128 2 Chronicles 10-12

  The story of Rehoboam, the son and heir of Solomon.  Again, one perspective on this story was covered in 2 Kings, but the account in 2 Chronicles has a little different pacing.  Major themes are common to both stories.  King Rehoboam took over after Solomon died (I forgot to mention Solomon died at the end of chapter 9) and the people petitioned him to lighten their workload some.  Solomon's huge building projects were neat and all, but the people were tired of the constant labor.  Rehoboam came back and told them that his little finger was thicker than his father's waist and that he would work them even hard so shut up.  The people did not react well to that and they ran the king out of town.  Jeroboam led the angry people back to their homes and started a new kingdom in the north.  This was the split between Judah and Israel.

  Now this part is a little different than in Kings.  Before, there was no mention that I recall of the Levites in Israel.  I remember specifically pondering what happened to them in this split since they're spread through all the tribes of Israel and would have trouble picking their allegiance.  Since they're exempt from military service anyway though, it doesn't really matter.  In this new version though, the Levites, as well as everyone in Israel who wanted to continue to worship the Lord up and moved south to Judah.  In their eyes Rehoboam was the heir of David's line which was anointed by God, so they had no choice but to follow Rehoboam.  Jeroboam in this story immediately erects pagan shrines all across the country and starts ignoring God.
  Rehoboam still seems to have a functioning relationship with God in this section, at least by way of the prophet  Shemaiah.  Rehoboam comes home and starts getting ready for a big battle with Judah but God tells him not to.    While Rehoboam does not seem like a great king as far has his leadership abilities go, he seems at least receptive to what God tells him and that puts him ahead of the average.  Eventually he slips though, because being king seems to make it pretty difficult to be properly in tune with what God wants, and God has Egypt ally with a few other nations and come in to conquer them.  They're all set to wipe out Israel but at the last second the leaders of Israel realize that the reason God's turned on them is because of their pride and them humble themselves.  God is impressed by the display and decides to let them keep their country.  The Egyptian king just loots the gold shields that Solomon put in the temple and lets them go.

  This story doesn't differ really from the version in 2 Kings I don't think, but I feel like reading it yields different themes and gives a different impression of the major players.  Reading two different historical accounts of anything I would expect there to be differences, but one of the things I'm trying to keep in the back of my head through this whole program is the idea that the Bible is completely literal without any metaphor, embellishment or inaccuracy.  I naturally balk at this interpretation of the bible because I think it undermines the necessity to learn anything about the cultural context of these records.  It seems to be pretty popular though so I'm interested in whether it's really feasible.  It seems possible so far, although it yields some strange things in Genesis.

Day 116 2 Kings 20-22

            King Hezekiah got sick and God told him, via the prophet Isaiah, that he was going to die.  He prayed about it and God told him he could have another 15 years and, as an added bonus, He would protect him and Jerusalem from the Assyrians.

            Some guys from Babylon came down to Judah and Hezekiah gave them a tour of everything he had.  Isaiah told him later that everything they have is going to be taken away to Babylon.  Hey, at least it won’t be the Assyrians who take it though.

            Hezekiah’s son Menasseh took the throne when he was only 12, so he didn’t get a chance to glean any of Hezekiah’s piety.  He rebuilt all the high places that his father had destroyed and did all kinds of evil.  While he ruled, God said that He was done with Judah and Jerusalem’s nonsense and He’s going to wipe out Jerusalem like one wipes a dish.  His son’s rule went pretty much the same way.

            Josiah was crowned king when he was only 8, so he didn’t have a chance to learn from his father and grandfather how to be a jerk.  Under Josiah, the priests in the temple found the book of the law, which I guess had been misplaced sometime before.  When Josiah had it read to him, he tore his robes and sent some men to go inquire of the lord.  A local prophetess told him that God was going to destroy Jerusalem and Judah because of their sin, but because of how legitimately bad about the whole thing Josiah felt, He would at least wait until after Josiah was dead to really start cursing everyone.

Day 113 2 Kings 12-14

            Joash was king of Judah.  He repaired the temple in Jerusalem with money donated by the people.  At first he tried to get the priests to sort it out, but after 23 years they had made no progress so Joash personally  took over.

