The book of Ruth isn't terribly interesting unless you have some side notes to better understand the customs and why things happened the way they did. So, as I tell you the story of Ruth and Naomi, I'll also be giving you some lessons in Hebrew culture and language as well.
The Family
This woman named Naomi - which in Hebrew means "pleasant" (1:20 cliffnote b) - married this dude Elimelech and had two sons by him in Bethlehem, Judah. At this time, there was famine in the land, so they traveled to Moab (the Moabites were "sinful" people who worshiped other gods). There in Moab, her two sons married some Moabite women, but none of them had any children. Sometime later, both Elimelech and his two sons had died, so all that was left were Naomi and her two daughters-in-law Ruth and some other broad.
Naomi decided that she wanted to go back home to Bethlehem, so she advised her daughters-in-law to stay there in Moab and remarry. The one daughter-in-law followed her advice, but Ruth insisted that she follow Naomi wherever she went. She no longer wanted to be with her parents or her friends or her gods because she loved Naomi so much. So, together they ventured back to Judah, at which point Naomi told Ruth to call her Mara instead, because "mara" in Hebrew means "bitter". (cliffnote c)
...Because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted [or testified against (cliffnote e)] me, the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me. (1:20&21)
Back in Bethlehem
In a situation like Naomi and Ruth's - since none of them have husbands or sons to carry on the family name, and being that Naomi was too damn old to have anymore kids - it's custom to have the widowed daughter-in-law remarry back into her late husband's family. This is considered a "redemption" and the man who marries her is the "kinsman redeemer".[1]
So Ruth was on the prowl to find herself a husband that's of close relation to her late husband. She decided to go work in a field that belongs to this guy Boaz, whom I'm guessing is like the second cousin of Ruth's dead father-in-law Elimelech or something. He thought she was pretty cool for loving Naomi and abandoning her Moabite ways and adopting the Hebrew culture, so he let her work in his field; even though it's implied that the rest of the Hebrews in Bethlehem weren't too happy about bringing a Moabite into the family (2:22), given the part in the Mosaic Law about the taboo of intermarrying. (Exodus 34:15&16)
The way that Hebrews flirted back then was the man (being Boaz) was to give the woman (Ruth) like a bushel of barley to bring back to her parents (that being Naomi). So when Ruth came back to her mother-in-law with her bushel of barley, Naomi was like "Oooh girl! He wants you!" So Naomi told Ruth to go propose to Boaz, and she gave her advice on how to go about it according to the Hebrew customs.
The Proposal and Customs for Redemption
Ruth went to Boaz's house later that night after he fell asleep and took off his shoes. He woke up all pissy and was like "Who the fuck's taken off my shoes?!" She was like "It's me, Ruth. Spread the corner of your garment over me, for you are my kinsman-redeemer." (3:9)
At first glance, you'd be like WTF's going on here?? Well, fret not. I'll explain this to you. When a woman takes off a man's sandals and asks him to spread his garment over her, it's a way of asking for marriage. If he does spread his cloak over her, it's his way of accepting. Remember, the main requisite for marriage is sex, so I'm taking it as if he spreads his cloak over it, it's like getting two people under a blanket to get busy. Makes sense.[2]
So Boaz would naturally accept such an offer, except he says there is another relative that is closer to her late husband than he is. Which means he needs to talk to said person first to see if it's alright that he marries Ruth.
Now, while it doesn't exactly state this guy's name in my Bible, apparently if you look at the Hebrew Bible (otherwise known as the "Tanakh"[3], not to be confused with the Torah which is the five books of the Mosaic Law) it says this closer kinsman-redeemer's name is Ploni Almoni. Roughly translated, this means "Mr. so-and-so" or "whatshisname". [4]I got a little chuckle out of that.
