Feet Dusting - It's how modern killing is done!

I heard that you had better be REALLY sure Jesus is OK with you dusting your feet. Otherwise a lot of innocent people could die.

One day Jesus decided he just wasn't able to spread his message effectively without help. He recruited 70 messengers and gave them some very specific instructions on how to spread the influence of his teachings.

Step One:

Go to a city and walk to the center of town.

Step Two:

Wait to see if people feed you and give you a place to sleep.

Step Three A:

If you were given food and a place to sleep, heal the sick and let everyone know the Kingdom of God is about to arrive.

Step Three B:

If you were NOT given food and a place to sleep; let everyone know the Kingdom of God is about to arrive, then brush the dust off your feet to let God know which city he should destroy. Think of this as you would a special forces guy pointing a laser at the city. Then think of God as a laser-guided missile.

Step Four A:

If you were given food and a place to sleep, move on to the next city.

Step Four B:

If you were NOT given food and a place to sleep, enjoy the show as God destroys the city.
 

 

To help programmers better visualize this sequence of events, I've taken the liberty of preparing some c++ code.
 

//This simple program helps determine if a city should receive

//the blessings of God, or should be destroyed.

#include <iostream>

#include <stdlib.h>

using namespace std;

int main()

{
int salvation;
cout << "Enter the city and wait for two hours." << endl;
sleep(7200000);

cout << "Did people in the city feed you and offer you a place to sleep?" << endl;

cout << "Enter 1 for yes and 0 for no: ";
cin >> salvation;
cout << endl;

if(salvation == 1)

{
            cout << "Heal the sick and say to everyone," << endl;
            cout << "\"The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.\"" << endl;
}
else
{
            cout << "Walk into the middle of the main street and say:" << endl;
            cout << "\"Even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth on us," << endl;
            cout << "we do wipe off against you: notwithstanding be ye sure" << endl;
            cout << "of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.\"" << endl;
            cout << endl;
            sleep(30000);
            cout << "Perform \"Feet Dusting\" ritual." << endl;
}

return 0;

}

Moral: God keeps an eye on things and kills everyone that doesn't do the "right" thing without being told.

Ref: Luke 10:8-12

And into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you: and heal the sick that are herein, and say unto them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. But into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you not, go your ways out into the streets of the same, and say, even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you: notwithstanding be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom, than for that city.

Shamgar and the Ox Goad – You go to war with the ox goad you have

“Speak softly, and carry a big stick.” – President Theodore Roosevelt

If you don’t remember, sometime around the 12^th or 13^th century BC, some guy named Ehud assassinated Eglon, king of the Moabites, before leading the Israeli forces to a massive victory over the armies of Moab.

The Children of Israel Engage the Moabite Army

Today I think we should remember Shamgar, son of Anath. He was super-famous in his day, but the only reason we know anything about his today is that he helped with the post-assassination slaughter. However, this help isn’t Shamgar’s claim to fame; no sir. Shamgar was famous because once upon a time, he killed 600 Philistine men with an Ox goad.

  

Shamgar Strikes a Pose

An ox goad? WTF is an ox goad?

An ox goad is a stick used by someone to encourage oxen to move. It’s pretty long, so the goader doesn’t get kicked or anything like that, and is pretty sharp so an ox can really feel it.

Ox Goad

Now imagine someone killing 600 people with a sharpened wood pole.

Shamgar and Five of his Victims

THAT’s why Shamgar was famous.

Ref: Judges 3:31 “And after him was Shamgar the son of Anath, which slew of the Philistines six hundred men with an ox goad: and he also delivered Israel. (King James Version)”

Midianite Genocide – Moses makes sure things are done properly

I wonder if Midianite women had a reputation for sexual prowess

You may not remember this, but when Moses fled Egypt to escape the criminal justice system he took refuge in Midian. While he was there he married a young Midianite woman named Zipporah, daughter of Jethro. Given Moses’ past relationship with Midian, it might surprise you to learn that when the Hebrew migration passed near Midian, Jehovah commanded Moses to wipe out the Midianites.

Apparently the Midianites were pretty weak sauce because Moses only sent 12,000 fighting men; 1,000 from each tribe. After the Hebrew heroes finished the long walk to Midian, they wasted no time in killing all the men. Then they took all the women and children captive, gathered up all the livestock and valuables, and burned every building in the country before returning to report to Moses.
 