            Jehoahaz was king of Israel.  He followed his ancestors, commiting the same sins as they had.  Aram was decimating Israel so Jehoahaz went to see Elisha for help.  Elisha was very sick, but he still led Jehoahaz through a little ritual and declared that they would defeat Aram, but because of a completely arbitrary thing that Jehoahaz didn’t do right, they would not destroy Aram completely.

            After this prophecy, Elisha died.  Some time later people fleeing from Moabite raiders tossed a body into his grave.  The body touched Elisha’s bones and came back to life.  That’s what happens with a double portion of God’s blassing I guess.

            Amaziah became king of Judah.  He defeated some Moabites, but then he got cocky and challenged Israel to a fight.  He lost.

            King Jeroboam II became the ruler of Israel some time after that battle.  He’s the one who defeated Aram like Elisha said and restored the borders of Israel to where God said they should be.

Day 112 2 Kings 9-11

            Elisha sends a member of his prophet corps to go anoint Jehu the new king of Israel so he can overthrow the family of Ahab and make good on God’s decree that Ahab and his family be wiped out.

            The prophet shows up on Jehu’s doorstep, tells him he’s the new king of Israel and that Jezebel and all of Ahab’s family are going to die horribly, the implication being that Jehu is going to help kill them, then the prophet immediately opens the door and runs, runs, away back to Elisha.  Jehu, kind of confused, comes back outside and tells his men about what happened (he was a commander in the military) and his men lay out their cloaks and declare him king.

            This is the third anointment Elijah was told about by God after the anointment of Hazael as king of Aram and Elisha as his own successor.

            Jehu rode up to the front door of king Joram, son of Ahab, and shot him in the back with an arrow, then shot Ahaziah, the king of Judah, but he ran away to Megiddo and died there.

            Jehu rode up to Jazebel’s tower and yelled up the the servents there asking if any were loyal to him.  A couple gave him the nod so he commanded them to throw Jezebel down.  She died from the fall and then Jehu’s men’s horses trampled her body.  They went out later to bury her but the body was gone, presumably eaten by dogs like God said it would be.

            Ahab had 70 sons spread across the nation and Jehu sent letters to the officials in all the cities they were in and told them to come claim the thrown of Israel if they would like it.  Everyone was afraid of Jehu, so they sent messages back to him saying that no, thank you, but no one would like to be king that much.  Jehu wrote a second time to the officials of the towns and told them that if they were going to follow him like they said they would, order number one was to send him the heads of all of Ahab’s sons.  So that’s what they did.

            Ahab’s family had worked it way into the royal family of Judah as well, so Jehu had to kill some of them too.  All three appointments have been made now though and the family of Ahab wiped from the Earth, so I guess that’s the end of that prophecy.

           

Day 111 2 Kings 6-8

            Aram has been stirring up trouble with Israel for some time now, but God is angry with Israel so basically both sides are losing the fight.  Aram’s army will be run off by a miracle, but only after really ruining Israel’s day.  In a siege on the city of Samaria, the food shortages were so bad that people were eating their kids.  This was something that Moses prophesied would happen to Israel when they angered God enough to make Him turn on them back in his last speech at the end of Deutoronomy.  In the end though, God makes the Aramian army run away and leave their camp and all their supplies, so the city isn’t taken or destroyed.

            The king of Aram got sick and sent an officer to inquire of Elisha whether he would get better or die of the sickness.  That seems like an odd move sine Elisha lives in Israel, but maybe it’s public knowledge that he’s not very patriotic.  The officer, a man named Hazael, asks Elisha about the king’s health and Elisha gives him a very strange answer, explaining that the king will die, but that the officer should go tell him that he will recover.  Then he stares the officer down until things get awkward, and starts crying.  When the officer, Hazael, asks him what is going on, Elisha says that he, Hazael, is going to kill tons of Israelites.  He will accomplish this because he’s going to be king of Aram.

            All this borderline gibberish is apparently exactly what Hazael needs to hear though to go back home and kill the king.  This reads different to me than most prophecies in the past.  Before, the prophecies we heard about sort of described things from a distance, either reffering to things happening generations into the future or about other people unaware of the prophecy or something like that.  This prophecy seems to be one of the major causes of the event being prophecied.  The text seems to imply that Hazael would not have killed the king if Elisha had not said that he was going to kill the king.