Well, when Boaz went to go talk to Mr. so-and-so, whatshisname basically said that if he were to marry Ruth, it would be a financial/social suicide. He would basically need to forfeit his own land so that he could inherit Elimelech's land, and thus wouldn't be able to pay his compensation to Naomi. Even if he were to mortgage his own land to pay for the compensation, he still has his own family name to uphold. That, and not everybody in town was happy with the fact that a Moabite woman was living among them. He didn't want to go against God's law of intermarrying. So, the right of kinsman-redeemership was passed on to Boaz, who then married Ruth and had a son named Obed. And they all lived happily ever after. Although it seems that Naomi took all the damn credit, because everybody in town was saying that it was Naomi's child, even though it clearly wasn't. (4:16&17) I'm guessing this is simply because Ruth was a Moabite and they wanted to pretend that the family tree were of pure Hebrew blood.
In Conclusion
Now, here's the super interesting part. If you follow the genealogy, Ruth is actually the infamous David's great-grandmother (whom we'll get into in our next book.) Boaz and Ruth had Obed, who fathered Jesse, who was the father of David. And if you follow even further, all of this eventually leads up to Jesus Christ's genealogy. HA! Christ was not of pure Hebrew blood. [5] Anybody think of Harry Potter the half-blood prince? Teehee.
I think this time we'll skip the prologue and jump right into the book since we have a lot to cover. So after Joshua died at one hundred and fricken ten years old, the Israelites decided to have the people from Judah and the Simeonites go into Canaan and take it over. They took over many cities, including Jerusalem, killing everybody and burning them to the ground and inhabiting them afterward. However, there were some they couldn't completely drive out.
The Lord was with the men of Judah. They took possession of the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains, because they had iron chariots. As Moses had promised, Hebron was given to Caleb, who drove from it the three sons of Anak. (1:19&20)
First of all, I would gladly like to note that God couldn't drive out the people from the plains because they have iron chariots. It seems God might have an irrational fear of iron chariots. At least, that's the only conclusion I can come up with, seeing as he's the Almighty who can make the heavens and the earth, who can giveth and taketh away, yet he can't so much as smite a few iron chariots.
Second of all, remember who the sons of Anak are? If you can recall back in Deuteronomy, the sons of Anak (aka the Anakites) are the descendants of the Nephilim, who were supposedly killed back in Genesis by the Not-So-Great Flood.
So, all the people they couldn't drive out, they subjugated them to forced labor as well. Then they divided the Hebrews into these cities and allotted them certain land and what have you. Well, a generation or two goes by, and the parents of the new generation failed to teach their children about God. So as this new generation grew up, they began worshiping Baal (you remember him from Joshua) and Ashtoreth.
Now, something interesting to note here about Ashtoreth. The Hebrews had a way of distorting the gods' original names as a way of mocking the other religions. Ashtoreth was actually known as Astarte, the goddess of sexuality and fertility. She was known to the Greeks as Aphrodite. The Israelites had combined her original name with the Hebrew term for "abomination". (That would be "bosheth" in case anybody wanted to know.) [1]
The Judges
Since this new generation was serving other gods, God got mad and destroyed them all by working with their enemies to defeat them. (2:15) A little while later, God brought up some judges to save the Israelites from their doom. But whenever a judge died, they kept going back to other gods. (As I've mentioned before in the last blog, could it have possibly been because other gods were better at taking care of their people than God was?) So, instead of handing them over to their enemies, he just decided to not destroy their enemies. These other people intermarried with them, and enslaved many others. Eight years later, the Israelites began crying about their hardships, so God sent Caleb's younger Othniel brother to save them and he was considered "The Judge" of Israel. (3:7-11)
This charade pretty much continued a bunch of times, and they went through Judge Ehud, and Judge Shamgar, and Judge Deborah... wait, a woman? Yes, a woman! Not just a woman judge (or "leader" if you glance at the cliffnotes) but a prophetess. Not only did she bring the Israelites out of more slavery and worship of other gods, but she totally wrecked shop on a bunch of other cities - one of which, Sisera, was given to her by God. Some men were a little pissed about it, but they couldn't argue with her. Alright, so God's not a total chauvinist.
So then this happened again with a new judge named Gideon. One day God (or the "angel of the Lord") came down and sat next to Gideon underneath an oak tree to have a little chat. Here's the dialogue.
