying your brother’s widow illegal. Second, a man is killed for bestiality, but a woman for attempted bestiality.

And as a final reminder at the end of the chapter, anyone who competes with the priests are to be put to death.

Lev 21 is rules for the priests. Basically, they cannot make themselves unclean. They also cannot have any disfigurement. So much for the ADA.

Tomorrow: Leviticus 22-23