            I know that God tends to use people to fulfil prophecies anyway, but it’s interesting that this prophecy was the motivation for the fulfillment of itself.  It’s like a trick-shot.

Day 109 2 Kings 1-3

            Ahaziah injured himself and sent some men to inquire of Baal whether he would live.  Elijah intercepted them though and sent back word basically that, because Ahazian had snubbed the God of Israel and not even bothered to ask him,  he would die.  Then he died.

            Elijah is finally ready to die himself.  He asked God to let him die earlier when Ahab and Jezebel were hunting him down, but now he’s done everything he needs to so I guess he’s done.  He’s carried directly to heaven in a tornado without having to actually experience death, but only after his apprentice Elisha asks for a double helping of Elijah’s faith.  This is a big request, but it seems to work out okay.  After Elijah leaves, Elisha heals a well that was poisoning the area and then summons some bears to eat a bunch of kids who were making fun of him so he’s clearly got no shortage of magic powers.

            King Joram of Israel and King Joshaphat  of Judah team up and attack the king of Moab after he refuses to pay a big tribute to Joram.  The Moabite king feels safe ignoring Israel on account of Ahab no longer being around to enforce their agreement.  They ask Elisha about how the battle’s going to go and he kind of leads them on, asking are they sure they don’t want to ask some other prophets?  When they insist on hearing what Elisha has to say, they win the battle easily.

            The theme I see here is that, yes, even foreign prophets may be able to predict what’s going to happen once in a while, I mean, honestly, I can predict what’s going to happen once in a while if I know enough about what’s going on, but when God gets involved, He can actually change what’s going to happen.  Knowing the future is great and all, but it’s not quite as powerful as controlling the future.

Day 108 1 Kings 21-22

            King Ahab found a vineyard he liked near his palace and tried to buy it for a vegetable garden.  The owner refused to sell it though because it was part of his ancestral plot of land handed down from the origins of Israel.  Jezebel had him killed so Ahab could have it anyway.  Elijah gets dispatched to meet him as he goes to take possession of the vineyard and tells him some scary stuff about how he and Jezebel are both going to be eaten by dogs.  What he says is so jarring that Ahab repents all his evil and pretty much just languishes around his palace sulking.

            He must legitimately be sorry (or at least scared) though because God is moved by his repentance and agrees not to destroy his line until his son’s time.  His son is no better than he’s been, so God kills them all.

            This book ends with an odd little story about the king of Israel and Jehoshephat, the king of Judah, teaming up to take some important land back from Aram.  The section headings all say this is talking about Ahab, but the text itself keeps referring to the king in the story only as “the king of Israel.”  Either way, all of the king of Israel’s prophets keep telling him about what a great idea it is to attack Aram, but Jehoshephat insists on asking a true prophet of God.  The only good one they have there is named Macaiah, but the king of Israel doesn’t like him because he only says bad things about him all the time.

            When they bring him out, he tries to fall in line with the other prophets and fawn over how great this victory is going to be, but the kings see through his ruse and coax the truth out of him that he’s had visions of a total defeat and the death of the king of Israel.  He gets thrown in prison and mistreated until the king returns safely, but of course the king does not return safely, he’s killed in battle and his blood licked up by dogs.

            Maybe we’ll hear more about what happened to Macaiah in second Kings. For right now, I guess we just assume that he eventually died in a horrible Israelite prison :(

Day 107 1 Kings 18-20

            God told Elijah to go meet with Ahab.  Elijah sent a message that he would be on Mt. Carmel and that Ahab should bring all the priests of Baal and Ashera and the whole nation of Israel out to watch what was going to happen.  Once there, he challenged all the priests of Baal and Ashera to light on fire a sacrifice that they had prepared.

            They prayed and chanted and cut themselves for half the day before Elijah finally prepared his own sacrifice and set it up on a little altar that he repaired with some stones.  Even after pouring a ton of water over his sacrifice, Elijah prayed to God and fire rained down from the sky and consumed his offering.  Now that the crowd was won over, Elijah told them to grab all the priests of Baal and Ashera and kill them.

