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

David vs. Saul – Michal tricks her father

Everything considered, I’d much rather have Michal on my team than Saul

After David won the hand of King Saul’s daughter Michal by giving Saul all those Philistine foreskins, Saul decided (once again) that David needed to die. To this end Saul gathered up his servants and his son Jonathan. He told them they needed to kill David.

Now Jonathan was a huge fan of David. Indeed I’ve heard it suggested that they were secret lovers. Anyway, Jonathan went to visit David and told him that Saul was trying to have him killed (again). He told David to hide in a secret place, then he would take his father Saul to a field by that secret place where they could talk about David, then he would tell David what was decided.

Jonathan told his father not to kill David because David was a good guy and had even killed Goliath. He said that it would be a sin to spill the blood of an innocent man. Well, this convinced Saul to not have David killed and Saul swore in the name of the Lord that David would not be slain. Jonathan let David know about Saul’s change of heart and once again David was allowed to hang out around Saul.

This much safer arrangement lasted until after the next war with the philistines. David distinguished himself in the field and Saul remembered that David was a famous war hero. Because Saul didn’t want anyone other than himself to be famous, the next time he saw David he tried to kill him with a javelin. David was smart enough to flee after the javelin throwing incident and hid in his house.

Saul sent messengers to David’s house to keep watch over it and kill David in the morning. David’s wife Michal was smart enough to know what was going on so she helped David escape out the window during the night. Then she made a fake David out of a small statue and a goat hair pillow. The next day when the servants knocked on the door Michal told them David was sick and couldn’t get out of bed. After they reported this to Saul they were sent back to carry the bed to Saul so he could kill David himself.

It didn’t take long for Saul to figure out it wasn’t really David in the bed (think the ring wraith scene in the prancing pony where they stab the pillows). He immediately demanded to know why his daughter Michal had deceived him. Michal answered him by saying, “I had to do it. David told me he would kill me if I didn’t help him.” Of course this was a blatant lie but I guess Michal didn’t want her dad to kill her for helping her husband escape death.

What awesome family dynamics, eh?

Ref: 1 Samuel 19

Samuel and the Witch of Endor – Who needs a living prophet if you have a witch who can talk to dead ones?

I think the papal conclave should use a witch to decide who gets to be the next pope. It seems to deliver pretty good results.

After the prophet Samuel died King Saul was unable to get any instruction from Jehovah. He tried other prophets, dreaming, praying, and the Urim and Thummim but nothing worked. He had a big battle with the Philistines coming up and he really wanted some sort of magical guidance so he asked one of his servants to find a witch he could ask. The servant said, “I’m not sure there are any, I mean you had all the witches and wizards kicked out of your kingdom some time ago. I’ll do some asking around and get back to you though.”

After a little research the servant returned and said, “Ok, it turns out there is a witch of Endor that may be able to help.” This didn’t sound right to King Saul who asked, “Endor, really? You mean the inhabitable forest moon of Endor where the Ewoks live? Where Han and Leah finally accept their love for each other? And just how do you propose we get there?”

The servant answered, “No sir. You misunderstand. Endor is ALSO the name of a village in Canaan. The Witch of Endor lives in that village, not in a galaxy far, far away.” After about a minute Saul’s brain was able to sort through these conflicting ideas and he said, “Oh, OK. I guess I’ve watched Return of the Jedi too many times. I mean, that was my favorite Star Wars movie. The forest scenes were great. The final space battle where the second death star was destroyed was cinematically spectacular and I really liked how the theme of Anakin Skywalker’s redemption emerged toward the end. I mean, I’ve always been a huge fan of death-bed repentance.


Scene from Return of the Jedi

So King Saul put on a disguise and went to visit the Witch of Endor. When he asked her to call up the Samuel’s spirit so they could chat the witch was skeptical at first. She said, “Now you know the King kicked out all the witches and wizards, right? What are you trying to do, get me killed?” So Saul swore that as long as Jehovah was alive, the witch would not be punished for working magic.

The witch was convinced so she called up Samuel, but as soon as he appeared the witch kinda freaked out a little bit and said, “Oh hell no! YOU are Saul? You’re the king that’s been trying so hard to put me in an unemployment line? Why have you deceived me, and where do you get off; coming to ask ME for help after the evil you’ve done to witches and wizards everywhere?”


Saul and the Witch of Endor by Salvator Rosa 1668
© RMN, Musée du Louvre / Daniel Arnaudet

 Saul still wanted answers so he said, “Be not afraid. Just tell me what you see.” The woman said unto Saul, “An old man cometh up; and he is covered with a mantle.” This description was plenty good enough for Saul who then bowed down before the apparition.

