Saul Doesn’t Kill All The Animals – It’s the same as witchcraft

You know, because what God says really isn’t all that important anyway

In the first book of Samuel chapter 15, Jehovah told King Saul that he needed to take his army down to Amalek and kill all the men, women, children, babies, oxen, sheep, camels, and asses (1 Samuel 15:3). Saul was very happy to help Jehovah lay down a little more genocide so he gathered together 210,000 fighting men and headed to Amalek. The Hebrew army handily dispatched the Amalekian army and killed all the women, children, and babies before moving on to the livestock.

Here’s the thing though: Saul’s army didn’t kill ALL the animals. The very most healthy and beautiful ones were kept alive so they could be sacrificed to Jehovah. The silly Hebrews figured that since Jehovah was always telling people to kill super attractive animals on stone altars and burn their blood He would like some Amalekian animal blood too. They also took the King of Amalek captive instead of killing him. Jehovah immediately noticed that Saul didn’t do what he was told so He sent his prophet Samuel to have a chat with Saul.

Samuel showed up at the Hebrew army camp and Saul rushed over to tell him how wonderfully the genocide went, praise the lord, and all that. Samuel looked around and said, “Um, so what’s with all the sheep and oxen then?” Saul very patiently explained how after the army finished killing the babies, they were super happy and wanted to kill some of the pretty animals and feed Jehovah the blood. You know, to repay Jehovah’s kindness in letting them kill all those babies.

Samuel was clearly annoyed that Saul didn’t even seem to understand how he failed to do what Jehovah wanted. Samuel carefully controlled himself and said, “Saul, do you really think Jehovah would rather have burnt animal blood than have people do what He says? Listen stupid, Jehovah ALWAYS wants obedience first. If you don’t do exactly what Jehovah says you are guilty of rebellion against God, which is exactly the same bad as being a witch!”

Saul didn’t like the sound of that and said, “Oh no! I have sinned! Please forgive me so I can return to the worship of my god.” Of course that was too little too late and Samuel simple said, “Because you rejected your God’s will, you have now been rejected from being king!” Then Samuel demanded to see the king of Amalek and cut him up into little pieces.

Saul and Samuel never saw each other after that, and Jehovah said He was sorry He ever made Saul king.

Moral: if you don’t kill ALL the animals, you’ll make God regret giving you the responsibility to commit genocide.

Ref: 1 Samuel 15

King Saul – King Today, Gone Tomorrow

Saul is really stupid, or is it Yahweh?

For a long time after Moses took the Israelites out of Egypt, they did not have a king. Eventually the little crybabies got tired of all the other nations having kings while they went without. “It’s just not fair” they complained. They organized protests and marches and stuff, all the while trying to bully Yahweh’s favorite prophet, Samuel, into letting them have a king. Samuel was not happy about this and kept trying to convince everyone that kings were bad. They took everyone’s money to make sure they were super rich and they made decisions that weren’t in the best interest of the population like, all the time. They masses didn’t care though. They had decided they wanted a king and nothing Samuel said could dissuade them.

Eventually Samuel prayed to Yahweh and said, “Your people won’t stop bugging me about this king thing. It really hurts my feelings because I am the prophet and want to make sure your prophets are always in charge.” Yahweh responded, “Stop being such a drama queen Samuel. The people aren’t rejecting you anyway. They’re rejecting me. Go ahead and find them a king.” This wasn’t hard for a seer of Samuel’s caliber. He quickly settled on Saul. Saul was not only the “goodliest” person in Israel, he was also the tallest.

After a ton of really boring drama crap that mostly involved threats to the general population, Saul became the undisputed King of Israel. Two years later the Israelites and Philistines were getting ready for a big battle. When Saul’s people noticed how many Philistines had shown up, they kinda freaked out a little and scattered, hiding in “caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in high places, and in pits.” Saul was concerned by this, but he waited patiently because Samuel had told him to wait for seven days. At which time, Samuel would offer a sacrifice to Yahweh and then the Israelites would stomp the piss out of the Philistines.

Seven days came and went. Saul was disappointed Samuel hadn’t shown up, but because he felt responsible for his people’s welfare he went ahead and made the burnt offering himself. As soon as the fire died down though, who should arrive but Samuel? Samuel marched right over to Saul, slapped him across the face, and said, “What the fuck man? Are you retarded?”

Saul said, “Well, there were all these Philistines, and you didn’t show up. I knew we needed Yahweh’s help so I made the sacrifice myself.” Samuel replied, “That was really fucking stupid. Yahweh was totally ready to make your kingdom last forever, but because you were so dumb and sacrificed when you weren’t supposed to, now you can’t be king anymore. Yahweh is going to find someone else who isn’t going to make terrible mistakes like this.”

Yes, that’s right. Because Saul asked for help from Yahweh, Yahweh abandoned him. Let this be a lesson to any of you who might be considering asking God for help. DON’T DO IT!