            Elijah then told Ahab to hitch up his chariot so he could get home before the rains started.  This is during a huge drought without a cloud in the sky, so that’s quite a warning.  Then, just to make sure he’s got everyone’s attention, Elijah ran all the way back to the nearest city ahead of Ahab’s chariot.

            Once she found out what happened, Jezebel sent a message to Elijah that she was going to have him killed for what he had done to all her favorite prophets, so Elijah ran away.  After wandering the wilderness in despair for a long time, God spoke to him and told him to anoint new kings of Aram and Israel and a new prophet to succeed him.  Among the three of them, they’re supposed to kill pretty much everyone in Israel except 7000 men who have never worshipped an idol.

            A little later the current king of Aram starts stirring up trouble in Israel.  He captures Samaria and demands Ahab give him treasure and his best wives and servants.  Ahab agrees to this, but then refuses when the king of Aram further demands that he and his men get permission to loot the homes of Ahab’s officials.  It’s pretty clear at this point that he’s just trying to pick a fight.

            Ahab’s in luck though because God hates Aram at this time even more than He hates him, so a prophet comes to tell Ahab that God’s going to hand Aram’s army over to him.  They beat Aram once, but the aramian advisors think that they only lost because the God of Israel is a god of the hills, so they can win if they go back next year and fight the same fight again, but in the plains this time.  They were mistaken however, even though they had a way bigger army than Israel, they get routed in the next battle too.  Rumor has it that kings in Israel are open to negotiation though so they try to reason with Ahab, which works just fine actually.  Ahab lets them go after a treaty is formed with Aram.

            If you’ve been following along this far, you know that God hates treaties.  When God hands an army over to you in battle, it’s because he wants that army to not be an army anymore.  You’re supposed to destroy them and eat their children and kick their puppies.  So that same prophet confronts Ahab again on his ride home and tells him that God is going to take his life in exchange for the king of Aram’s life, which rightfully belongs to God.

            Ahab sulks back to his castle.

Day 105 1 Kings 12-14

            When Rehoboam goes to be crowned king of Israel the people ask him to reduce their workload.  Solomon used a lot of forced labor for his ambitious building projects and everyone was hoping that Rehoboam would ease off on them now that everything was built and Solomon was dead.  Rehoboam ignored the requests of his people and the advice of his advisors opting in stead to listen to his buddies who told him to snub the people and give them even more work.  For this the people drove him out of Jerusalem and killed the guy he had in charge of the forced labor program.

            Only the tribe of Judah stayed loyal to Rehoboam.  He was going to mount an offensive to take back the rest of Israel by force, but God told a nearby prophet that this was His doing, and they should just let it be.  That must have been pretty disappointing for Rehoboam to hear.

            I wonder what the tribe of Levi does here.  They still seem to have priests in Judah so I don’t imagine all the Levites just ran away when the tribes finally split for good.  I guess Levites are exempt from military sevice anyway so it probably doesn’t much matter where their political loyalties lie.

            While Rehoboam may not have been as bright as his father, down in Israel Jeroboam was proving that he wasn’t a great king either.  Not satisfied that God had given him the throne of Israel, he started getting paranoid about losing it.  He worried that people would go through the cycle of holy days and celebrations and they would remember that David’s line is God’s line of kings.  Then they would rebel against him and try to reinstate Rehoboam.  To prevent this, he set p a bunch of local altars and shrines and some new holidays to distract people from interacting with anyone from Judah or from going to Jerusalem.  It seems like kind of a lame plan, but it seemed to work, and Israel plunged into idolatry as it seemed inclined to do at the slightest provocation.  The ancient Israelites are developing a habit of being led astray by empty religious pageantry and showy approximations of the kind of worship God actually gave them.

            Oh, that reminds me.  Happy Easter everyone.

            Anyway, Jeroboam is not glorifying God and a prophet comes down from Judah to tell him as much.   That prophet actually got kind of screwed in this story.  On his way back home to Judah he was met by another, older prophet who I guess maybe thought he was doing this guy a favor by telling him that and angel of the Lord had told him to bring the foreign prophet home with him and feed him.  This, if it were true, would have overridden the earlier command that he not eat or drink anything until he was back home.