When the angel of the Lord appereared to Gideon, he said, "The Lord is with you, mighty warrior."
"But sir," Gideon replied, "if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, 'Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?' But now the Lord had abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian."
The Lord turned to him and said, "Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand. Am I not sending you?" (6:12-14)
Gideon replied, "If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me..." (6:17)
So Gideon went to fetch an offering to God and he placed it on a rock. Then God did his little magic trick and set the meat aflame, and Gideon then believed it really was God.
But, did anybody notice when Gideon was asking how God could allow all this shit to happen to his people, God totally avoided the question and pulled the whole "Because I said so!" bit? You'll notice these tactics get used a lot when you approach a Christian with a serious question.
Gideon asked God to do a couple more magic tricks, like keeping fleece dry in the morning when the grass is covered in dew. Then Gideon went to kick some ass the way Deborah and all the other Judges did.He heard a man telling a friend about a dream that he had about a loaf of bread tumbling down a hill and knocking down the Midianite camp. Because of this dream, Gideon assumed it was a symbol for the Israelites destroying the Midianites, so they decided to invade and take down the Midianites. (7:13-15)
This dream reminds me of a story I heard when I was in elementary school about the Native Americans back in the day. One of them had a dream that these white men were going to attack them, but the bullets would just bounce off their bellies and they'd be able to defeat the white men without so much as a scrap of armor. Well, guess what really happened?
In the midst of Gideon kicking ass and taking names, the troops were heading to conquer Zebah and Zalmunna and came across some people of Succoth. Gideon asked them if they'd give his troops some bread, and they were like "Nah, you don't really need it." So Gideon was like "Just for that, when the Lord has given Zebah and Zalmunna into my hand, I will tear your flesh with desert thorns and briers." (8:7) Damn!
Then the same thing happened when Gideon died, so Abimelech was the next judge to lead the Israelites. So he did some good things, but then it says that God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the citizens of some city that killed Gideon's brothers back in the day in order to avenge them.
Now, it doesn't specify exactly what an evil spirit is. Although I've spoken of the creation of Hell and what have you, the Bible has yet to explain these things. So this leaves you to either look into other religious/mythological texts, or to simply take a guess. Since we've already covered the myth of the creation of Hell back when we covered Genesis by peering into the Book of Enoch and the Torah and so on, let's take the other route and assumed that we haven't so we can just take a stab in the dark. So, according to the Bible, there has been no mention of Hell, or Satan, or demons, or any of that other nonsense. So where does this "evil spirit" come from? Well, it says that God sent it. So do evil spirits reside in Heaven? (Which, mind you, is still only considered to be the upward direction rather than a place.) So, God is not all good but does rather participate in evil doings? If you look at the dictionary in the back of your NIV Bible, the definition of "evil" is "wicked - doing things against God's will." This leaves you going WTF?
Anyway, so some time later, they went back to worshiping Baal and Ashtoreth (excuse me, I mean "Astarte") and after a few years the Israelites were being taken over by surrounding cities. This time God said,
But you have forsaken me and served other gods, so I will no longer save you. Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble! (10:13)
And that's basically the end of the appearance of judges. (Although we're not quite at the end of the book yet.)
Bargaining with God
This guy Jephthah was having a dispute with the king of the Ammonites about who owns which land. The king was irritated because the Israelites basically stole their land and he wanted Jephthah to tell them to give it back peaceably. But Jephthah told him that they basically stole it fair and square because God told them to.
Now since the Lord, the God of Israel, has driven the Amorites out before his peope Israel, what right have you to take it over? Will you not take what your god Chemosh gives you? Likewise, whatever the Lord our God has given us, we will possess. (11:23&24)
Hold on a minute. Did Jephthah really just acknowledge the god Chemosh? Like, did he just say that Chemosh gives land to the Ammonites the same way God gives land to the Israelites? Hrm...
