Drunk With Blood (9 page)

Numbers 21.6

Estimated Number Killed: 100

Israelites

When it comes to this Bible story, there are only two kinds of believers: those who have never heard of it, and those who are embarrassed by it.

Here’s the story.

The Israelites began to complain about the lack of food and water.

The people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread. Numbers 21.5

So God sent fiery serpents to bite the people.

The LORD sent fiery serpents among the people. 21.6a

And many of the people died.

And they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. 21.6b

Then the people apologized to Moses and God for complaining, asking Moses to do something to get rid of God’s nasty fiery serpents.

Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. 21.7

God told Moses what to do. Make a fiery serpent out of brass (they had lots of that lying around) and put it on a pole. Then when a bitten person looks at it, he or she won’t die. (Only God could come up with a plan like that!)

The LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. 21.8

So Moses made a brass snake and put it on a pole. And it worked just like God said it would.

Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. 21.9

Now that’s a lot more entertaining than a damned holy war massacre, isn’t it?

(Numbers 21.6 says that “much of the people died.” But how much is much? I guessed 100.)

Numbers 25.7-9

Number Killed: 24,002

Interracial couple and 24,000 plague victims

This is really a strange one, and I’m not sure what to do with it.

It all happens in the first few verses of Numbers 25, right after the story about Balaam’s talking donkey.

It begins with the people having sex with the daughters of Moab.

The people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. Numbers 25.1

After sex, they ate dinner with them and worshiped their gods.

They called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods: and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods. 25.2

This angered God so much that he told Moses to kill all the leaders and hang their dead bodies up on trees so that he wouldn’t be so angry anymore.

The anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel. And the LORD said unto Moses, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the LORD against the sun, that the fierce anger of the LORD may be turned away from Israel. 25.3-4

Now this probably wasn’t as bad as the King James Version makes it sound. “Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun” sounds like God told Moses to cut off peoples’ heads and hang the heads on trees. That would be kind of nasty.

But no. God just wanted Moses to kill the leaders (“the heads of the people”) and hang their dead bodies on trees out in the sunshine so “that the fierce anger of the LORD may be turned away from Israel.” That’s not nearly so bad, now is it?

I can’t tell, though, whether Moses did what God asked. Here’s the next verse:

Moses said unto the judges of Israel, Slay ye every one his men that were joined unto Baalpeor. 25.5

Moses told the leaders (judges) to kill everyone who was “joined unto Baalpeor.” I don’t know if being joined to Baalpeor was having sex with the daughters of Moab or not. But clearly Moses wasn’t following orders here. God told him to kill the leaders and hang their bodies on trees; Moses told the leaders to kill the people who were joined to Baalpeor. Different thing entirely, I’d say.

Anyway, I guess neither God’s nor Moses’ plan was executed, because of what happened next:

Behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianitish woman in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. 25.6

And then the real hero of the story shows up. Phinehas. He sees the happy couple and sticks a spear through their bellies (while they were having sex?).

When Phinehas ... saw it, he rose up from among the congregation, and took a javelin in his hand; And he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly. 25.7-8a

This double murder made God so happy that he stopped killing everyone. You see, while Moses was trying to get the leaders to kill people who had sex with Moabite women and God was trying to get Moses to kill the leaders and hang their bodies on trees, God was also busy killing people with a plague.

So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel. And those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand. 25.8b-9

Now God had planned to kill everyone, but he stopped with just 24,000 because of Phinehas’ holy double murder. 

The LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Phinehas …hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy. 25.10-11

[Paul said that only 23,000 died in the plague (1 Corinthians 10.8), but how would he know?]

So you see my problem here, don’t you? How many killings do we have here?

God told Moses to kill the leaders and hang their bodies on trees, but we don’t know whether Moses followed God’s command.

Moses told the leaders to kill whoever had sex with the Moabite women, but we don’t know if his order was carried out either.

Phinehas killed the two people having sex, but we don’t know whether God told him to or not. (Even though God was clearly pleased by the killing. So much, in fact that he quit killing after only 24,000 had died, when he’d planned to kill several million.)

And how many died in the plague? Was it 24,000 as Numbers 25:9 says or 23,000 as it says in 1 Corinthians 10.8?

So how do we keep score here? At least 24,000 people died (23,000 if we believe Paul), but in how many separate killing events? And should God get credit for Phinehas’ double murder?

I’ve decided to count Phinehas’ double murder and God’s plague in God’s killings. God clearly deserves credit for the plague, of course, but the Phinehas’ affair is less clear.