            As soon as the foreign prophet ate though, the older prophet actually did prophesy that since he had broken God’s command, and eaten in Israel, he would be punished and not buried with his people.  After what I’m sure was a very awkward goodbye, he started back home again and was killed by a lion.  So it’s not a good enough excuse to claim to have been misled I guess.  When it comes to what God tells you to do, don’t trust anybody.

            Jeroboam’s son gets sick and dies.  The prophet Ahijah, who first told Rehoboam that he would get to be king, tells his wife that God is super-pissed about all the ashera poles and shrines to foreign Gods and that Israel is going to be cast out of this good land and scattered beyond the Euphrates river.  Also, Jeroboam’s family is going to be completely destroyed.  This must be the fulfillment of the prophecy from Deuteronomy about how God new that the Israelites were going to screw up so bad that God was going to unleash horrible curses upon them until they straightened out.

            Those curses were pretty awful so the next couple of books might get pretty rocky.

Day 104 1 Kings 10-11

            Solomon was a major celebrity among the rulers of the world for his wisdom.  Kings from all over paid him tribute and Israel was very wealthy.  Eventually though, he took a bunch of wives from nations that Israelites aren’t supposed to interbreed with and they perverted his faith and got him to worship their gods and build altars to them around Jerusalem and the city of David.  God told him that this slip up was going to cost him the kingdom, but, because of his father David’s faith, He would wait until after Solomon died to take the kingdom away from his family.

            God lifted up a couple people to irritate Solomon, one of whom served as Solomon’s official.  Jeroboam rebelled against Solomon and the prophet Ahijah told him that God would give him 10 tribes to rule over, but one would still be left for David’s line.

            Solomon died and was succeeded by his son Rehoboam, but I have a feeling there’s going to be some changes soon.

Day 94 2 Samuel 4-7

            When he heard that Abner was dead, Ish-Bosheth lost heart.  Then a couple guys came into his house one day and killed him.  They brought the head to David in kind of the same way a cat might leave a starling on your porch but David did not seem very grateful.

            “When I heard news of Saul’s death I killed the man who told me.”  He exclaimed at them.  “How much more angry then do you think I am about your sneaking in and killing an innocent man in his own home?”

            So David had those guys killed too.

            With Saul’s whole family dead though, (except some grandson who was disabled and too young to do anything) all the other tribes came around and followed David.  He ruled for 33 years after that.  He conquered Jerusalem and built a fortress next to it they called the City of David.  It’s still there, you can go on little walking tours of it.  He also defeated the Philistines and made Jerusalem the capital, bringing the ark of the covenant to live there.

            On the way, the oxen stumbled and a priest reached out to steady the ark, but no one was allowed to approach it or touch it, so God killed him.  After that incident, David decided to store the ark at someone else’s house.

            God promises David that He will establish a house for His people and they won’t be oppressed by wicked people any more.  He will establish his kingdom with David’s descendant.  Most Christians who are aware of this prophecy assume this is talking about Jesus.

day 84 I Samuel 1-3

            It looks like things are getting back into more of a narrative format now.  The lists of rules from Leviticus and Numbers were kind of tedious and the disjointed stories from Joshua and Judges were just confusing.  I miss being able to stick with a character for a while and watch their relationship with God evolve.  I've got a good feeling about his next group of chapters.

            Samuel is a boy born to a lady who was barren.  She prayed to God and said that if she had a son, she would dedicate him to the Lord for his entire life.  Eli, the priest Samuel got himself volunteered to serve under, had a couple sons also working under him.  His sons were, basically, jerks who didn’t respect God.  They abused the sacrifice system to get the best parts of meat for themselves.  God hated this kind of thing.  He probably still does.

            At this time prophets and miracles were rare, but God told Samuel that He was going to punish Eli’s family for what his sons were doing.  Eli is at fault for their sins both because he is both their father and their priest-boss and there’s a precedent back in Leviticus for a higher-ranking Levite also being held accountable for any screw-ups happening lower in his chain of command.  He’s very supportive of Samuel’s vision and even seems accepting when Samuel explains that God is going to take vengeance upon Eli and his family.

