Assaulting the Jebusites and Philistines (2 Samuel, Chapter 5)

While waiting in the mulberry trees, King David and his troops awaits the sound of God 

moving through the trees before advancing upon the hapless Philistines.

Image from the Jim Bakker Show Blog

2 Samuel, Chapter 5 - This chapter is about King David rousing his troops and the subsequent assaults and victories on the Jebusites and the Philistines, along with some of the repression done by the Israelites to keep these people in line.

It starts off with some grumbling from the Jebusites, who are not a fan of David and don't want him around.  So, David takes the Jebusite stronghold of Zion, which becomes the City of David.  He rallies the people to his cause, saying in the eighth verse: "Whoever gets out of the gutter and kills the Jebusites, and the lame and blind whom I hate, that person shall be made a captain (in the army)."

As King David established his kingdom and it grew, David gathers more wives and concubines.  In other words, David has his own harem!  It doesn't say how many, but they started getting pregnant real quick.

Word of King David's rising kingdom came to the nearby Philistines, who decided to seek him out.  It isn't clear in the King James version if they were seeking him out for military means, or just to meet the new king. But what happens is that after the Philistines come and camp in the nearby valley of Rephaim, David inquires in Yahweh (aka God) what he should do.  Yahweh, of course, wants David to slaughter all the Philistines.  God and David both destroy the Philistines in the valley of Rephaim.

However, more Philistines came and once again camped in the valley.  So, God lets David in on a bit of strategy.  He advises David and his troops to go around the Philistine encampment into a grove of mulberry trees, there to await "the sound of a going" in the tops of the mulberry trees (5:23).  David follows the advice and waits patiently until indeed a rustling was heard in the trees.  He gave the orders to advance upon the Philistines and left death in his wake.

Amalekites - the first zombies? (1 Samuel Chapter 30)

Above: Fighting the Amalekites 

For some reason, ALL my photos and images were removed from this and other blogs.  So, I was a bit discouraged for a bit.  But, the show must go on.


1 Samuel, Chapter 30 - This chapter is like the cherry on the cake for 1 Samuel.  The Amalekites, who have been exterminated TWICE in this book (Chapters 15 and 17), show up again and get exterminated completely yet again.

The chapter opens up with an invasion from the Amalekites, who assault the town of Ziklag where David lives, and even make off with David's two wives as prisoners.  Apparently the people in the town also want to stone David because while everyone was distraught because of their sons and daughters, David had steeled himself in his relationship with Yahweh (aka God).  I know what you're thinking; that's not a good reason to stone someone. But remember, this is the Bronze Age, folks!  This is like the Wild West on steroids.

Well, David gets a hold of the priestly vest called an "ephod", dons it, and after encountering a starving Egyptian, commences to slaughter the Amalekites one more time, with only 400 men I might add!

So why, and how, do the Amalekites keep returning?  I haven't a clue.  Simple logic tells me that someone is bullshitting me here.  But let us assume the Bible is accurate and can not be questioned, which seems to be the main reason why religion is so strong in our society in the first place.

If they were killed, but came back a second time, obviously they must not have died.  But if they were killed a second time, and came back - I don't know about you, but you know what I think?

Zombies!!!

Zombies aren't that far-fetched for that era.  The Epic of Gilgamesh, which actually predates much of the Old Testament, and was probably the model for much of its earlier mythology (i.e. the Creation and Flood myths), writes this:

I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld,

I will smash the door posts, and leave the doors flat down,

and will let the dead go up to eat the living!

And the dead will outnumber the living!

And I don't know about you - but I can't wait until The Walking Dead starts up again this October!

Saul bumbles again (1 Samuel, Chapter 15)

Saul grabs Samuel's robe, and accidentally tears it (15:27).

Image from HTML Bible

Chapter 15 is pretty straight forward.  Basically, God (aka Yahweh) remembers that Amalekites did some pretty mean things to the Israelites a few hundred years ago, so He orders that they should be exterminated - elderly, men, women, children, infants, livestock, EVERYTHING).

Saul does a few things wrong however, he actually let a group of people called the Kenites go, because they were actually kind to the Israelites even though they were living with the Amalekites.  I don't think this is what got Yahweh pissed off, though.  What pissed Yahweh off was that Saul didn't kill everyone.

Saul had the gall to let the Amalekite king live (though all other Amalekites were slaughtered - men, women, children), and Saul decided to keep the best of the animals.