Well, understandably, the king wasn't too pleased with this speech, and this made Jephthah pissed. So Jephthah made a vow to God that if he were to hand over the Ammonites to him, then he will sacrifice to God the very next thing that walks out of the door of his house when he returns in triumph. So, God helped him destroy the Ammonites, and when Jephthah came home, his very own daughter came rushing out of the house singing and dancing with joy for her father's safe return. And yup, he burned his very own daughter as an offering to God. Sure, he gave her a couple of months to cry over it before he killed her, but he kept to his word.
Does anybody remember anything about God being strictly against the slaughter and sacrifice of your own children? Well, to refresh anybody's memory, let's take a look at Deuteronomy 12:31.
You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.
It seems like God is willing to make an exception when you make a bargain with him. I seem to remember my mother telling me that you shouldn't make deals with God. Apparently this happens when you do.
Samson!
Here's one of my favorite characters in the Bible. People say that he was a good man of God, which is kind of funny to me because he was the exact opposite. But we'll count the ways when you hear the story.
So there was this couple who didn't have any children because the wife was sterile, until an angel of God came down and told her that around the same time next year she'll have a baby boy and name him Samson. When he grew up, he wanted to intermarry with a girl from the "uncircumcised" Philistines - meaning they're ungodly. No matter how much his parents protested, he married her anyway. On their way to go get this said girl, a lion came flying out of the woodwork and Samson tore him apart with his bare hands (via strength of God I guess). When he came back with the woman to marry her, he saw a swarm of bees and honey inside the lion carcass. He took a scoop of honey out of the carcass and ate some, and then gave some to his parents without telling them exactly where it came from.
Gross, right? Well, apparently God thinks so too. Let's look back at Leviticus 11:27 for specification of unclean foods.
Of all the animals that walk on all fours, those that walk on their paws are unclean for you; whoever touches their carcasses will be unclean till evening.
Well, Samson made a little joke out of this. He told his friends at his wedding a little riddle:
Out of the eater, something to eat.
Out of the strong, something sweet. (14:14)
When some of his friends figured out the riddle, Samson went out and killed a shit ton of people so that he could reward his friends with whatever he had pillaged from those that he killed. But when he returned home, he discovered that one of his friends had taken Samson's wife for his own. And Samson was so furious that he set out to torch the Philistines and their crops as vengeance for his wife cheating on him.
About three thousand men from Judah (remember, these are the good guys) came to take Samson prisoner because his little habit of slaughtering people was just unacceptable. Well, Samson didn't like what they had to say about handing him over to the Philistines, so he took a jawbone from a donkey and killed them all with it. When he was finished, he just tossed the jawbone aside like that ain't no shit.
Then he was like "Hey God! I'm fuckin' thirsty man. Why don't you make yourself useful and gimme some damn water!" So he did.
Some time later, Samson was feeling a little randy, so he went into Gaza to get down with a prostitute. Some of the Philistines heard that he was there, so they camped outside of the city gates and were going to wait until morning to kill him. Well, Samson woke up in the middle of the night, tore the city gates out of the ground, and carried them up to the top of this hill. I'm not exactly sure why he did that, but he did.
Later he fell in love with this bitch Delilah, who was working undercover for the Philistines to try and discover Samson's secret. His "Achilles Heel" if you will. So she spends some time getting busy with him to try and gain his trust, and then she asks him for the secret to his strength. To test her, he tells her a couple of lies to see if she'd go running to the Philistines. And she did. And each time she did, they'd come and try to kill him, when instead he'd just kill them all and run off. Eventually, the Bible says that Samson decided to tell her the truth because he was tired of hearing her nagging and prodding. I think it might've been a little more romantic than that, but whatever. He said that his hair has special powers, and it must never be cut or else he'll lose his super strength. After he fell asleep on her lap, she called to this creepy guy that was lingering in a dark corner all night to shave off his seven braids. Then she woke him up yelling "The Philistines are upon you!" Samson jumped up and was sure he'd be able to take them on, but it says that he "didn't know the Lord had left him". (16:20)
They captured him and tied his hands to the two pillars that were supporting this temple in front of three thousand Philistines, including all the Philistine rulers. Just as they were getting ready to offer Samson as a sacrifice to their god, Dagan, Samson kindly asked God to give him enough strength to take these bitches down with him. Just before he died, he screamed "Let me die with the Philistines!" and he pushed the pillars as hard as he could, and the temple collapsed and killed everybody inside, including Samson.
