God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of The Bible (29 page)
Read God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of The Bible Online
Authors: CJ Werleman
Not only does God endorse infanticide, but also rape! The claim for the Bible being a moral compass continues its slippery slide.
Further adding to the forecast of Babylon’s demise:
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Babylon, the jewel of kingdoms, the glory of the Babylonians pride, will be overthrown by God like Sodom and Gomorrah. She will never be inhabited or lived in through all generations; no Arab will pitch his tent there, no shepherd will rest his flocks there.” (Isaiah 13:19-20 NIV)
Isaiah adds that God’s favor will then return back to Israel.
In Isaiah 14:28 we read that King Ahaz died, and in his place Hezekiah took reign over Judah. His kingdom began one of the most poignant periods of Israel’s history. Assyria was a nation on the rise and had conquered Samaria during this period and thus with the winds of victory at her back, the Assyrians were as determined as ever before to invade Judah in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign.
The king of Assyria sent his diplomatic envoy to Jerusalem to negotiate a deal that would offer the Israelites an honorable surrender and hence sparing needless bloodshed. The message from Assyria was direct and simple, “Surrender now or we will destroy you. As you can see our vast military out numbers yours!” King Hezekiah was defiant and informed the envoy that God was on his side and if Assyria attempted to attack then they would be at the mercy of an angry god.
The reply from Sennecherib, the king of Assyria was just as terse:
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Do not let the god you depend on deceive you when he says, ‘Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria’. Surely you have heard the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, destroying them completely?” (Isaiah 37:10-11 NIV)
Hezekiah could see the Assyrian troop built up from the fortified walls of the city and he became worrisome. His prayer to God for support reads:
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O Lord Almighty, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all kingdoms of earth. You have made heaven and earth…It is true, O Lord, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste all these peoples and their lands. They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by human hands. Now, O Lord, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O Lord, are God.” (Isaiah 37:16-20 NIV)
God loves nothing more than his people denouncing his competitor gods and thus he was pleased with Hezekiah. God’s gleeful reply to Hezekiah’s prayer was precisely what the king was hoping for, as God said:
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He (king of Assyria) will not enter this city or shoot an arrow here. He will not come before it with shield or build a siege ramp against it. I will defend this city and save it, for my sake and for the sake of David my servant.” (Isaiah 37:33-35 NIV)
The following morning, God sent down one of his angels and 85,000 Assyrian soldiers were ‘mysteriously’ found dead in their tents. The king of Assyria was the only survivor and he wasted no time in fleeing the scene, only to be hunted down by God who ordered his own sons to slay him with his own sword whilst he prayed to a foreign god.
Following God’s slaughter of the threatening Assyrians, Hezekiah became sick and on his deathbed, he prayed to God to spare his life as he felt he still had things to accomplish. To support his plea Hezekiah reminded God that he had been a righteous follower and had done his best to steer the Israelites away from the competitor gods in the region. God heard his prayer and replied:
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I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life.” (Isaiah 38:5 NIV)
Following Hezekiah’s miraculous return to health, courtesy of Doctor Yahweh, neighboring Babylon sent an envoy carrying gifts and a letter from the king of Babylon. Hezekiah welcomed the Babylonian diplomats and was most flattered that they would be so concerned for his health. During their visit, Hezekiah showed the Babylonians all corners of his palace including his collection of gold, art and fine antiques. Shortly after their departure, Isaiah arrived on Hezekiah’s doorstep and enquired as to whom the visitors were. The king answered that they were from Babylon, bearing gifts and he had provided them with a royal tour of his mansion. Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah:
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Hear the word of the Lord Almighty. The time will surely come when everything in your palace and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the Lord. And some of your descendents, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” (Isaiah 39:5-7 NIV)
As the book of Isaiah is part history, part prophecy and part fairytale, it is somewhat non-sequential. As chapter 40 commences, Isaiah’s writings attempt to offer comfort to the kingdoms of Judah and Israel that are now in exile to Babylon and Assyria. We don’t learn anything of the invasion and conquest in this book, only of Isaiah’s objective to reassure God’s people that the Lord has not forsaken them and he will intervene soon to rescue them out of bondage as he had done so in Egypt in the time of Moses.
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But you, O Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, you descendents of Abraham my friend, I took you from the ends of the earth, from its farthest corners I called you. I said, ‘You are my servant’; I have chosen you and have not rejected you. So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” (Isaiah 41:8-10 NIV)
Isaiah further attempts to inspire the Israelites with a prediction of what God will do to their captors when the moment should come:
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All who rage against you will surely be ashamed and disgraced; those who oppose you will be nothing and perish. Though you search for your enemies, you will not find them. Those who wage war against you will be nothing at all.” (Isaiah 41:11-12 NIV)
Isaiah reminds Israel that the reason for their captivity is that God wanted it this way to teach them a lesson for acting foolishly in worshipping other Gods. God’s message via his prophet is made clear: if you worship others I will forsake and doom you, but if you obey me fully then I will love you. Wow, talk about conditional love.
