Drunk With Blood (16 page)
Judges 21.10-14
Estimated Number Killed: 4,000
People of Jabeshgilead
God’s 56th killing
was a God-inspired civil war between the tribe of Benjamin and the other Israelites. It was God’s way of dealing with that messy affair involving the Levite and his concubine.
As you’ll recall, God told the Israelites to fight the Benjamites three times. In the first two battles, the Israelites were defeated and 40,000 of their soldiers were killed. But the third time “God smote Benjamin,”
killing 25
,100 of them. But 600 Benjamites survived.
But six hundred [Benjamite] men turned and fled to the wilderness unto the rock Rimmon, and abode in the rock Rimmon four months. Judges 20.47
After the battle, the Israelites killed everything (human and animal) in every Benjamite village, town, and city and then burned everything to the ground.
The men of Israel turned again upon the children of Benjamin, and smote them with the edge of the sword, as well the men of every city, as the beast, and all that came to hand: also they set on fire all the cities that they came to. 20.48
Then they remembered the 600 surviving Benjamite soldiers.
Where the heck were these guys going to find wives? The non-Benjamites killed all the Benjamite women (
56
) and swore to God that none of them would “give” their daughters to any Benjamite.
Now the men of Israel had sworn in Mizpeh, saying, There shall not any of us give his daughter unto Benjamin to wife. 21.1
Then they thought of a great solution. They’d check the records of the Mizpeh meeting and see who didn’t show up when they got a body part in the mail.
They said, What one is there of the tribes of Israel that came not up to Mizpeh to the LORD? And, behold, there came none to the camp from Jabeshgilead to the assembly. 21.8
It turned out that Jabeshgilead was absent. So they sent 12,000 soldiers to Jabeshgilead to kill everyone in town except for the virgin women. That produced 400 virgins, which they delivered to the Benjamite survivors at the rock Rimmon.
The congregation sent thither twelve thousand men of the valiantest, and commanded them, saying, Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the children. And they found among the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead four hundred young virgins, that had known no man by lying with any male ... and they gave them wives which they had saved alive of the women of Jabeshgilead. 21.10-14
But darn! There were 600 Benjamites, so they were still 200 virgins short. Where the fuck are they going to find 200 more virgins?
Well, someone heard about this dancing festival that they had at Shiloh each year. So they told the remaining 200 Benjamite men without virgins to hide in the bushes and catch the Shiloh girls when they came out to dance.
Therefore they commanded the children of Benjamin, saying, Go and lie in wait in the vineyards ... And … if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in dances, then come ye out of the vineyards, and catch you every man his wife of the daughters of Shiloh ... And the children of Benjamin did so, and took them wives, according to their number, of them that danced, whom they caught. 21.20-23
So each of the 600 surviving Benjamite soldiers got a virgin and everything worked out according to God’s plan.
(I figured there were at least 10 children, men, and non-virgin women for every virgin woman in Jabeshgilead. If so, then 4000 were killed to get the 400 virgin women for the surviving Benjamites.)
1 Samuel 4.2-11
Number Killed: 34,002
Hophni, Phinehas and 34,000 Israelite soldiers
There was an old priest name Eli, who had two sons, Hophni and Phinehas. (This is another Phinehas, not God’s hero from
killing 25
.) Like Eli, his sons were priests, but they were bad priests who didn’t know God, stole meat from burnt offerings, and had sex with women at the door of the tabernacle.
The sons of Eli were sons of Belial; they knew not the LORD. 1 Samuel 2.12
If any man said unto him, Let them not fail to burn the fat presently, and then take as much as thy soul desireth; then he would answer him, Nay; but thou shalt give it me now: and if not, I will take it by force. 2.16
Eli … heard all that his sons did … how they lay with the women that assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. 2.22
Eli talked to his sons about it and tried to get them to change their ways, but they wouldn’t listen to him since God had already decided to kill them.
They hearkened not unto the voice of their father, because the LORD would slay them. 2.25
Before killing Eli’s sons, though, God tormented Eli a bit. First, a “man of God” tells Eli that God will “consume his eyes” and “grieve his heart” and make sure that all of his descendants die young.
A man of God ... said unto him, Thus saith the LORD ... I will cut off thine arm... There shall not be an old man in thine house for ever ... I shall ... consume thine eyes and ... grieve thine heart. 2.27-33
Then, just in case the first message didn’t get through, God sends another one to Eli through the boy prophet, Samuel. It takes God three tries to deliver the message, but he finally does. And it’s the same nasty message: God will make everyone’s ears tingle by punishing all of Eli’s unborn descendants for the sins of his sons.
The LORD said to Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle. I will perform against Eli all things which I have spoken … I will judge his house for ever … because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not. 3.11-13
Samuel delivers the message to Eli and he responds the way believers always do. (God can do whatever he wants—however absurd, cruel, or unjust—and they will call it good.)
It is the LORD: let him do what seemeth him good. 3.18
So now God had to figure out how he was going to kill Eli’s sons.
And that’s where the Philistines came in. God used them to kill Eli’s sons, along with 34,000 Israelite soldiers.
In the first battle, the Israelites lost 4000 men.