Right? So Samson was a badass. He didn't take shit from nobody. He ran around and killed whoever he wanted and fucked whoever he wanted and ate whatever he wanted and pillaged whatever he wanted. He defied his parents twice; once when he refused to listen to them when they protested against him marrying a Philistine, and again when he gave them the honey from the lions dead body without telling them. Anybody remember back in Exodus 20:12 and also in Leviticus 19:3 when it says to honor and obey your parents? I would say those were rather disobedient and dishonorable actions. And don't forget the punishment for disobeying/dishonoring your parents... DEATH. (Leviticus 20:9, Deuteronomy 21:18-21) The only two times he spoke to God was when he was thirsty and right before he died. So why do people say he was a good man of God? Well, even though he intermarried with a woman that typically is frowned upon, the Bible says that it was all in God's plan to act through Samson to slaughter a bunch of Philistines. (14:4)
But there is one particularly strange thing about Samson. His mother was sterile until an angel said otherwise. This isn't far off from a miraculous divine conception. He has super human strength and his hair has super powers. It kind of makes you wonder if there was any sexy time with that angel... so could Samson be a Nephilim too? Ah... Now I'm just falling into the rabbit hole. Case in point, Samson rocks.
Some Dude and his Concubine
Alright, so there was this dude and his concubine who were traveling from one place to another. In the middle of their travels, they stopped at this city called Gibeah and they were going to spend the night in the town square. Then this old man comes out and sees them sleeping there, and he was like "What are you two doing?" They explained that they were travelers and they were just passing through. The old man asked where they were going to, and they replied that they were on their way to Jebus.
No, it is actually supposed to be Jebus. (That is, Jerusalem.) Anyway, the old man was like, "Well, you should at least spend the night in my house." So they did, and he gave them plenty to eat and drink that night.
Now let's see if this part of the story sounds familiar to you at all. This time, instead of summarizing it for you, I think I'll just let the Holy Bible do the actual talking.
While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, "Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him."
The owner of the house went outside and said to them, "No, my friends, don't be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don't do this disgraceful thing. Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But to this man, don't do such a disgraceful thing."
But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight.
When her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, "Get up; let's go." But there was no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey and set out for home.
When he reached home, he took a knife and cut up his concubine, limb by limb, into twelve parts and sent them into all the areas of Israel. Everyone who saw it said, "Such a thing has never been seen or done, not since the day the Israelites came up out of Egypt." (19:22-30)
Then the Israelites said, "Tell us how this awful thing happened."
So the Levite, the husband of the murdered woman, said, "I and my concubine came to Gibeah in Benjamin to spend the night. During the night the men of Gibeah came after me and surrounded the house, intending to kill me. They raped my concubine, and she died. I took my concubine, cut her into pieces and sent one piece to each region of Israel's inheritance, because they committed this lewd and disgraceful act in Israel." (20:3-6)
I think you all are smart enough to grasp the severity of this story, but I'll point out a couple of things to you. One minute it's perfectly fine to rape a virgin and a concubine, but the next it isn't. (Nevermind the hacking of limbs of your dead concubine. Yeah, that's
not disturbing at all. By the way, did you notice that he didn't care
too much at first when he found her on the floor? He was just like
*kick* "Hey you, get up!")
But one of the more important things that effects us today could possibly be the idea of homosexuals. Ever notice how, out of all the ridiculous Mosaic Laws, most Christians today still hold fast to the notion that being gay is an abominable sin? This could possibly be where they get this idea from. Aside from "Well the Bible says so", the Bible also gives a very detailed description of how terrible homosexuals are. They gang-rape uncontrollably, they murder at will without remorse or a second thought, because that's just what they do. No, of course you and I know that that's not what homosexuals do. They're just like everyone else, except they simply swing in another direction. But according to the Bible this is what they do. I don't know about you, but this story, in all it's entirety, just makes me sick.
