The Book That God Wrote, Exodus Part 2

Welcome to the second and final part of Exodus, wait final part? Already? Is Exodus really that short? Well, not really, a good third of Exodus turns out to be God listing off laws, their various punishments, and his interior design requirements down to the most agonizingly boring and precise details. I plan to spare you most of that and skip right to the good stuff, like what happens when the Israelites finally cause Moses to snap and God to reconsider this whole exodus thing. Let's just say that you don't want to be on Moses' bad side, though you knew that already right? Anyway, here's the story so far: Introduction, Genesis, Exodus part 1. Read on to see how it all turns out.

The Exodus:

God the Israelites are whiny little bastards. Granted if I were wondering around in the desert with a bunch of people in the times before battery powered fans and deodorant I would be quite cantankerous too. But these guys were slaves, their firstborn sons had been drowned, they saw ten, count them, ten miracles of God covering Egypt with the sole purpose of helping them escape, and they saw the Red Sea part at the last second in a theatrical display of God's power. They had seen time and time again that God was backing them up with completely badass miracles, but still all Moses hears is,
"Ack it's hot, why did you bring us out of Egypt."
"We don't have any water, damnit Moses, being a slave was better than dying of thirst in this shit hole."
"Moses, we're out of food, we're going to starve, I'd rather be a worthless slave than die out here. Why bring us out of Egypt to die?"
Now in modern times I can understand why anyone would lose their faith in God, but you guys just witnessed at least 11 miracles. If I ever saw an entire sea part before my eyes, or a pillar of fire lead my way in the dark I would ... okay actually I'd try to find a scientific explanation, but in the days before scientific inquiry with only batshit superstition to go by you'd think these miraculous signs would really drive the whole "God is real and awesome" idea home. But no, all they do is bitch and whine, and not to God, the one actually leading this caravan. No, they continuously bitch at Moses, who's still performing miracles btw. When the Israelites bitch about having no water Moses strolls out with the elders and strikes a rock with his magic staff. It cracks open and water pours out. At one point they stumble on a well that's full of really nasty water, "Ack Moses, surely we'll die now. Why did you bring us out here?" So Moses finds this piece of wood, tosses it into the well, and surprise, it's suddenly full of sweet cold delicious water. When the Israelites run out of food, God sends food down from heaven (Manna) for these whiny brats to collect and only asks them to take just enough for each day. Let's not be greedy over this magic food okay? They can't even swing that, whiny and greedy.

Now I could actually understand being so whiny if the miracles stopped after the Red Sea, that would be a bummer, but these people are seeing miracles constantly, and yet all they can do is bitch, "We were happy as slaves," they keep saying, "why did you bring us out of Egypt?" To which Moses just says, "Why are you bitching at me? God led you out of Egypt, not me." I'd be afraid to approach Moses honestly, I'd be afraid that badass man would strike me with his staff and turn me into a pillar of salt just for looking (back) at him funny. Also, what kind of freed slaves are these people, they're nothing like the folks I've read about in literature. Where's the woman from "Beloved" who [spoiler: stabs her own fucking children to keep them from becoming slaves]? From where I'm sitting it's better to die out in the desert than having your sons drowned the moment they're born, at least out here they have a shot. You know, I can also understand being worried in their situation. I mean you're bombing around in the fucking desert and you run out of water, that's scary shit. But after everything they've seen you'd think they'd start with a "Dear God, would you please save us sir," not "ARGH Moses we fucking hate you, this is all your fault." Jackasses, these are the people of God? I bet God's starting to think they deserved their enslavement, "I should've left you whiny jerks in Egypt after all."