When Moses received the war report he was furious. He said to the military leaders, “You didn’t kill the women? Are you crazy or just stupid? Don’t you realize that when Jehovah says he wants genocide, he actually wants genocide? Do you want Jehovah to kill us for not following orders?”

Moses immediately launched his plan of remediation. He had his people kill all the male Midianite children and all the women who failed the virginity check, and commanded that all the young virgins be immediately married to their captors.
 

This was a good start, but it wasn’t quite enough for the Lord. Jehovah spoke to Moses again with some additional steps: “Divide all the loot from Midian into two equal parts, divide one part among those who went to Midian to fight, and the other part among those who stayed behind. Then from the fighting men’s half, take one in every 500 young virgins and animals to the temple, along with one in 50 animals and virgins from the half for those who didn’t fight. Then sacrifice all those virgins and animals as a formal apology for not committing genocide properly and give all the looted money to the priest.

 

A total of 32,000 virgin Midianite girls survived the slaughter of their families. Of these, 352 virgins perished over the next several days as sacrifices to the Lord along with almost 9,000 animals. After the money was all collected, it was made into a memorial for the People of Israel.

 

Moral: Jehovah doesn’t like people messing with his genocide

Ref: Numbers 31

Ezra Cleans House – Kicking impure bitches to the curb

Never yield to the temptation of interracial relationships

In the first year of Cyprus, king of Persia, Jehovah manipulated Cyprus into decreeing that the Hebrews were to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple. This was great news and the prophet Ezra led everyone back to Jerusalem where they were counted, then spent a bunch of time praying and fasting and such.

Once all this stuff was taken care of, the local princes went to Ezra with a disturbing report. They said something like: um, you know how not absolutely everyone was taken away to live in Persia? Well, the people who stayed here kinda, mingled with the locals. Yeah they’ve been taking wives from the non-holy races and mixing their holy sperm with those impure women. They’re making babies with them! It’s totally interracial! They are even worshiping the local gods instead of the great Jehovah.

As you would expect, as soon as Ezra heard the terrible news, he tore his clothes, ripped out his beard, ripped out the hair on his head, and sat down; completely astonished.

Ezra sat on the ground all day, overcome with astonishment. When the time for the evening sacrifice rolled around, Ezra finally stood up. He then launched into a moving speach about how awful the local population was: how sinful and wicked, naughty and  . . . well, bad; just bad – iniquitous even.

After Ezra wrapped up his monologue, a huge group of people gathered around him; men, women, and children. One of the men spoke up and said, “. . . We have trespassed against our God, and have taken strange wives of the people of the land: yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing. Now therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them, according to the counsel of my lord, and of those that tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law (Ezra 10:2-3, KJV).”

This whole idea of kicking everyone of “impure” blood out of the community appealed to Ezra so he send out word that everyone of Hebrew ancestry needed to gather at Jerusalem. Once everyone was together, Ezra explained how all the “impure” women and the half-breed children needed to be cast out of the community so they could live according to Gods will again. Everyone was moved by the spirit of the Lord so when Ezra said, “Now therefore make confession unto the Lord God of your fathers, and do his pleasure: and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the strange wives (Ezra 10:11, KJV).”  The men all answered and said, “As thou hast said, so must we do (Ezra 10:12, KJV).”

Because there were so many non-Hebrew women and mongrel children, it took three and a half months to identify and kick them all to the curb and for every offending man to kill a ram by way of apology.

However, after all those weeks of righteous toil, the impurities were finally removed and the Kingdom of Israel was once again pure in the eyes of God.

Moral: Just because God’s prophet is living in another city, it doesn’t mean you can go chasing tail among the local population.

Ref: Ezra 1:1-2 & Ezra 9-10

Dashing Infants – In the Bible, “dashing” is a verb; not an adjective

Infanticide: the intentional killing of infants. In many past societies, certain forms of infanticide were considered permissible. In most countries, female infanticide is more common than the killing of male offspring, due to sex-selective infanticide.

One of the forgotten themes of the bible is the killing of infants. One of my major goals in life is to share the bible with as many people as possible. I do this in person and across the internet. The bible is such an amazing book, I think the citizens of our planet should know as much about it as possible. Today, I want to share about infanticide.

When Christ returns to the Earth in his glory to usher in the last days, some bad stuff is going to happen. The well-known prophet Isaiah was kind enough to give us a preview. It helps me understand why people are so anxious for His return.

Isaiah 13:15-18 New International Version (NIV)

Whoever is captured will be thrust through;

all who are caught will fall by the sword.

Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes;

their houses will be looted and their wives violated.

See, I will stir up against them the Medes,

who do not care for silver

and have no delight in gold.

Their bows will strike down the young men;

they will have no mercy on infants,

nor will they look with compassion on children.



Ancient Figurines



Once upon a time, the people in Samaria disrespected God by making little silver statues. They probably looked a little like these ones from Madhya Pradesh. Of course God couldn’t tolerate that, so it was imperative that their infants receive dashing and their pregnant women be torn open. This of course raises the question: in God’s eyes, is it a worse punishment for a woman to be “violated,” or “ripped open?”

Hosea 13:16 New International Version (NIV)

The people of Samaria must bear their guilt,

because they have rebelled against their God.

They will fall by the sword;

their little ones will be dashed to the ground,

their pregnant women ripped open.

When the children in Israel were living in Babylon (remember the stories about Daniel in the Lion Den and Ashack, Meshack, and Abednego?) God decided that one day the Babylonians would be punished for making His chosen people move from Palestine to Iraq. In Psalms, we get to learn how great it will be to be the one who gets to punish the Babylonian people.

Psalms 137:8-9 New International Version (NIV)

Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,

happy is the one who repays you

according to what you have done to us.
Happy is the one who seizes your infants

and dashes them against the rocks.

Holy crap! This whole time I was assuming it was BAD to dash infants. I can’t believe I was wrong. It may be time for me to re-evaluate my personal morals. I’m clearly even further out of synch with God than I thought!

Moral: Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.





The Covenant of Abraham – The road to Hell is paved with good intentions

Being best friends with a god is pretty swell, just remember they don’t have the same sense of morality as us poor mortals.

Once upon a time Jehovah had a best friend named Abram. They really were the very bestest of friends. Jehovah liked Abram so much He wrote a song called “You’re My Best Friend.” Several thousand years later Queen stole this song and changed the word “bro” in the third stanza to “girl” to make it sound less gay. Here is a sample of the lyrics:

You're the best friend
that I ever had
I've been with you such a long time
You're my sunshine
And I want you to know
That my feelings are true
I really love you
You're my best friend

One day Jehovah was walking through Canaan with his buddy Abram and decided to give Abram a gift. He said, “You see all the land from Egypt to the Euphrates River? In the far future this land will bear many names, like Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, and a few others I can’t think of right now. For now we’ll call it ‘the whole land of Canaan.’ I will make your descendents into a great people who will live in all this land forever. It’s a gift.”

Jehovah continued: “Oh, I’m gonna have to change your name to Abraham because I’m making you into a father of nations and to make sure I always remember to help out your descendants they’re going to have to practice male genital mutilation. Don’t worry about it too much. It’s just a little snip and you can do it right after the boys are born so they aren’t traumatized forever by having some dude play with their junk and a sharp rock.”

This was all great for a while, but a few short millennia later Jehovah got really mad at the “seed” of Abraham. He decided they weren’t worshiping Him enough, so He made Nebuchadrezzar, the king of Babylon, completely destroy the Hebrew nation. Those not killed by the Babylonians were taken away from “the whole land of Canaan” and taken to Babylon, effectively reneging on the whole “Covenant of Abraham” thing; too bad, so sad.

Moral: even the great Jehovah will abandon a promise if sufficiently provoked. Don’t dick around with Jesus.

Ref: Genesis 12-17 & Jeremiah 25:8-11

Killing Ahab’s Kids – Ahab and Jezebal kill one, Jehovah kills seventy

Jehovah will never be outdone

Some of you may remember that King Ahab and his wife Jezebel used deceit to have some guy named Naboth killed so they could take Naboth’s vineyard and use it for an herb garden (link). At the time Jehovah decided He wasn’t going to kill Ahab and Jezebal right away, but would wait and kill all their sons. This was a pretty significant feat because Ahab had seventy sons.

After Ahab died in battle, Jehovah made Jehu the new king. Jehu personally killed a couple of Ahab’s allies and had some eunuchs toss Jezebel out a window so she died too (link). Then Jehu wrote a bunch of letters to the people who were raising Ahab’s sons and told them to send him the kids’ heads. These gentlemen were really upset. They didn’t necessarily want to kill Ahab’s kids and there was a pretty strong movement to depose Jehu and put one of Ahab’s sons on the throne.