Well, then the Israelites fought some Benjamites, and a bunch of people died. Then they held a festival to God in Shiloh, and there were a bunch of Benjamites lingering like little creepers watching the girls dance.
While the girls were dancing, each man caught one and carried her off to be his wife. (21:23)
And everybody went home. And that's literally the end of the book of Judges. Good news for you is our next book is the book of Ruth, which is by far the shortest book in the Bible thus far. So you'll get a nice little break from my long-winded blogs. ^_^ Stay classy.
Picking up where we left off, Moses is dead and here we have Joshuataking over the situation.
Preparations before Battle
Before we set out into Canaan, Joshua needed to take care of a few things first. One thing in particular is reminding the Hebrews to follow the Mosaic Law.
Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. (1:7&8)
I can't help but touch on this part about prosperity and success. Again, the Canaanites were without God (or at least without the God of Israel) yet they supposedly had the most flourishing land in all the world.Let's jump ahead for a second to view God's reasoning for drought and prosperity.
When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people... will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:13&14)
It seems that when a land is prosperous and fertile, it's because God is blessing the land, and the opposite goes for when a land is full of sinners. Okay, maybe God was just preparing the Promised Land for the coming of the Hebrews by using the Canaanites. But let's look at this from a multicultural perspective. Remember Baal of Peor back in Numbers 25? Many other cultures - the Canaanites included - worshiped Baal. As we read onward, you'll see throughout the Bible that God appears threatened by Baal and constantly warns the Hebrews against Baal worship. Yes, this was a bad thing to put any other gods before God. Shit, it's the first of the Ten Commandments, both in the original and the new-and-improved. But, as you'll find out, much of the time that the Hebrews go astray, it's to Baal. Well, if you do a little bit of research, you'll find that Baal is the god of fertility and rain. [1] It seems that Baal was doing a better job at keeping his people alive than God was, which explains why the Hebrews turned to Baal back in Numbers and why they'll continue to do so in the biblical future.
But let's not get mythologically ahead of ourselves here. Put two and two together. If you're in a certain location on the globe, you'll likely come across different climate and weather. Since they had no better way of explaining these attributes, they just blamed it on the gods. Just wanted to make that clear, we have more than enough reason to know that God has nothing to do with the weather.
Okay, I've gotten ahead of myself here. Let's continue with the story.
Shortly after they cross the Jordan River into Canaan, they decided to
have a circumcision party. Literally, Joshua just went on a
penis-mutilating frenzy, hacking off foreskins left and right. So many
foreskins, in fact, that they named the place "Gibeath Haaroloth" which
means "hill of foreskins". (5:2-8 cliffnote e)
So after they hacked up everybody's wieners, they headed out to cross the Jordan, which they had accomplished the same way they crossed the Red Sea. The waters divided and created a dry path for them to walk through. It seems like dividing bodies of water is the new trend these days. Everything short of tomato soup, which was later accomplished in 2003. Then they Blair-Witched the place with a bunch of stones so they could tell their kids the story of how God parted the Jordan River.
He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God. (4:24)
Again with the fear. Seriously, God has a complex.
The Fall of Jericho
This battle is very important because it signifies the beginning of their basically never-ending crusades to conquer the world, starting with Canaan. Incidentally, the Canaanites heard about what happened with the Jordan River, so they were afraid of the Hebrews and locked their doors up tight behind their big ass wall. So the Hebrews marched around the wall of Jericho for seven days, then they sounded some trumpets and gave a big hoot n' holler and the wall came tumbling down. Not from any ordinary cause. The Hebrews were just so damn loud that they broke the sound barrier and knocked a wall down from the vibrations. Or something. Kind of makes me think of Horton Hears A Who.
