wolfbiblemoon

Mostly a recap chapter about the journey the Israelites took in the wilderness with some details of how they should go about dividing the land of Canaan between themselves now they've driven the Canaanites out.

Yet more animal sacrifice and some misogynistic rules.

* Hard to believe that God has thought of some more situations and dates on which large numbers of animals should be sacrificed in particular ways. These people were just complaining about a lack of food. Today I happened to see parts of the Charlton Heston film The Ten Commandments and, as I'd expected, none of the biblical passages demanding these sacrifices are mentioned, despite the fact that all this stuff appears to be very important to God.

* So some women got a few property/inheritance rights in the last few chapters, in chapter 30 we are told that a woman can only make an oath or vow if her husband or father permits it, lovely.

More sacrifice, more plague and more xenophobia.

* That guy who talks to God and his donkey from the previous verses will talk to God for you if you build 7 altars and sacrifice 2 animals on each. This happens 3 times for the same man and each time just spouts parables about how great the Israelites are and that God has blessed them after talking to God on his own with no witnesses.

* The Israelites get excited by the women in a city they stay in and get in trouble for whoring. So 24,000 of God's chosen people are killed with a plague, the only reason more weren't killed is because an Israelite and one of the daughters of a prince of the city are killed with a javelin. God likes this so much that the man who killed them is rewarded with a priesthood.

More emphasis on the importance of proper animal sacrifice and even Moses and Aaron fall foul of God occasionally.

* All this animal sacrifice stuff and the fact that noone who follows the Abrahamic religions does them anymore just goes to show that they do think that it is possible for their religion to evolve, if only they'd drop a few more of the out of date old testament ideas.

* God's people are dying of thirst in the desert and are about to start another rebellion so God tries to be all impressive and make water come from a rock in front of them, but Moses messes it up by appearing to bring the water himself so Moses will not be allowed to enter the promised land.

* Aaron is now dead, from exposure apparently, his clothes were all removed while up a mountain, can't be healthy for an old man.

God sends spies to check on the land he's promised to his people (because he can't possibly see it himself), and concocts some more rules.

* Apparently there are giants in the land of Canaan, and those spies who came back and were negative about the Isrealites' chances of beating the giants are killed. No dissension in God's congregation.

* God has promised that noone over the age of 20 will survive the journey through the wilderness, he only didn't kill everybody because Moses convinced him that he'd look bad in the eyes of the Egyptians because it'd seem like he had killed them all because he'd failed to take them to their promised land. Can't go losing face in front of the other gods now can we.

* And now more rules about animal sacrifice, just after they were complaining that they didn't have any meat to eat. God has a sick sense of humour.

After making his people build a tabernacle with tonnes of gold, silver and jewels, God now makes them all follow a cloud across the wilderness, bringing the tabernacle with them as they go.

* The whole cloud following thing is explained in a typically biblical roundabout way, could've just said that as long as the cloud sat above the tabernacle, which could be for a couple of days or for several years, then the people should stay in their camp but as soon as it moves away then the people should follow and bring their camp with them till the cloud stops again. But instead it repeats the instructions to follow the moving cloud several times, with constant reminders to uphold the commandments.

More leper bigotry, how to deal with a cheating wife and instructions for taking a vow to prove yourself to the lord.

* Lepers and people with other ailments are to be thrown out of the community and left to fend for themselves, another prime example of God's boundless compassion for all people.

* The biblical language is a little hard to decipher, but it seems that chapter 5 says that if a man suspects his wife of cheating, the priest will make her drink 'bitter water' which will cause an abortion if she did cheat but will not harm her if she didn't. The water is just holy water and dust so I would guess that in practice no women were ever proven to be cheating on their husbands using this method.

* The Lord will give special blessings to anyone who goes into isolation, swears off all grape products and grows their hair for an indeterminate length of time before sacrificing another bunch of innocent animals.

OK, so this book is apparently called numbers because we are constantly bombarded with amazingly unbelievable figures.

* It seems that the population of the Israelites has expanded to an impossible level in a relatively short space of time, especially considering the fact that they were subjected to God's wrath a short while ago for not following God's rules that they didn't yet know. I think someone is over exaggerating the population for some reason.