Fortunately, everyone else in those communities wanted to support Jehu so they sent him letters asking for info on how best to serve. To these individuals Jehu then sent the command for head removal. The heads were all removed, placed in baskets and delivered to Jehu. Then Jehu had everyone connected with Ahab’s extended family, including servants and priests, killed.

Ahab was pretty clever and knew Jehovah didn’t like Baal, so he came up with a plan to kill all the followers of Baal. He made a proclamation saying that he was going to be a HUGE supporter of Baal and called a grand assembly for the Baalites. Once everyone was in place, Jehu had them all killed. Unfortunately Jehu didn’t completely manage to return everyone to the worship of Jehovah because he just couldn’t bring himself to stop worshiping the golden calves in Bethel and Dan.

Moral: when Jehovah wants to wipe out someone’s bloodline, He just needs to enlist the aid of a golden calf worshiper.

Ref: 2 Kings 10

Crossing the Red Sea - Moses Part VIII

We still have one more “hard heart” miracle to go . . .

Once the Hebrews were safely out of Egypt, they started to head toward Palestine so they could kill everyone there and take their land. Yahweh was worried that if the people went straight from slavery to war, they would head back to Egypt and ask to be enslaved again. To avoid this, Yahweh had Moses and Aaron take the people the long way through the Red Sea wilderness. To make doubly sure, Yahweh Himself led the people. He appeared as a pillar of cloud during the day and a pillar of fire by night.

Because Yahweh got bored easily He led His people into a trap. Once they were safely camped near the shore of the Red Sea in a place where the wilderness hedged them in, Yahweh hardened Pharaoh’s heart one last time. Magically modified Pharaoh didn’t waste any time in gathering a huge force of chariots to kill a bunch of Hebrews and re-enslave the rest.

Once the Hebrews saw the approaching force they got all upset and demanded to know why they were led out of Egypt if they were just going to die in the wilderness. It’s ok though. You see, Yahweh had a plan. The real reason he hardened Pharaoh’s heart this last time was so He could kill a whole bunch more Egyptians. Yahweh had Moses divide the Red Sea so His people could cross on dry ground. Then the magic pillar of cloud moved behind the Hebrews and temporarily blinded the Egyptian forces by blocking all the light.



crossing on dry land

 After about a day of walking, the Hebrews were almost across the Sea and Yahweh released Pharaoh’s army from darkness. The chariots raced through the magic passage, but once they were too far in to escape, Yahweh made their chariot wheels pop off. Then, when all the Hebrews were safely across the sea, Yahweh told Moses to close the passage and every single Egyptian soldier drowned.

Moral: avoid joining the Military at all costs if your country’s population is more than 50% Hebrew slaves. Otherwise, there is a good change Yahweh will kill you.

Ref: Exodus 13:17 – 14:31

Yahweh: Baby Killer - Moses Part VII

If you kill enough babies, you can accomplish anything.

Once Yahweh finished showing off his cool plagues he finally got down to business. He had Moses have Aaron tell all the Israelites to steal (borrow without intent to return) a whole bunch of jewels, gold, and silver from their Egyptian neighbors. Once the Hebrews got their hands on all the riches they could gather/steal, they had to kill a whole bunch of baby sheep and paint the door frames of all the Hebrews. Then they had a big party and ate a whole bunch of lamb and unleavened bread.

That night Yahweh wandered around killing the firstborn of every household that didn’t have a bloody door frame. Of course I’m not sure if Yahweh couldn’t tell the difference between Hebrews and Egyptians, or He just really wanted blood all over the place, you know, for decoration and stuff. In any case, because Yahweh is a god, He was able to visit several hundred thousand households and kill all sorts of kids. He also got all the firstborn cattle.

Once the Egyptians noticed all the death, including Pharaoh’s heir, Pharaoh had Moses and Aaron pulled out of their beds and taken to his palace. He told them to take the Hebrew slaves and leave the country before all the Egyptians ended up dead. Of course this was what the Hebrews had been waiting for, so they took all the riches they looted from the Egyptians and booked it out of there. As far as I know, they are the only foreign group to ever live in Egypt for 430 years and eventually outnumber the ‘native’ population without leaving a single shred of evidence for future scholars to discover. Once you start to work with Yahweh, everything becomes miraculous.

Moral: when it comes to baby killing, sometimes you just have to take matters into your own hands: if you’re a god.