They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it - men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep, and donkeys. (6:21)
Then they burned the whole city and everything in it... (6:24)
At that time Joshua pronounced this solemn oath: "Cursed before the Lord is the man who undertakes to rebuild this city, Jericho:
At the cost of his firstborn son
will he lay its foundations;
at the cost of his youngest
will he set up its gates." (6:27)
Other Battles
Then a few scouts went into Ai and came back with a report, telling Joshua that they don't need to send a bunch of people into Ai because there are only a few men living there. So they only sent three thousand men to take over Ai. (Now, if that's not a tank in a field of daisies, I don't know what is.) However, God was mad at the Israelites because some guy named Achan took a couple of devoted objects from God. So these few men of Ai killed a whole whopping 36 Israelites out of the three thousand and the Israelites cried "Wee wee wee" all the way home. Of course, the Israelites blamed the death of those 36 on Achan, so they killed him. But God wasn't happy with just his death. Nope. God wanted his sons and daughters stoned to death too. And his sheep. And his cattle. And his donkeys. And even that wasn't enough. They had to burn all of the dead bodies. And then they tossed a bunch of big rocks on top of the ashes. It's a wonder they didn't piss on the grave too. Later, they went back and took over those few men in Ai and burned that place to the ground as well. (Chapters 7&8)
Then some Gibeonites heard how awesome the Israelites are, so they decided to come in peace and make a treaty with them. And they did.
So the king of Jerusalem and a few other kings rose up against Gibeon and attacked them. The Gibeonites cried out to the Israelites for help, so Joshua and his fighting men took the people of Jerusalem by surprise after an all-night march. Then God hurled down a bunch of hailstones and killed more people than the Israelites did by the sword. Then Joshua asked God to make the sun stand still so they could completely defeat the king of Jerusalem. And so God made the sun stand still for a full day. The Israelites killed everybody, then captured the five kings that went after Gibeon and Joshua told the Gibeonites to stomp on their necks. Then they hung their dead bodies on some trees, and then they went home. (Chapters 9&10)
How is this possible for the sun to stand still, you might ask? Well, it's not. By all accounts, it doesn't make sense. But let's take a little peak at the people who might take stories like these at face value.
Need I say more? Moving on.
Okay, so some more people and kings were killed, and some settlements were made and land was allotted to some people, and so on and what not.But, here in this very book, the secrets to God's motivations for all of this bloodshed are revealed! Let's see if this sounds familiar to you.
For it was the Lord himself who hardened their hearts to wage war against Israel, so that he might destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy, as the Lord had commanded Moses. (11:20)
Sounds a little bit like the bullshit in Egypt, right? Moving on.
It says in chapter 17:12&13 that they were unable to occupy some of the cities because the Canaanites were determined to live there. Ignoring the point that, for whatever reason, God couldn't drive out the Canaanites at that time, it then states that the Israelites subjected the Canaanites to forced labor but did not drive them out completely.
Ain't that a bitch? Being a slave in your own country and having God set his judgements against you just because you're different.
Anyway, Joshua almost took down some old fighting men of Gilead after they had paid their dues and returned home, because they put up a damn altar. But he changed his mind at the last minute because the people of Gilead had to convince him that they weren't putting any offerings or sacrifices to any other god. It was just to symbolize that they helped the Hebrews during their beginning battles. Geez, Josh, take a pill. (Chapter 22)
Then, right before Joshua dies, he makes all the Israelites swear that they'll do what God says. He reminds them that they are witnesses against themselves, but that's not good enough. He, then, sets up his own rock and says,
"See! This stone will be a witness against us. It has heard all the words the Lord has said to us. It will be a witness against you if you are untrue to your God." (24:27)
Hrm... Okay... So it's totally fine if Joshua sets up his own stupid rock, not just for some simple sentimental value, but to actually suggest that the rock has ears and can hear not only what people say, but what God says! Need I remind you what the Bible thinks about things like this? Remember the quote from Jeremiah about Christmas Trees that I cited in the last blog entry? "...The customs of these peoples are worthless... their idols cannot speak; they must
be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no
harm nor can they do any good." Oh, but a rock is totally a reasonable exception. At least trees aren't inanimate objects!
And that's basically the book of Joshua. Tune in next time when we get to meet the infamous Samson and some other fun crazies in the book of Judges!
