King David Numbers the People of God – Jehovah is an asshole

I don’t understand how I used to read these and think they were OK

One day Jehovah was angry with the Israeli people. Of course this happened really frequently but this time was special because Jehovah was feeling particularly dickish and wanted to make sure another of His abhorrent acts was documented. To this end He went to have a chat with King David. Jehovah said, “I command you to obtain a proper count of the people of Israel and Judah.” This seemed really reasonable to King David because he knew that Moses had once obtained a similar count as reported in Numbers Chapter One.

So King David did as he was commanded and told the supreme commander of the Israeli forces (Joab) to obtain a count. Joab thought this was a little crazy and said, “Ok, I’m sure Jehovah will increase the number of your people 100 times and I pray you live to see it, but I don’t get why you insist on counting them.” Of course Joab’s concern was ignored and the people were counted. This count took nine months and twenty days. At the end of this time Joab reported that King Davids army of fighting men numbered 1,300,000.

After David received the final count his heart told him he had sinned by doing as the Lord commanded. Jehovah then told his Prophet Gad to have a chat with David. Gad went straight to the King’s palace and said to David, “Ok, here’s the deal. God is mad at Israel because you did as He commanded. Because you are the King, God says you get to choose the punishment. There will be seven years of famine, you must flee from your enemies for three months, or there will be three days of pestilence.

King David didn’t care for the idea of running from anyone so he said, “Ok then. Let’s go with one of the god-sent things. Either of those will be just fine, just make sure that I don’t end up having to flee from mere mortals.” This was just what Jehovah wanted when he commanded David to number the people, and He immediately sent a disease-carrying angel. After the disease killed 70,000 men in the countryside the angel started toward Jerusalem. Before it got there though Jehovah decided He wasn’t really all that mad anymore and told the angel to stop killing people.

Because Jehovah didn’t want anyone to think he was going soft he gave King David a really complicated set of instructions to stop the plague. First, David had to buy Arunah the Jebusite’s threshing floor. Then, David had to build an altar to the Lord there. Finally, David was to make burnt offerings and peace offerings. Once this was finished, Jehovah officially stopped killing people.

Moral: Don’t forget to NEVER, EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES trust the Christian God. He is a total prick that will command you to do something and then kill a whole bunch of innocent people if you do as you are told and kill you if you disobey.

Ref: 2 Samuel 24