Day 68 Deuteronomy 32- 34

            I’m just going to get this out of the way now because it’s going to come up a lot later on.  I can’t make heads nor tails of pretty much any kind of poetry.  I know that’s a sweeping generalizations, but it’s especially true for poetry that was written in a very different time or culture than mine, or that’s been translated from another language.  I tell you this now because I’m sifting through the song of Moses which he recites to the whole assembly of the twelve tribes of Israel right before he dies.  This is his concluding argument, so you know it’s important, but it’s kind of obtuse in the way it’s worded.  So, I’m doing the best I can, but you may be better off reading it for yourself.

            This is going to come up again in the book of Psalms.

            Moses says that God is perfect and amazing and created everything, but all of you (Israelites) are going to screw up this good thing you’ve got going and God is going to absolutely ream you for it.  Like no punishment or plague we’ve seen so far, God is going to destroy everything you love and spread you to the wind.

            This is going to happen.  God already knows it even.  You’re going to fail at this one thing that the Lord has told you to do.  But eventually, once all this hardship knocks some sense into you and you come back to the Lord, then He’ll take you back and things will be good again.

            After his speech, Moses gives each tribe a blessing, just like Jacob gave each son a blessing.  Ephraim and Manasseh have to share one.  They’re all mostly about prosperity and the accumulation of more land, which is odd because I thought that land ownership was permanent, but it’s still a nice sentiment.

            Finally, Moses climbs to the top of a mountain as God instructs him, sees all the lands promised to them from the time of Abraham, and dies.  The people grieve for 30 days, then Joshua is filled with wisdom and takes control of the camp to prepare for the invasion of the promised land.

Day 66 Deuteronomy 28-29

            After a quick round of descriptions of the amazing blessings God will bestow upon everyone who follows the law, He continues with a much longer section outlining the terrible wrath you incur for not following the law.  Good little Israelites will get bounteous harvests and leisure time, land and children to continue their line.  Bad Israelites will be conquered and enslaved, way worse than they had it in Egypt.  They’ll crawl back to Egypt to try to sell themselves as slaves just to survive but the Egyptians won’t buy them.  You buy a house and watch it be destroyed.  You become engaged to a nice girl and she’s raped.  Your animals are stolen and slaughtered by your enemies; you don’t get any of the meat.  Even the gentlest and noblest will be so desperate they will eat their own children.

            In 28:49 God describes a nation swooping down like an eagle and taking over everything with no sympathy for anyone.  The description it gives sounds to me like the kind of officious, impersonal conquest the Roman Empire was known for.  The symbol of the emperor himself was an eagle.  That’s not necessarily connected, but it’s kind of interesting to speculate on isn’t it?

            Moses rounds up all the Israelites and gives them a little pep talk reminding them of some of the things God has done over the past fifty years as well as His covenant with Abraham and all of their responsibilities to God under their covenants.  Don’t screw this up guys.

Day 52 Numbers 26-27

            God ordered another census taken.  There are still around 600,000 Israelites even with all the plagues and failed battle plans and various punishments.  God says that all the land they receive once they’re allowed into the promised land is to be divided up according to family sizes.

            They must be getting close to entering the promised land because that census isn’t the only preparation being made.  God tells Moses that he’s going to die before too long, (Moses, not God) and he and Aaron sinned back at that well a couple chapters ago, so he can’t enter the holy land with his people.  He can go up to a mountain top and see the land, but he must then come down and announce his successor.  His successor will be Joshua, one of the scouts who went into Canaan before and said that they could conquer it even though all the people were huge fighters and lived in fortified cities.  Caleb also said that, but I guess Joshua did it better, so he’s the new leader.

            While all this is happening, some sisters come to Moses saying their father has died and they have no brothers, but they feel like they should still get their father’s portion of the inheritance when they get to Canaan.  Moses goes to God about it and God tells him that any time that happens daughters can inherit.  If there were no daughters, the inheritance would go to the brothers.  If there are no brothers, then to uncles, and then basically the closest family member available after that.