The magic vision of Samuel then spoke to Saul; saying, “Why have you disturbed my slumber, hmmmm?” Saul explained that he couldn’t get any feedback from Jehovah about the upcoming battle. Then Samuel said, “That’s because God doesn’t like you anymore. He wants David to be King now so he is going to make your armies lose tomorrow and you will die. Then all your sons will die too just so there’s no trouble with the succession later.”

Saul was really upset so he had to lie down for a while. Then the witch fed him and sent him on his way.

Moral: if Jehovah doesn’t like you, getting help from a witch isn’t going to do you much good.

Ref: 1 Samuel 28

The Philistines take the Arc – The Lord works in mysterious ways

This is the way it went down? Really?

It just so happened that after Moses but before King David the Hebrews lived near the Philistines. Well, the Hebrews figured they should just go ahead and kill all the Philistines and take their stuff. After all, it had worked very well for them in the past. So they all line up and have this big battle where the Philistines kick the piss out of the Hebrews, killing several thousand of them.

The Hebrews weren’t used to losing so this kinda threw them for a loop, but as luck would have it, some of the Hebrew leaders had seen Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Arc. They remembered how those German guys said the Arc would make any army who possessed it invincible. In another stroke of luck, they actually had the arc. So they sent some people to fetch the thing. When it arrived the Hebrew army got super excited because they were sure they could win by using the Arc. The Philistines had seen the film too, so they were genuinely concerned. These Philistines weren’t the kind to run away from a fight though, so they engaged the Hebrews again.

Well, it turns out the Arc wasn’t really all that, so the Philistines were still able to massacre the invading Hebrews; taking out another 30 thousand. They also captured the Arc and took it to the temple of their god, Dagon. Even though the Jehovah couldn’t be bothered to help his chosen people win the fight against the Philistines, he didn’t like them having the Arc, so with all his Godly might, he made the statue of Dagon fall over sometime during the night. That’s right, God made a statue fall down while nobody was looking.

The Philistines thought it was weird their statue had fallen over, so they put it back up. God wasn’t about to let them get away with that, so he made the statue fall over AGAIN the next night. This time though, the statue’s hands and head broke off. Good thing the Philistine priests were incredibly superstitious because they figured if their statue had fallen twice it must be bad news. They blamed the falls on the Arc and sent it away to a different Philistine city. When the arc got there everybody got sick. After this the Philistines figured the Arc wasn’t worth the trouble if it made statues fall down and made people sick, so they sent it to the Hebrew city of Beth-shemite.

The Hebrews in Beth-shemite hadn’t seen Raiders of the Lost Arc because they couldn’t afford a surround sound upgrade for their theater and Lucas Arts was only allowing screenings in THX theaters. Therefore they didn’t know how the movie ended. In any case, they were super excited to see the Arc and opened it to have a look inside.

For those of you who have not seem Raiders of the Lost Arc, let me explain what happens when you open the thing. First you see that there’s nothing in there but dust, then strange lights appear and a big wind comes out of nowhere. Then demonic looking creatures start flying through the air killing everyone that isn’t smart enough to close their eyes and at least one person has their face melted off. If you believe the biblical account, 50,070 men died that way.

I think this is sad because it shows that God only punishes the Philistines for messing with the Arc by making some dumb statue fall down, but he’s perfectly happy to melt the faces off his Hebrew buddies.

Ref: 1 Samuel 4-6

David and the Foreskins – A tale of inappropriate touching

Just like history class, but shorter

King David’s life is pretty thoroughly chronicled in the bible, from before he killed Goliath by throwing a rock at him, to his death. This tale takes place after the rock-throwing incident but before David becomes King.

At this time David is a war leader of the Israelites and works for King Saul. His main job is to kill Philistines. Because David is super sexy and extra good at killing people the Israeli people really like him. They like him more than the king which is a problem because King Saul doesn’t like competition. So God sends an evil spirit upon Saul who then throws a couple of javelins at David trying to not only kill him, but also pin him to the wall. Well, David dodges the javelins and this really freaks out Saul who figures this could only happen if God had decided to no longer like Saul, but like David instead. So naturally Saul moved David out of the palace and made him the captain of a fighting force of 1000 men.

The obvious solution is that David must die now, since God likes him. Saul had already figured out he couldn’t kill David so he tried to foist it off on the Philistines. Saul told David he could marry his daughter Merab (Saul’s daughter, not David’s) if he would just fight some more against the Philistines, figuring that eventually David would die. Well, this didn’t work. David didn’t die. To get even with David for not dying, Saul married off his daughter Merab to someone else.