Ref: Exodus 11 - 12

Note: I would really like someone to explain to me how the Egyptians and Hebrews lived side by side for 430 years without losing any of their racial identity if they started to mingle soon after the first Hebrew arrived (Genesis 41:45). The original Hebrew population in Egypt was only seventy individuals, many of whom were already 50% Egyptian by their mothers. You think that in 430 years seventy people grew to 600,000 adult men (Exodus 12:37) and probably 900,000 women and children without any additional Egyptian contributions?

The current rate of population growth requires modern medicine and super progressive agricultural techniques. It is higher than the population growth 4,000 years ago. If we assume the 70 original super baby-hungry Hebrews managed today’s rate of global population growth, they would have numbered 7,730 individuals after 430 years if they had not mixed with the Egyptians. For them to arrive at a final exodus population of 1,400,000 ‘Hebrews’ they must have been genetically 99.5% Egyptian.

Of course the Hebrews could have done it easily if they managed to equal the highest population growth rate ever observed anywhere on the planet at a time when the annual world population growth was close to zero. I have a hard time believing they could achieve near 0% infant mortality, close to zero losses due to childhood illnesses and produce enough much food to sustain growth if they spent most of their day making bricks and didn’t have modern irrigation, farm equipment, or health care.

Good thing that with God, all things are possible.

Mass Filicide – Fire from Heaven

Filicide: the deliberate act of a parent killing his or her own son or daughter

If you’ve been faithfully reading my bible stories, you should be familiar with the idea of Jehovah calling down fire from heaven to destroy his children. You may even be tempted to think this is a repeat story. It’s not though. I promise. God just really likes to kill people with fire from heaven.

It just so happens that right before Jehovah sent all the quail and then the plague, the children of Israel were complaining. That’s right the no good beggars were complaining. I like to imagine Oliver Twist (here are links for the book and movie) at the workhouse where he was forced to work all day for very little food. One day the desperately hungry boys drew lots to see who they would make ask for more food. The lot fell to Oliver who trembling, bowl in hand, approached a well-fed administrator and said, “Please, sir, I want some more.” Of course this caused a huge uproar and the workhouse administrators couldn’t get rid of Oliver fast enough. Good thing Jehovah wasn’t on the workhouse board of directors or I’m sure the entire young workforce would have been burnt to a crisp.

Back to the story: The Hebrews complained and Jehovah sent down fire from heaven, just like every single other time. The fire killed a ton of people, but not everyone. After Moses prayed to Jehovah, the fires died out. Then the really stupid survivors complained about the type of food they were getting, so Jehovah sent those quail and the plague.

Moral: Read Dickens’ books and assume that God is much meaner than any of Dickens’ characters and far more homicidal. Use that as your guide to action, and you are far less likely to be the victim of godly filicide. Also: never complain.

Ref: Numbers 11: 1-3

Jonathan Eats Honey – OMFG!

Yay! Killing people is so cool!

Back in the days of King Saul (and many centuries afterward) the Israelites were almost constantly at war with the Philistines. One day when they were facing off in preparation for a fight, Saul’s son Jonathan and his armor bearer snuck over to the philistine camp. When they arrived at the enemy garrison the Philistines saw them and said, “Come over here. There’s something we want to show you.”

Jonathan took this as a sign that Jehovah was on his side and he and his armor bearer attacked the Philistine army. If you have trouble visualizing this, just remember the huge fight scene near the end of Mr. and Mrs. Smith; the movie that brought Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie together and left Jennifer Aniston a wealthy divorcee. In that scene Brad and Angelina kill a few hundred assassins by standing together in the middle of a warehouse and shooting at the assassin army (clearly the least effective assassins on the planet). If that doesn’t work for you, imagine Aragorn and Legolas from the Lord of the Rings killing a huge horde of orcs without getting hurt.

Anyway, after Jon and his slave killed a whole bunch of Philistines, the entire army began to shake uncontrollably and started to run away. The Israeli army noticed the confusion and disarray among the Philistines and attacked. Even the Israelites that were fighting for the Philistines switched sides and it did not go well for the enemies of King Saul that day; thanks to Jonathan.

Here’s the thing though, by killing people all day you can really work up an appetite. King Saul was lame though and earlier had told everyone they couldn’t eat anything that day on pain of death, because he thought it would help him kill more Philistines. Well, Jon didn’t know this and when he was walking back to the Israeli camp he saw a bunch of honeycomb on the ground and ate some.