Day 51 Numbers 23-25

            Balaam is brought to several hilltops around Jericho and the Jordan river where he could see the Israelite camp so that he could curse them.  Much to the chagrin of Balak and his people, Balaam kept blessing the Israelites every time he opened his mouth to prophecy.  He kept trying to explain that he doesn’t have any power to bless or curse anybody, but only repeat what God says.  After seven different ceremonies, Balaam has blessed Israel three times and systematically cursed every one of the other nations in the area, saying that Israel is going to destroy them.

            I think that at least some of these leaders he’s talking to must be descendants of Ishmael.  I’d like to see a chart or something that lays that out.

            While the Israelites are camped out near the Moabites, some of the men begin fraternizing with Moabite women.  I’m not sure if that’s allowed under the law or not, since the Moabite women aren’t under the dominion of any Israelite men, I’m not sure that there’s any rules against fornicating with them,

            The foreign women convince Israelite men to worship their Moabite Gods though, which infuriates God.  God sends an awful plague until Moses declares that every man who’s been consorting with the Moabites must be put to death.  While everyone’s praying about this around the entrance to the tent of meeting, someone who didn’t get the memo actually brings a Moabite woman into camp.  Eleazer sees them and grabs a spear.  He follows them all the way to the mans tent and then stabs the spear through the both of them.

            God makes a covenant with Eleazer to make his line a holy line of priests because his zeal was most comparable to the Lord’s zeal when it comes to enforcing the law.

Day 17 Genesis, no wait Exodus 1-3

One book down, 65 more to go.

Many years after the generation of Jacob’s twelve sons, the Israelite people are multiplying like rabbits in Egypt. Oh, they’re Israelites now because they are all descended from Israel, God’s new name for Jacob. Everyone still knows which of Jacob’s sons they’re descended from though so the tribes are distinctly formed.

A new pharaoh has come to power, somehow without knowing anything about Joseph or what he did. All he knows is that there’s a big group of people out towards the border who refuse to integrate into Egyptian society and that poses a major threat to national security. Being a reasonable, rational ruler, his first instinct was to conquer all of the Israelites and hold them in brutal slavery to thin them out some. This pharaoh didn’t take into account though, when he took away all the Israelites’’ possessions and freedoms that there still was and always would be one free, universal form of entertainment through all the world through all of history. The Israelites seemed to be multiplying even faster now.

In a little bit of a panic, Pharaoh ordered some Hebrew midwives to start killing baby boys, and only allowing Israelite girls to live, which, by the way, is a terrible way to thin out a population anyway. They summarily ignored that order and fed Pharaoh a line about how Israelite women have babies too fast and they can’t get to them in time. Pharaoh then ordered all the people of Egypt to just start throwing baby Israelite boys into the Nile. Remember now, these are the measures Pharaoh is taking to prevent the Israelites from rising up against him. Brilliant.

A Levite woman tricks an Egyptian princess into adopting her son Moses, so he avoids being thrown in the river and gets to live in the palace once he’s old enough to leave his mother. His time there is cut short though when he ventures out one day and sees a slave-driver beating an Israelite. Moses looks around and doesn’t see anyone so he murders the slave-driver and buries him in the sand. He thinks he was pretty sneaky, but he talks to some Israelite men later and realizes that he’s an idiot and everyone knows about what he did. He freaks out and runs away, which turns out to be pretty prescient because Pharaoh wants to arrest him and then kill him soon after.

Moses escapes to Midian, which most people seem to agree is right around the western-most point of Saudi Arabia. There, he helped out some sisters trying to water their sheep at a well and was taken in by their father, a priest of Midian. He married one of the girls and integrated himself into the nomadic little Midianite camp, but one day he came across a bush that was on fire, but not consumed by the flames. When he got close to it God spoke to him and identified himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It sounds like God had kind of faded away for the last few decades because Moses says that no one will believe he spoke to Him and mentions that everyone worships many gods now. God tells him not to worry so much and to go back to Egypt and tell the Pharaoh that He had commanded that all the Israelites needed to go out into the desert for three days to offer sacrifices and praise to God. This was going to be a lie that Moses was to deliver. Then he was supposed to round up all the Israelites and run away. Even though it seemed like kind of a flimsy plan at a glance, to promise Pharoah that they’d be right back and then make a break for it once he wasn’t looking, God assured Moses that He would back him up and everything would work out.