Saul’s next move was to tell David he could marry a different daughter, Michal. Well David was pretty sure he didn’t have enough money to buy one of the King’s daughters but that was ok. You see, the King’s messengers told David all he would need to do was bring the king 100 Philistine foreskins. Saul was sure this would get David killed and he could go back to being God’s favorite.

I don’t know what the hell was wrong with Saul. He must have forgotten about David’s 1000 fighting men. Anyway, they pretty easily went over to Philistine, killed 200 men and cut off their foreskins. David took the foreskins and gave them to Saul who then gave David his daughter Michal in trade as promised.

Now this story proves how cool David was. You see, when someone asks David for 100 foreskins, he brings them 200. Go foreskins!

Ref: 1 Samuel 18

David vs. Goliath – With God, all things are possible

Putting well-known stories in their proper context

So Israel and the Philistines had this long-standing agreement. In battle the Philistines would beat the hell out of the Israelites for a long time, then every once in a while God would help out a little and the Israelites would briefly have the upper hand.

One day the Philistines and Israelites lined up on opposite sides of a valley Braveheart style and started making noise at each other. Then this early version of André the Giant came out of the Philistine crowd wearing an M1A2 Abrams (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_Abrams) worth of armor and told the Israelis that instead of a regular fight this time, they were going to have a one-on-one arena style conflict to decide everything. Apparently the Israelis were morons because they didn’t just mass rush the Philistines and at the same time decided they could never find anyone cool enough to take on the armored monster. Apparently the Israeli people didn’t know about Hulk Hogan.

As luck would have it there was this boy named David who’s regular job was to sing to the Israeli king, but had been sent home to take care of his father’s sheep on account of the war. After André the Giant had been challenging the Israelis to provide him a fight every day for some time, David’s dad gave him some bread and cheese and told him to take the bread to his brothers in the army and give the cheese to their boss (probably to get them light duty or something).

When David showed up he learned about the whole mess with André the Giant and freaked out because the Israelis were being such pussies and tried to run right out and beat the shit out of André. The Israelis stoped him and took him to the King (David’s boss). David convinced the King he was up to the task because one time a bear stole a lamb from his flock and he grabbed that bear by the chin and punched it in the head until it died.

So David picked up a couple of little rocks, put on a black mask, and went out the meet André the Giant in the field. I wasn’t there so I don’t actually know how things went down, but I imagine it went something like this:

The Man In Black approaches the boulders, then slows to a walk. A rock explodes against a boulder just in front of him, he draws his sword. Fezzik emerges, holding another rock.
Fezzik: I did that on purpose. I don't have to miss.
Man In Black: I believe you. Pause. So what happens now?
Fezzik: We face each other as God intended... sportsmanlike. No tricks, no weapons, skill against skill alone.
Man In Black: You mean, you'll put down your rock and I'll put down my sword and we'll try and kill each other like civilized people?
Fezzik: Raising rock. I could kill you now.
Man In Black: Frankly, I think the odds are slightly in your favor at hand fighting. He sets down his sword.
Fezzik: It's not my fault being the biggest and the strongest. I don't even exercise. Tosses rock away. The Man In Black charges Fezzik twice, to no effect, grunting with the impact.
Man In Black: Look, are you just fiddling around with me or what?
Fezzik: I just want you to feel you're doing well. I hate for people to die feeling bad. The Man In Black dodges Fezzik and rolls away.
Fezzik: You're quick.
Man In Black: And a good thing, too.
Fezzik: Why are you wearing a mask? Fezzik swipes at him. Were you burned by acid or something like that? Swipe.
Man In Black: Oh no, it's just they're terribly comfortable. I think everyone'll be wearing them in the future. Swipe. The man in black jumps on Fezzik's back.
Fezzik: I just figured why you give me so much trouble. Smashes man in black against a rock, he groans.
Man In Black: Why's that, do you think?
Fezzik: Well, I haven't fought just one person for so long. Been specializing in groups. Battling gangs for local charities, that kind of thing. Smashes into another rock.
Man In Black: Why should that make such a... Fezzik backs the Man in Black into a boulder, knocking his breath out. Difference?
Fezzik: Slowing down. Well, you see, you use different moves when you're fighting half a dozen people than when you only have to be worried... about ... one.

Then, because this was taking a long time, David Jumped off André the Giant’s back and threw one of the little rocks at his head. 

Modern "sling shot" version of David's sling.

 

Obviously a small rock to the head is always fatal, so André fell to the ground dead. Then just to be sure David picked up André’s sword and used it to separate the giant’s head from his neck, proving once again that if you can punch a bear to death, you can kill a professional wrestler with a rock (and a giant sword).

Note: Dialogue from the Rob Reiner film "The Princess Bride" taken from http://princessbride.8m.com/script.htm

Ref: 1 Samuel 17