Of course the jerk-face egomaniac Saul found out his son Jonathan ate some honey and sentenced him to death. Saul’s subjects were really upset by this and started to yell at the king. They said mean hurtful things like, “Jonathan saved us all today and made the Philistines lose the fight. Jehovah will be very angry if you kill him. After all, Jehovah is the one who helped Jonathan kill all those Philistines.”

Because Saul was a spoiled bully, he didn’t know what to do when he didn’t immediately get his way. He ended up dropping the whole thing and walked away.

Moral: If you just go around making up reasons to kill your friends and family all the time, you’ll regret it eventually.

Ref: 1 Samuel 14

Independence Day: Jehovah is Tougher than Will Smith

The cover art for Independence Day shows an alien spaceship blowing up the White House

In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign over Israel the Assyrians invaded. They easily captured all the fortified cities in Judah before showing up outside Jerusalem.

The only way I can think of to properly explain this situation in modern terms is to refer to the 1996 film Independence Day. Yes, the Assyrians were that badass. When they steam-rolled over Judah it was just like all those massive spaceships (15 miles wide) simultaneously destroying Earth’s major population centers. Please imagine the terror of Earth’s population in light of the alien threat when you consider how the people of Jerusalem felt when the Assyrians arrived on their doorstep.

Fortunately, the King of Assyria was far more polite than the aliens in Independence Day and actually spoke to the people of Jerusalem after he arrived. He said, “Hey everyone. Listen up and pay attention! Let’s not be stupid here. You know you are way outclassed. Don’t let King Hezekiah convince you that you have a chance. Don’t let him try to convince you that your god will save you. We have destroyed the peoples of Hamath, Arphad, and Sepharvaim. Their gods did not help them and yours will not be able to save you. Surrender and we will simply relocate you to a place just like the one where you live now; a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards.”

Unfortunately the Israelis didn’t have Will Smith, Bill Pullman, any fighter jets, or a second-rate rip-off of the “Saint Crispen’s Day” speech from Henry V by William Shakespear. They just had King Hezekiah. Instead of launching a stunning counter attack involving the use of an old alien spacecraft, a computer virus, and a nuclear weapon after learning of the invasion; Hezekiah tore his clothes and went to church.

Here is where we learn Jehovah is better at handling things than Bill Pullman or Will Smith. You see, the Israelis had something those folks in the film didn’t. They had Isaiah. Isaiah was a great prophet of Jehovah and Jehovah heard the Assyrian speech about the Hebrew god being unable to help. This made Jehovah angry. You wouldn’t like Jehovah when he’s angry. Jehovah told his pet prophet Isaiah not to worry about the Assyrians. Isaiah told Hezekiah about Jehovah’s anger and Hezekiah decided to pray. He said to Jehovah, “These Assyrians are not nice. They keep destroying cities and their gods, but those gods aren’t real. They’re just made of wood or stone. You are a real god, so you can save us.”

Angry Jehovah then sent an angel to visit the Assyrian camp. This angel killed 185,000 Assyrians. Just like that: 185,000 dead Assyrians. You thought it was bad when the Assyrians were demolishing Judah, but I guarantee it took months for them to kill that many Hebrews. Jehovah did it like FedEx: overnight.

When the King of Assyria woke up in the morning and saw all his fighting men were dead he decided to abandon his campaign. He went back to Nineveh. You would think the story was over then but it’s not. Angry Jehovah wasn’t done. He made sure that Mr. King of Assyria’s sons killed him and then fled the country.

Yep. Don’t mess with Angry Jehovah.

Ref: Isaiah 36-37

Elijah, Cop Killer – If he wears a leather skirt, he must be up to no good

This story makes me think of “Killing in the Name” by Rage Against the Machine

And it came to pass that there was this one time when Elijah was on the run from the law and set up camp on top of a hill. It might surprise you that such a well-known prophet was at odds with the legal system, so I’ll explain it to you.

I don’t know if you remember Ahab or not. He was the king of Israel who was shot by an arrow and his dogs licked all the blood off his chariot afterward. Well, that doesn’t really matter because we’re here to talk about his son Ahaziah today. Ahaziah was a naughty little boy who liked Baal instead of Jehovah. Therefore it wasn’t surprising to anyone that after he injured himself by falling out of his upper bedroom through the window lattice he sent a messenger to ask the “Lord of the Flies” if he would recover.

