The Slaughter of the Ammonites (1 Samuel, Chapter 11)

David Punishing the Ammonites. By Gustave Dore, created in the 1800s

Strange things start brewing when an Ammonite named Nahash meets up with the elders of Judah.  The elders offer a peace treaty and an alliance (i.e. a covenant), and Nahash essentially says, "We can have peace if you allow me to pluck out each of your right eyes."

The elders are taken aback, and said, "Hm, give us seven days.  If no one wants to save us, then we'll come to you."

The elders go back to the city and tell the inhabitants of their plight, to which they all cry.

The elders then run to King Saul, who gets angry (actually, God gets angry and that's why Saul gets angry) and thus Saul's first task as king will be dealing with the Ammonites.

Saul basically rounded up 30,000 Israelites from Judah and then laid waste to 300,000 Ammonites, "slaying the Ammonites until the heat of the day."  The Ammonites survivors were so few and scattered about that no two were left together.

Afterward, Saul enters Israel (where the Ammonites were), and renews the kingdom in Gilgal.  A celebration of the new king of Israel then ensued, with God knows how many sacrifices, and all the men had fun.  Presumably, the women had to clean up after them.  Wow, not much changed after so many thousands of years!

Jephtha's Daughter (Judges, Chapter 11) - History repeats itself.  You know what else repeats itself?  The Bible.

Judges, Chapter 11 is basically the same struggle to control land that has been spoken of in almost every chapter of the Old Testament so far.  The Israelites get screwed, a new holy man rises up and leads them to conquer, the new guy dies, the Israelites fall back into their pagan ways, and then they get screwed.  It's a vicious cycle.

This time the holy warrior is Jephthah, a family man with a wife and a daughter.  He conquers, with the help of Yahweh, a number of nations (i.e. Sihon), and people (i.e. the children of Ammon).  It's with the Ammonites that probably one of the most tragic stories appear in the Bible.


Jephthah makes an oath to God:  "Whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering."


Remember, he's a family man.  He's got a wife and a daughter.  There's not much else that would come out to greet him, unless he was hoping for Fido.  Or maybe he was hoping it was his wife?!?


So after he massacres the Ammonites, he returns home and not surprisingly, his DAUGHTER comes out to greet him.  Any family man knows what it's like, right?  You come home from work, your daughter sees you, and runs toward you yelling, "Daddy!  Daddy!" and then she leaps on you and you pick her up.  That's my experience, at least, because my daughter's still young.

I'm not sure how hold Jephthah's daughter is, but she's probably a teenager because though she agreed to what her father promised to do, she asked first that she go up to the mountains for two months to mourn her virginity.  That's right.  She was more concerned about her virginity.  She came back two months later, and though apologists try to say that was all there was to it, the Bible says, "And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man."


Any honest person can plainly see that Jephthah sacrificed his daughter to Yahweh, as payment for the victory over the Ammonites.  Some apologists do some crazy mental gymnastics and spin doctoring to get out of the mess that this story wreaks upon their "worldview", but the Bible is plain.  Jephthah made a vow to offer a burnt offering to Yahweh, and "he did with her according to his vow which he vowed."

 

Deuteronomy, Chapter 23 has more sets of obscure rules.  Here they are:

Preserving the Male Genetic Line

1. A man whose testicles are injured must not be admitted into the congregation of Yahweh.

2. Bastards (male children without fathers) cannot be admitted into the congregation of Yahweh.

3. Moabites and Ammonites may never be admitted into the congregation of Yahweh, even later generations.

4. But the third generation of Edomites and Egyptians can be admitted into the congregation of Yahweh.

5. Any male who has a wet dream is unclean until the evening (and after he's washed himself).

These four rules seem to be geared toward assuring that the male Israelite genetic line is preserved. Men with injured testicles cannot reproduce and bastards can not carry their family line.  Wet dreams, I'm not sure but I suppose they thought it was 'unclean', which I suppose it is.  But to wait until nighttime to come back to the camp?

The Moabites and Ammonites dared to go to resist the Israelites, but the Edomites are the descendents of Esau, who was the brother of Jacob, one of the founders of the Israelite people.  So, the logic is that the Edomites are technically related to the Israelites.

The mercy to the Egyptians follows different reasons, though.  It is because the Israelites, even though they were in captivity by the Egyptians, were "strangers in their land."  Maybe someone else can explain the reasons in that one.

DooDoo-Ronomy

So that Yahweh doesn't step in human feces, it is advised in Deut. 23:12-14 to carry a shovel with you and poop outside of the camp.  Some people call this Doodooronomy.  This raises an interesting question, did the Israelites think Yahweh has a physical body that can actually step on crap?

Freeing the Slaves

Here's a nice rule.  Deuteronomy 23:15-16 says that if a slave runs away from his master, the Israelite shouldn't return the slave, but rather let him stay with him in his house.

Intolerance in the Bible

Whores, Dogs, and Sodomites shouldn't be allowed inside the house.  Whores and Sodomites I understand; but dogs?  Dogs is the Israelites' derogatory word for homosexual.  Essentially, it's like saying, "Don't let those flaming faggots live in your house!"