This pissed Yahweh off to no end, and He even said that He regretted making Saul a king.  Imagine that - God has regrets!

Now, to be honest, Saul did this because the people asked.  But, this is not what the Supreme Leader asked, via His spokesperson Samuel.

When Samuel learned that Saul had not followed the God's commands to the letter, He chewed out the king, in a display that showed who the real power was.  The power isn't the king, who is a secular authority of sorts, but through the priesthood and especially via Samuel.  In the picture above, Saul is shamed for his bad behavior and grabs the mantle of Samuel's cloak, accidentally tearing it.

After tearing the cloak, Samuel sees symbolism in it and says that God has torn the Kingdom of Israel away from you, Saul, and has given it to your neighbor.

The chapter ends in a final morbid scene.  Saul, who has been stripped of his kingship, approaches King Agag of the Amalekites - their last surviving member.  "Surely, the bitterness of death has passed," said Agag.

Saul replies, "As the sword has made women childless, so too will your mother (who is probably dead by now) be childless among women."  With that, Saul cut Agag into many pieces.

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!

The Tribe of Benjamin's emblem.

Image from S.S. Teacher Edition: Holy Bible, 1896

Keeping up the Benjamins (Judges, Chapter 21) - Prior to Chapter 20, the Israelites had formed a loose confederation of 12 tribes which were ruled by a council of judges.  After the events of Chapter 20 at the Battle of Gibeah, the tribe of Benjamin was decimated because they had tried to either kill, or gangrape, one of the other Israelite men, a Levite.   It's not clear whether they wanted to kill or gangrape him, but it sounds similar to the story of Noah and I'm leaning toward gangrape.

Instead, the Benjamite men gangraped the man's concubine.  After the gangrape, the Israelite man cut his wife up into pieces and sent the pieces to different parts of the confederation of tribes, and the tribes responded by basically destroying the Benjamins.  If you look at a map of the 12 tribes of Israel, the Benjamins (Benjaminites?) were a little smudge right smack in the middle of all the other tribes!  Though, they did have the city of Jerusalem within their boundaries.

After the civil war, the remnants of the Benjamites were allowed to live on, but all their women and children had been exterminated.  Since none of the Israelites wanted to give their daughters to be wives to the Benjamites, the judges  decided to give the Benjamites a parting gift -which was to essentially invade neighboring tribes, annihilate their entire population save for women "who had not lain with man".

And that's what Chapter 21 is all about - the decision and the carrying out of a mission.  Invade nearby Jabeshgilead, destroy the population, and take their virgin daughters as wives for the Benjamites.

Again, we are confronted with a stark contrast to what modern day religionists try to portray their God to be - the origin of morality.  By far, what we are witnessing in the Old Testament is merely the record-keeping of an ancient culture - a primary source.  The OT is valuable in that sense, as it preserves the odd behaviors, superstitions, and hangups of at least one group of our ancient ancestors - those men who lived long ago in the arid lands which we now associate with Israel.

Now, on to the Book of Ruth, which promises to be a mercifully short book.

The Destruction of Ai and the Lynching of a King (Joshua 8):  What started out as an intriguing spy story is becoming a tale of genocide, written by its perpetrators.  Chapter 8 is about how the Israelites ambushed the Ai army; slaughtered them; slaughtered the inhabitants of the city; hung their king on a tree; and then killed a bunch of livestock as an animal sacrifice.

I remember seeing a Facebook page, now long deleted by FB, of a Hispanic group of teens and young adults that mutilated dogs and cats just for the heck of it.  They'd pose with the dismembered carcasses of dogs and cats in the background.  The Book of Joshua reminds me of that.  Except, I don't think the Israelites were responsible for the demise of Ai.

Most archaeologists would say that Ai was a pile of ruins even before the Israelites existed.  So, that would make this horrific tale only the yarns spun from the imaginations of a group desert barbarians in the Bronze Age, which makes sense.  When the Israelites did arise as an actual distinguishable society, they were using stories like this one, the Exodus, and Genesis to make sense of the world around them.  It was the science of the day.  Of course, it was bad science but it did serve the same function - an explanation of phenomena.

"Why is there an abandoned city over there?" 

The desert priests did not know the answer, so they made it up.  After all, to them and to the Israelites the ruins had to have something to do with the great mythic heroes of their own past.