Ok, this “Lord of the Flies” thing may have confused you so I’ll explain. The various English translations of the bible call this god: Baal-zebub, Baalzebub, or Beelzebub. No matter how it’s written in English though, it means “Lord of the Flies.” This “Lord of the Flies” character was a God in Ekron. Therefore, not only was Ahaziah choosing to seek advice from some dumb fly god, he went looking for a foreign one, as if Israel had no gods of its own.

Hopefully you’ve been reading my stories for long enough now to know that Jehovah doesn’t like playing second fiddle to anyone, even if that someone has power over flies (which is a serious thing in the Middle East). Well Jehovah went to his buddy Elijah and said, “I need you to intercept Ahaziah’s messengers and tell them it was stupid to go to get advice from a foreign fly god when there is a perfectly good god here in Israel, and that particular Israeli God is named JEHOVAH! Well, Jehovah says Ahaziah is never going to get out of bed. He’s gonna die, so there! Neener neener!”

Elijah obediently delivered his message and then went up to the top of his favourite hill to hang out. After hearing Elijah’s prophecy concerning the King’s death, the messengers turned around and headed back to Ahaziah’s place to deliver the news. Ahaziah was surprised to see them so soon and asked what was going on. The messengers told the King about their little encounter with Elijah, but they hadn’t thought to ask his name so they told the king he was really hairy and was only wearing a leather skirt.

The king immediately recognized this as Elijah the Tishbite. He wanted to have a little chat with Elijah so he asked local law enforcement to bring him in for some questioning. The police captain was a little nervous about bringing in some guy wearing a leather skirt so he took along 50 of his men. When they got to Elijah’s hill the captain said, “Hello man of God. Please come down. The king would like to speak with you.”

Of course I have no clue why Elijah acted like this, but in response to the police captain’s request he said, “Oh yeah? Well if I’m a man of God like you say, then fire is going to come out of heaven now and burn up you and your men.” Then fire did come down from heaven and 51 families were suddenly without what was probably their sole source of income. No matter how you look at it, that’s a whole lot of women who were suddenly forced to turn to prostitution to feed their kids. Way to go Elijah, you stupid jackass!

The King still wanted to talk to Elijah, so he sent another captain and once again, Elijah provided 51 men with a fiery death. The THIRD captain decided to try a different tactic. Instead of asking Elijah to come down off the hill he begged for his life and the lives of his men. Because Jehovah LOVES to see men grovel, he sent an angel to tell Elijah not to kill this group of men, but go with them to meet the king instead. So, Elijah went to see the king and said to him, “Because you sent messengers to ask Baal-zebbub the God of Ekron if you were going to die from injuries you sustained by falling out your window, Jehovah has decided that you are going to die now. The end.”

So Ahaziah died, but only after Jehovah and Elijah were very careful to punish all those police officers and their families.

Ref: 2 Kings Chapter 1

Samson Dies – In which we see that at least one of the Nazarite rules mattered

This too shall pass

After killing so many Philistines, Samson became an absurdly high profile criminal. Everyone knew who he was, and that the Philistine government was desperate to see him dead. Therefore, when he stopped in Gaza to spend the night with a hooker, plenty of people were happy to turn him over to the authorities. The Gazites gathered by the city gate that evening and decided to wait until dawn so they could capture him. Samson was happy to use this situation as another way to demonstrate his awesomeness. At midnight he walked over to the city gate, ripped it and its supporting posts and bar out of the city wall, and carried the whole mess to the top of a nearby hill. You know, because he could.

Some time after the city gate incident Samson came to enjoy the company of a woman named Delilah. Once this became public knowledge, the philistine leadership made a visit to Delilah and promised her 1,100 pieces of silver to discover how to overcome Samson’s strength so they could prevail against him. 1,100 pieces of silver is almost 37 times the 30 pieces of silver Judas got for betraying Christ. It seems the biblical narrative is trying to establish that Samson is worth WAY more than Jesus.

Delilah was not a very subtle person so that very day she just went straight to the point saying, “Samson, please tell me where your strength comes from and how someone could overcome it.” Samson was quick to answer, “If you tie me up with seven lengths of freshly harvested ligaments from animals, I will be as weak as any other man.” That night Delilah bound Samson with the ligaments and a group of philistine men gathered in the room. Once everything was in place Delilah shouted, “The Philistines are here to get you Samson, wake up!” So Samson woke up and broke his gross bonds made from dead animal parts. The bible doesn’t say what Samson did with the philistine invaders, but based on what we knew of Samson, I’m pretty confident that he very politely asked them to leave so he could enjoy his coffee and orange juice in peace. Yes; that must be what happened.

