God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of The Bible (19 page)

As the dawn unfolded, the Philistines figuratively harnessed themselves together to take the fight to the Israelites once more and despite their earlier stated fears they were victorious once again. More than 30,000 of Israel’s men lay wasted because God wasn’t paying any attention and those fortunate enough to survive the Philistine rout fled. In hasty retreat, the Israelites abandoned the Ark of Covenant, and the enemy captured it.

After the Philistines laid seize to the Ark, they moved it to a city called Ashdod and God was pissed! The Ark was to God, as the Vince Lombardi Trophy is to well, Vince Lombardi.

Not surprisingly, the Ashdod civic leaders were super eager to get rid of the Ark. What is surprising is that the town of Gath agreed to have it moved there. Idiots! And God served up some of his old medicine and afflicted all citizens of Gath, young and old, with an outbreak of tumors. Yes, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s voice plays in my head every time I hear the word ‘tumor’. “It’s not a toooma!” See, I can’t help myself.

Eventually, the Philistines come to their senses and they opt to send the Ark back to Israel, care of donkey-mail, with immediate effect. The Philistines held the Ark for a total of seven months.

The Israelites took receipt of the Ark, plus some compensatory damages demanded by God of the Philistines. Samuel assembled all of Israel at Mizpah to celebrate the return of the Ark of Covenant. The Philistines Intel was on the money yet again and they attacked the Israelites there in an ambush strategy. Whilst Samuel was preparing an animal sacrifice for God, the Philistines chose this moment to unleash hell. But whilst Samuel was ‘asleep at the wheel’, God was wide awake and in a mood for some counter insurgency ‘whoop-ass’:

Samuel led the recapture of all of Israel’s territory that had been annexed by Philistine in the preceding years and, with the Philistines reduced to a rabble, the passage claims they never attacked Israelite territory ever again. But like a nervous seventeen year old, this call proves to be premature. Spoiler alert: The Philistines aren’t done yet!

As Samuel grew old, it became apparent that both his sons were drunks and girly bar aficionados, and therefore unqualified to assume the leadership from him once he had passed. His boys were more interested in cards, women and booze, and had no designs on ruling:

The elders of Israel conveyed their concerns to Samuel regarding his sons and urged Samuel to appoint a King to lead them instead. Samuel did not take kindly to this request but, like all good prophets, he would seek God’s advice before final deliberation on the matter, to which God replied:

Samuel then went to the Israelites and echoed God’s warning that a human king would lead them to ruin and that only God was fit to be the king of the Israelites. The elders, however, were stubborn and continued with their demand:

Samuel could see there was no reasoning with his lot, and wasted no time in granting their God defying demand, and thus Israel would soon hereafter have a king for the first time in its history.

Saul was born the son of Kish, a member of the Benjamite tribe of Israel. It says that Saul was an impressive looking man who stood at least a foot taller than any of his fellow Israelites. A foot taller than all of them! As if he wasn’t. (Sigh)

The narrative of Saul tells us of a story whereby Saul and his slave set out on a search and rescue mission for donkeys that were lost by Saul’s father. A journey that seems extravagantly excessive for a couple of asses, as they wandered across several territories to find them. It is during the later stages of this hunt that Saul’s slave recommends that they approach the ‘man of God’ in the nearby town, who could point them in the right direction, that man being Samuel, of course. The two men enter the town and Samuel greets them.

Now, the day prior to Saul’s arrival in his town, Samuel had received a word from God:

This seems a little contradictory to earlier passages of the Book of Samuel for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Samuel had already led the Israelites to destroying the Philistines and the book stated that all the land had been reclaimed. But now God was insisting that he needed someone to deliver them from the Philistines. Again? Secondly, God had just told Samuel that he will abandon the Israelites if they chose a human king, but now he is saying that ‘he will deliver my people’. This is one heck of a schizophrenic master! Who said that?

As Saul continued his approach towards Samuel, God’s voice boomed down from the heavens once more:

Samuel spends a few moments trying to convince Saul that he has been chosen by God as the first King of Israel. You can imagine the look of utter bewilderment on Saul’s face, can’t you? Here he was wandering around the desert in search of a couple of donkeys, lost and hungry. A stranger taps him on the shoulder and says, “Hey buddy, I just got off the phone with God and guess what, he wants you to be king”. I am sure he never imagined that’s how his day would have panned out when he got out of bed that morning.