However both Moses and God ordered people to be killed either for having sex with the Midianites or for allowing them to do so (Numbers 25:3-5), and God was so pleased with the Phinehas’ killing that he stopped his own mass murder. So I think God deserves credit for either inspiring or directly ordering Phinehas’ murder of the interracial couple.

So I’m going to ignore Paul and go with 24,002 for this killing.

Numbers 31.17-18

Estimated Number Killed: 200,000

Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, Reba, and Balaam

This is a Bible story that everyone should know.

It begins with God telling Moses to take vengeance on the Midianites. (He doesn’t say for what, but I guess it was for the sex and dinner party that brought on
God’s 25th killing
.)

The LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites. Numbers 31.1-2

So Moses does what he’s told and sends off 12,000 men led by Phinehas (the guy who stopped God from killing everyone by impaling the interracial couple in the last killing) with his “holy instruments” and trumpets.

Moses spake unto the people, saying, Arm some of yourselves unto the war, and let them go against the Midianites, and avenge the LORD of Midian … So there were delivered … twelve thousand armed for war. And Moses sent them to the war, a thousand of every tribe, them and Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, to the war, with the holy instruments, and the trumpets to blow in his hand. 31.3-6

First they killed every male “as the LORD commanded Moses.”

They warred against the Midianites, as the LORD commanded Moses; and they slew all the males. 31.7

Next they killed five kings,

They slew the kings of Midian ... namely, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five kings of Midian. 31.8a

along with Balaam [the nice guy with the talking ass (Numbers 22.28-30)].

Balaam also … they slew with the sword. 31.8b

Then they took the women and children captive, collected their animals and valuables, burned the cities, and returned to Moses.

The children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods. 31.9

But Moses wasn’t pleased. Here’s what he said:

Moses was wroth with the officers ... Have ye saved all the women alive? Behold, these caused the children of Israel ... to commit trespass against the LORD … and there was a plague. 31.14-16

Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. 31.17-18

[You see, it was the Midianite women who had sex with the Israelites (
25
).]

So that’s what they did. They went back and killed all the non-virgin women, keeping the 32,000 virgins alive for themselves. (I’m not sure how they separated the virgins from the non-virgins, but God probably helped out with that.)

The booty, being … thirty and two thousand persons in all, of women that had not known man by lying with him. 31.32-35

Since there were 32,000 virgin women saved alive as booty, I figured there must have been about 200,000 killed in this episode, which would include all of the males (men, boys, babies) and non-virgin females.

Deuteronomy 2.14-16

Estimated Number Killed: 500,000

Israelite soldiers

This is another strange one. For some reason God decided to slowly kill the entire Israelite army.

The space in which we came from Kadeshbarnea, until we were come over the brook Zered, was thirty and eight years; until all the generation of the men of war were wasted out from among the host, as the LORD sware unto them. For indeed the hand of the LORD was against them, to destroy them from among the host, until they were consumed. So … all the men of war were consumed and dead from among the people. Deuteronomy 2.14-16

It’s hard to understand, isn’t it? But it sure sounds like God killed the entire Israelite army—slowly—over a period of 38 years.

It’s not a very impressive killing, though, as God’s killings go. He mostly just waited for them all to die of natural causes. Prostate cancer, heart attack, stroke.

But God claims to have killed them all himself, so I guess we should give him credit. How many old soldiers do you think died because “the hand of the Lord was against them?”

Well, they started off with 603,550 soldiers.

All those that were numbered of the children of Israel … from twenty years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war in Israel … were six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty. Numbers 1.45-46

And the only people that the Bible mentions dying along the way are those that God killed, which total a bit over 50,000. But I suppose some people must have died of natural causes over the 38 year period. So I’ll just say that God killed 500,000 soldiers.

Deuteronomy 2.20-23

Estimated Number Killed: 5,000

Giants

After God kills off the old soldiers in his early retirement program (
27
) and before the new, youthful army begins to kill again for him, he brags a bit about some of his past killings. He is especially proud of knocking off an entire race of giants, the Zamzummim.

That also was accounted a land of giants: giants dwelt therein in old time; and the Ammonites call them Zamzummims; A people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims; but the LORD destroyed them before them; and they succeeded them, and dwelt in their stead. Deuteronomy 2.20-21

There were a few other groups that God also killed that I don’t think I’ve accounted for yet: the Horim, Avim, and the Caphtorim.

As he did to the children of Esau, which dwelt in Seir, when he destroyed the Horims from before them; and they succeeded them, and dwelt in their stead even unto this day: And the Avims which dwelt in Hazerim, even unto Azzah, the Caphtorims, which came forth out of Caphtor, destroyed them, and dwelt in their stead. 2.22-23

The Bible doesn’t say how many were in these groups. So I’ll just guess 5,000 for the lot of them.