Delilah was upset Samson had lied to her (so she didn’t get the large fortune in silver) and she complained, “Behold, thou hast mocked me, and told me lies: now tell me, I pray thee, wherewith thou mightiest be bound.” Samson told her another lie and they kept the pattern of Samson Lies -> Delilah betrays going every day for a while before Samson wised up and stopped giving fake answers. However, Delilah didn’t give up. She just kept harassing Samson for weeks until finally Samson couldn’t take it anymore and told her the truth: If his hair were cut, then he would be weak like a normal person. Of course, that night Delilah cut his hair and the philistine authorities hauled him off to prison and poked out his eyes, leaving Delilah with payment in full.

Of course this should bother any reader because Samson broke with Nazarite rules all the time and it never mattered before. It was only after someone else violated the Nazarite rules for him, that his Jehovah-powered super strength was suddenly gone. Yeah right.

The philistines decided to throw a national celebration after Samson was captured and offer sacrifices to their god Dagon. A celebration of this scale took a long time to organize and while Samson was bound in prison his hair started to grow back. In fact, he was pretty hairy by the time the philistines hauled him into a huge arena and chained him to the two massive roof supports. The philistines were all super excited to see this infamous mass murderer in chains and they started making fun of him. Samson didn’t like this and prayed to Jehovah saying, “Please remember me great Lord and make me strong again, just long enough that I can take revenge on these philistines for poking out my eyes.”

Jehovah listened to Samson’s plea and Samson was able to pull down the roof support pillars, collapsing the arena on himself and the 3,000 philistine men and women in attendance.

Moral: never mock a convicted felon, or God just might help him pull down the ceiling and kill you.

Ref: Judges 16

He will be missed.

Samson Offends PETA – Even biblical heroes commit great acts of animal cruelty

1,000 men dead and you’re worried about some dumb foxes, seriously?

It took Samson a few weeks to calm down after she who must not be named betrayed his trust. When he decided it was time to patch things up he took a baby goat (as there weren’t any flower shops in the neighbourhood), went to his in-laws place and asked to see his wife. Her father wouldn’t let Samson in. The father explained, “Well, here’s the thing Samson. After you stormed off I thought that you completely and irrevocable hated she who must not be named so I married her off to your unnamed friend (who we will call Tom Riddle). But hey, check out her little sister. She’s way hotter than she who must not be named. You can marry her now instead.

The proposed arrangement wasn’t satisfactory to Samson and he decided to punish the philistine people for this slight. Samson caught 300 foxes, set their tails on fire and released them into the philistine corn fields. As you might imagine the foxes ran all over the place like, well, foxes with their tails on fire. The cornfields, and olive orchards, and vineyards were burned to the ground.

Naturally there was an official Philistine inquiry into the matter and it was discovered that Samson was the culprit and he started the fire as an act of vengeance because his father-in-law gave his wife to another man.

The philistines weren’t soft on crime, so they burned she who must not be named and her father to death. Samson said to them, “If that’s the way you are going to be, I will get vengeance and then do no more.” Then he killed an unspecified number of philistines with his bare hands and went to the top of a huge rock to hang out.

In the interest of public safety, the philistines sent an army to kill Samson. When the army got to Lehi, the Israelites asked them what they were doing there. The philistines told them about Samson and said they were there to even the score. Because the Israelites didn’t want any trouble with the Philistines, they sent 3,000 men to go get Samson and hand him over to the Philistines. When they got to Samson’s rock they told him they were going to tie him up and carry him to the Philistine army. Samson said that was fine as long as the Israelis promised they weren’t going to try to kill him themselves. The Israelis promised and Samson was taken to the Philistines tied up with cords.

After Samson was delivered to the philistine army, the “spirit of the Lord” came upon him. He broke the bonds and grabbed “a new jawbone of an ass” (once again breaking the Nazarite rules by touching something dead) and used it to kill 1,000 philistine men. All this effort made Samson really thirsty and he started to whine. He said, “You know Jehovah, I’m like glad you helped me kill all these people so I wouldn’t go to jail or be executed or anything, but now I’m so thirsty I think I might just die or be captured anyway.”

Because Samson reminded Jehovah a lot of Himself, He decided to be nice to Samson. Jehovah made water come out from the ground (or jawbone depending on the translation) and Samson was able to drink and be refreshed.

Moral: If you kill enough people, Jehovah will be nice to you.

Ref: Judges 15