Ref: 1 Samuel 8-13

Samuel Meets Yahweh – How hearing voices can be a good thing

I’m sure that Samuel was NOT schizophrenic; absolutely certain

Samuel grew up in the temple because his mom turned him over to the Lord right after he stopped nursing. He was mostly raised by the old priest Eli. One night when Samuel was still a kid he heard a voice call him right after he went to bed. The voice said, “Samuel.” Because Samuel wasn’t used to hearing unexplained voices he got out of bed, walked to Eli’s room and said, “I heard you call me. Here I am.” Eli immediately recognized this as a tactic to delay bedtime so he said, “I didn’t call you Samuel. Go back to bed. This time stay there.”

Right after Samuel lay down in his bed again he heard the same voice call, “Samuel.” Once again Samuel walked to Eli’s room and said, “I heard you call me. Here I am.” Eli was annoyed that Samuel had left his bed again, so this time he said, “Look Samuel, I didn’t call you. I’m sorry you can’t sleep but you just need to lay there in the dark. I heard somewhere that lying away in bed is almost as good as sleep anyway if you hold still and don’t make any noise.”

So Samuel went back to bed again. Just as you might expect he heard the same voice again a third time. Because Samuel didn’t want to get into any more trouble with Eli, he walked to Eli’s room and third time and once again said, “I heard you call me. Here I am.” By now Eli was getting really upset and he said, “Look kid, I haven’t been calling you. If you hear this alleged voice again you need to just stay in bed. If you’re that worried about it, you could even try talking to the voice to see if it can hear you.”

The fourth time Samuel heard this voice he stayed in bed just like Eli told him and said, “Why are you calling my name? Please tell me.” Then the voice, which turned out to be Yahweh said, “I have some important stuff to tell you Samuel. Eli’s not a very good father to his biological children. They do all sorts of bad stuff like have sex with the young women who gather outside the tabernacle and Eli hasn’t done anything to stop them. Therefore I’m going to destroy him and his children. They will never be forgiven for their crimes, and when I say never I mean it.”

The next morning when Eli was well-rested it occurred to him that maybe the reason Samuel was acting so strangely the night before was because Yahweh was trying to talk with him. Eli immediately wanted to know why Yahweh was talking with Samuel instead of with him so he called Samuel and said, “Look, I know you were talking with Yahweh last night and you are going to tell me everything he said or I will beat you until your outsides and in and your inside are out. Capisce?”

So Samuel told Eli what Yahweh told him and Eli said, “Well, if that’s what Yahweh wants to do who’s going to stop him. After all, He is the Lord.”

Yep. Definitely not schizophrenic.

Ref: 1 Samuel 3

Hannah gives Samuel to the Lord – Who knew that Jehovah was looking to adopt?

My limericks are getting worse, much worse

Elkanah had two wives
Who satisfied his drives
Peninnah gave birth
Hannah had a dearth
Of kids to share their lives

Elkanah had these two wives, Hannah and Peninnah. As is so often the case in these biblical stories, Elkanah liked Hannah best, but Peninnah was the one who kept having children. Hannah’s inability to produce offspring was a cause of great concern to her (she was probably pre-pubescent and Elkanah liked her best because he was turned off by “personal hair”). Peninnah always worked to make things worse too. It was very clear to Peninnah that Hannah was the favorite wife so Peninnah was mean to her as often as possible. Because the lack of kids was a sore spot for Hannah, that was usually how Peninnah tried to make Hannah feel like dirt: dirt that can’t reproduce.

One day Hannah went to the temple and prayed. She told Jehovah that if he would give her a baby then she would give him to the Lord and make sure that kid never had his hair cut (God digs long hair on dudes). The priest Eli noticed this young woman kneeling by the temple steps and moving her lips. He figured she’d snuck some liquor from her parents, had fallen to her knees by the temple, and was trying to work out how to stand up again.

Eli walked over to Hannah and said, “You are way too young, and it is way too early in the morning for you to be stumbling around drunk. You really need to lay off the alcohol.” Hannah answered saying, “I am not drunk sir. I’m just sad. I’ve been kneeling here praying to the Lord.” Eli felt kinda bad for judging her so he said, “Oh, ok. Um, you can leave now. I’m quite certain that Jehovah will give you what you’ve asked for.”

So Hannah went home and she had sex that night with Elkanah. God must have liked Hannah WAY better than all the other women who pray for children because she got pregnant that very evening. Hannah gave birth without incident and named the kid Samuel. As soon as she stopped nursing (so the kid was probably three of four – that’s right, people used to nurse for WAY longer than they do now) she took him to the temple and told Eli he would have to care for him from then on because that was part of her deal with God.

The best part of this story is that after giving Samuel to Eli, Hannah had another five kids. It's amazing how much going through puberty helps when you're trying to reproduce. In fact, I fully endorse puberty as something every women should experience before trying to have kids.

Ref: 1 Samuel 1 & 1 Samuel 2:20-21

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