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I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create EVIL. I the LORD do all these things.” (Isaiah 45.7 NIV)
God promises Israel, via Isaiah, that Babylon will fall and Israel will once again become a great nation and sends a chilling warning to their captors:
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Sit in silence, go into darkness; Daughter of Babylonians; no more will you be called queen of kingdoms. I was angry with my people and desecrated my inheritance; I gave them into your hand and you showed them no mercy… Disaster will come upon you and you will not know how to conjure it away. A calamity will fall upon you that you cannot ward off with a ransom; a catastrophe you cannot foresee will suddenly come upon you.” (Isaiah 47:5-11 NIV)
Surely, it is fair to ask where was God when his people were being ushered into the gas chambers by the Nazis? It seems the Babylonians treated the Israelites far kinder than the Germans. Fair question isn’t it?
God reminds the Israelites that only through obedience to him can they be guaranteed freedom and independence, with his usual tone of self-worship God says:
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I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go.” (Isaiah 48:17 NIV)
On the condition that they agree to stay on God’s ordained path he frees them, telling them to stand up and walk out of Babylon:
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Leave Babylon, flee from the Babylonians! Announce this with the shouts of joy and proclaim it.” (Isaiah 48:20 NIV)
An obvious euphoric God, delirious with joy that his people have opted to follow his ways again, knowing they have learnt a valuable lesson in captivity gets a little adrenalin rush and begins to waffle out some incredible promises, including this pearl:
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Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; he who dies at a hundred will be thought of as a mere youth.” (Isaiah 65:20 NIV)
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You talk to God, you’re religious. God talks to you, you’re psychotic.”
Doris Egan
This book contains, arguably, the most ghastly sermon from God anywhere in the Bible. It is one in which he whets the appetite for cannibalism. God far from happy with Israel and Judah’s worship of him promises the following, should they continue to disobey him:
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I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters and they will eat one another’s flesh during the stress of the siege imposed on them by the enemies that seek their lives.” (Jeremiah 19:9 NIV)
Jeremiah was born into a priestly family, and was a bullfrog or not, whatever, that resided on the outskirts of Jerusalem, his father an elder and teacher of the word of God. Unexpectedly, to Jeremiah anyway, God plucked this unlikely teenager from obscurity to be his chosen messenger to the people of Judah. Jeremiah’s surprise is evident in this interchange between God and the young lad, with God calling to him:
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Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5 NIV)
No doubt startled by God’s calling, Jeremiah replied in shock:
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Ah, Sovereign Lord. I do not know how to speak; I am only a child.” (Jeremiah 1:6 NIV)
God assured Jeremiah that he would put his words in the youth’s mouth when the time came and that people would listen because of the wisdom that came forth. God wasted no time in getting his newly appointed messenger into action and advised him that the Babylonians were preparing to attack the city from the north and that his holiness was permitting the siege because Jerusalem had forsaken him:
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They will come against her surrounding walls and against all the towns of Judah. I will pronounce my judgments on my people because of their wickedness in forsaking me, in burning incense to other gods and in worshipping what their hands have made.” (Jeremiah 1:15-16 NIV)
God promises to protect his new disciple and orders him to proclaim the following message to all of Jerusalem:
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I remember the devotion of your youth, how as bride you loved me and followed me through the desert, through a land not sown. Israel was holy to the Lord, the first fruits of his harvest; all who devoured her were held guilty and disaster overtook them.” (Jeremiah 2:2-3 NIV)
The above verse from God is just the opening shot of what is a several pages long litany of charges against Israel. Some of God’s more poetic charges include:
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You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness. Therefore the showers have been withheld and no spring rains have fallen. Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute; you refuse to blush with shame.” (Jeremiah 3:2-3 NIV)
Jeremiah urges the kingdom of Judah to change its way or they too will follow their sister monarchy into captivity. Like Isaiah he resorts to street performances to underscore his message. Jeremiah walked the streets with a wooden yoke around his neck as a symbolic warning that captivity awaits. The elders and priests of Jerusalem accused Jeremiah of talking rubbish and dismissed him. Judah, meanwhile, continued to sin in the eyes of the space daddy, which irked God to the point of white hot rage. God then passed this message to Judah through Jeremiah:
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The days are coming when people will no longer call it Topeth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter, for they will bury the dead in Topeth until there is no more room. Then the carcasses of this people will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth and there will be no-one to frighten them away. I will bring an end to the sounds of joy and gladness and to the voices of bride and bridegroom in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, for the land will become desolate.” (Jeremiah 7:32-34 NIV)