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

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

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

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

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