Samuel obviously does a pretty good job in selling the gig to Saul, as he accepts the instructions to go to a town called Gibeah. Samuel tells Saul that the following will take place upon his arrival at Gibeah:

As Samuel promises the above does occur and following the events at Gibeah, Samuel instructs all the tribes of Israel to meet at Mizpah. Shortly after, the Israelite towns were awash with speculation and rumors that the purpose of the meeting is to announce the new king, and the Israelites were delirious with anticipatory excitement.

Once all were gathered, Samuel brought Saul out of from the baggage he was hidden in, somewhat like the stripper out of the cake routine minus the boobies, and the people stood with mouths agape, as Saul towered over his new constituents. Proving the corporate adage that tall people get all the good jobs. Samuel spoke:

Then the Israelites shouted in unison: “Long live the king!”

A general named Nahash led the Ammonite army and it besieged an Israelite town called Jabesh. The Israelites, knowing they were vastly outnumbered and outflanked by superior military force, offered a pre-emptive surrender. But the ruthless Nahash would only accept surrender on the condition that he may gouge out the right eye of every citizen of the town. What?

News reached Saul promptly and with an enraged temper he took two of his oxen and cut them to pieces. The bits of flesh he gave to his staff with the message:

The next day, Saul organized his army into three divisions and in the early hours of the morning they broke into the Ammonites camps and exterminated them all, a bloodbath that lasted until the middle of the day. The Ammonites chose the wrong Hebrew to fuck with.

The Israelites rejoiced together and celebrated for many days the victory of Saul and his kingship was confirmed. Enabling the ageing Samuel to retire to the background to see out his final days.

Saul’s early victory proved to be his last and this young wunderkind lost a number of military engagements that infuriated the retired Samuel and more importantly gave God the utter shits. The figurative straw being Saul’s failure to follow God’s command to the full extent by showing mercy to the defeated Amalekites, a story that echoes earlier tales of vengeful ethnic annihilation.

God orders Saul to destroy the last remaining Amalekites, in retribution for what they had done to the Israelites soon after they fled Egypt:

God the ‘baby killer’, at it again!

Saul did as was commanded by God, and all Amalekites were killed by the sword. Mission completed? Wrong. Saul had allowed the cattle to be spared as they were in good condition and could provide food and labor for his people. Which seems like a sound decision by any measurement of rationality. Well, didn’t God get his ‘y-front knickers’ in a knot over this belligerent act of disobedience, because nothing pisses God off more than the survival of innocent bystanders. God promptly summoned the dutiful Samuel and said to him:

Samuel tracked Saul down and lambasted him for not completely destroying everything that was Amalekite and informed him that his kingship would come to an end soon, telling him:

Saul just found out the hard way that his new boss, God, was not looking for the virtues of compassion, or mercy as part of the job description.

God tells Samuel to quit beating himself up over the decision to anoint Saul as king and get on with the task of finding a replacement, and pronto. God leads Samuel to a man from Bethlehem who goes by the name of Jesse. This man Jesse had eight sons and God suggests to Samuel that one of these eight will be the new king, but offers no more insight than that.

Samuel finds Jesse, tells him of God’s will and obligingly the father parades seven of his sons for Samuel to inspect. Samuel unimpressed by the appearance of any of the boys says to Jesse, “Are these all the sons you have?” Jesse replied that he had one other son, but he was the youngest and was busy tending to the sheep. Samuel states that he will not leave until he has had the opportunity to view the eighth and youngest child.

Moments later in walked young David, small in stature and ruddy in appearance. But then the Lord’s voice came in over the mythical PA system, “This is the one. Rise and anoint him.”

The heir apparent had been chosen and soon the name David would be the greatest among all Jews.

Saul was still in charge, during this transition period whilst David was still a boy and Saul was eager to meet with the King-elect; he was very impressed with David and took an immediate liking to him.

In the background, of this meeting, the Philistines were assembling for war in Judah. Saul received news of the enemy’s military mobilization and in response he moved the Israelites to the Valley of Elijah. The two opposing camps were divided by a valley, with the Philistines perched on one hill and the Israelites on the other.