The Philistines put themselves in array against Israel: and when they joined battle, Israel was smitten before the Philistines: and they slew of the army in the field about four thousand men. 4.2
Which surprised the heck out of the Israelites, since God was supposed to be on their side.
So they went to get the ark of the covenant, figuring it would protect them from the Philistines.
When the people were come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, Wherefore hath the LORD smitten us to day before the Philistines? Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of … that … it may save us out of the hand of our enemies. 4.3
Along with the ark, they also got Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phinehas.
So the people sent to Shiloh, that they might bring from thence the ark of the covenant of the LORD … and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God. 4.4
When the ark came to the Israelites’ camp, they all shouted at once, causing an earthquake.
When the ark of the covenant of the LORD came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again. 4.5
The earth shook so much that the Philistines felt it at their camp, and they knew just what it meant. God was with the Israelites and he was on their side.
The Philistines were afraid, for they said, God is come into the camp. And they said, Woe unto us! for there hath not been such a thing heretofore. 4.7
The Philistines had heard what God did to the Egyptians and they were afraid that now he’d do it to them. So they all said together: “Woe unto us.”
Woe unto us! who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty Gods? these are the Gods that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness. 4.8
Then they snapped out of it and started to act like Philistines again, and killed another 30,000 Israelites.
The Philistines fought, and Israel was smitten, and they fled every man into his tent: and there was a very great slaughter; for there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen. 4.10
And, in the process, the Philistines stole the ark of God and also killed Eli’s sons.
The ark of God was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain. 4.11
Just as God said he would do in 1 Samuel 2.25
(I gave God credit for 34,002, 34,000 Israelite soldiers and Eli’s two sons.)
1 Samuel 5.6-12
Estimated Number Killed: 3,000
Philistines
You may have noticed at the end of the last killing (
58
), that the Philistines stole the ark of the covenant from the Israelites. And that’s when their troubles really began.
The Philistines brought the ark to Ashdod and set it up next to their god, Dagon.
The Philistines took the ark of God ... unto Ashdod ... into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon. 1 Samuel 5.1-2
The next morning Dagon had fallen on his face.
When they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face. 5.3
So they put Dagon back in his place, but the next morning he had fallen down again, and this time his head and hands had fallen off, so he was no more than a stump.
When they arose early on the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left to him. 5.4
Then God started to get nasty. He destroyed the people of Asdod and smote those that survived with hemorrhoids.
But the hand of the LORD was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods (hemorrhoids). 5.6
So the people of Ashdod decided to send the ark to another Philistine city: Gath.
What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel? And they answered, Let the ark of the God of Israel be carried about unto Gath. And they carried the ark of the God of Israel about thither. 5.8
And then God smote the people of Gath, the small and the great, with hemorrhoids in their secret parts.
The hand of the LORD was against the city with a very great destruction: and he smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had emerods in their secret parts. 5.9
After that, what do you think the Gathites did with God’s ark? They sent it to Ekron.
Therefore they sent the ark of God to Ekron. 5.10
When the ark arrived at Ekron, God did the usual thing: he killed most of the people and gave the rest hemorrhoids.
There was a deadly destruction throughout all the city; the hand of God was very heavy there. And the men that died not were smitten with the emerods: and the cry of the city went up to heaven. 5.11-12
The Bible doesn’t say how many people God killed in Ashdod, Gath, and Ekron. So I’ll just call it 3000, 1000 from each city.
1 Samuel 6.19
Number Killed: 50,070
Bethshemeshites
In his last killing (
59
), God was busy fashioning hemorrhoids and placing them in the Philistines’ secret parts. Stuff like that gets annoying after a while.
So the Philistines asked their priests how they can get God to stop. The priests told them to make five golden hemorrhoids and five golden mice as trespass offerings, and put the ark and the offerings in a cart pulled by two cows. Then let the cows go wherever they choose. If they go toward Bethshemesh, then it was God who was striking the people with hemorrhoids in their secret parts.
The Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying, What shall we do to the ark of the LORD? And they said, If ye send away the ark of the God of Israel, send it not empty; but … return him a trespass offering: then ye shall be healed … What shall be the trespass offering? They answered, Five golden emerods, and five golden mice … take the ark of the LORD, and lay it upon the cart; and put the … trespass offering … and send it away … And see, if it goeth up by the way of his own coast to Bethshemesh, then he hath done us this great evil: but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that smote us: it was a chance that happened to us. 1 Samuel 6.2-9
Since that sounded like a reasonable plan, that’s what they did. And the cows headed straight for Bethshemesh “and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left.”
They laid the ark of the LORD upon the cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold and the images of their emerods. And the kine took the straight way to the way of Bethshemesh, and went along the highway, lowing as they went, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left. 6.11-12
So the world now knows for sure that it was God who killed the Philistine people by putting hemorrhoids in their secret parts.
That would have been a happy ending, I suppose, except some of the Bethshemeshites looked into the ark. So God had to kill 50,070 of them.
He smote the men of Bethshemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men: and the people lamented, because the LORD had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter. 6.19
Stories like this can only be found in the Bible.