Okay enough of my own whining about the Israelites. So anyway, Moses and his people are bombing about in the wilderness wishing they had brought a real map, since that angel isn't as good a GPS as it thinks it is. During their wandering a group of fellows called the Amalekites see God's ragtag group in the distance and think they've found an easy target.
"Those chaps look lost don't they?"
"Indeed, let's plunder their arses off mates."
Don't ask me why they're British, but they are. So they charge after God's caravan ready to kill their men, take their belongings, rape their women, and be back home in time for tea; little do they know that the badass Wizard of God is with them. Moses sees these pirates cresting the hill with swords in the air screaming "Pip pip, cheerio," and such. So Moses takes Joshua aside ... wait who's Joshua? Hang on ... okay so this is the first time this guy is mentioned actually (but it so wont be the last). I guess he's just an important guy in Moses' entourage (one of the non-whiners). Anyway Moses tells him,
"Take your sword and some bad mothers that you trust (Levites) and go carve those crumpet chewing tea drinkers some new holes."
"But what about you? Aren't you coming with us to beat in a few skulls with your staff?"
"No, but don't worry, they're going to regret fucking with the people of God."
So Joshua bombs out with his soldiers ready to stab a few Amalekites in the face. Moses on the other hand, climbs up to the top of a overlooking hill with Aaron and Hur (I don't know who this guy is either). As long as Moses holds his arms up (with staff in hand I'm sure) the Israelites kick ass, if he lowers his hands, then the Amalekites start winning. Now why would Moses ever lower his arms? He didn't on purpose, see as far as I can tell the battle started around morning and he was standing there for hours, holding his arms up. Eventually he couldn't anymore, and Aaron and Hur had to hold his arms up for him. Thus, "His hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword (Ex 17:12-13)." He was on that hill holding his arms up all day so that the Israelites would win. That must have been one hell of a battle too, it lasted all fucking day. Do you believe me yet about Moses being badass? Aaron and Hur probably had to carry the man down the hill after that. Oh and don't forget Joshua either, he's quite the little Moses protege now don't you think? He fought all day with a much bigger and more organized force and won. Nothing like the ole one, two, Wizard/Warrior strike huh? This little stunt really rubbed God the wrong way because he tells Moses, "You better write this down somewhere because I'm going to completely erase the Amalekites from this world, including everyone's memory." Wow, I'm sure glad someone wrote it down, otherwise we wouldn't have the story anymore.

At some point out in the wilderness Moses' father-in-law Jethro shows up for a visit. He must have seen the pillar of fire in the sky or something, provided they're still following their terrible GPS, if not I don't know how the eff Jethro found them. Anyway, Jethro is your typical in-law, he sees how Moses runs his show and can't do anything but criticize him. See Moses was the chief of this whole Israelite gang, which made him a sort of judge. So any dispute, and I mean any dispute, was brought to Moses for his verdict, and this was supposedly because he's the only one able to chat with God. So Moses spent most of his days hearing court cases between whiny Israelites (yikes it's a wonder he hasn't killed them all yet). So Jethro's like, "Moses, wtf are you doing? Why not teach some of your crew the basics and let them judge over the people, say split everyone up by tribe or something. Then only the complicated cases will be brought to you." Actually, that's a great idea, so Moses splits everyone into states, counties, cities, districts, and makes himself the supreme court. Whew, thanks Jethro, and with his work done he heads back home. Of course it's after he's long gone that they realize they forgot to ask him for a map, whoops.

The Ten Commandments

With all this wandering around the Israelites finally stumble on Mount Sinai, so Moses says, "Alright everyone chill the eff out, I'm going up the mountain to talk to God." So up Moses goes to meet with God, and the people look on in fear as Moses disappears into the fiery cloud that enshrouds Mt. Sinai. Now God finally, finally, gives Moses some real laws. These, as you know, are the Ten Commandments, and some were made with certain Bible characters in mind I imagine. Like: "You shall not murder," here's looking at you Levi, Simeon, Moses, oh and you too God; "Honor your father and mother," Lot's daughters I don't think what you did counts; and "You shall not commit adultery," wait do concubines count? Then God starts laying down even more laws, I imagine God spouting off new things that come into his head with Moses writing it all down furiously,
"If a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters or sells it, he must pay back five head of cattle for the ox and four sheep for the sheep (Ex 22:1)."
"Yes, yes of course, five oxen, how did I not see that before." Moses isn't just a badass wizard, he's also a legal dork (as we saw above), so this is like a total nerdgasm for him. "Tell me more God, what happens if a man sleeps with a virgin?"
"If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride-price, and she shall be his wife (Ex 22:16)."
"Yes, it makes so much sense now."
Now this is where I start (for the trillionth time actually) to wonder about the people who take this book 100% literally, how is it possible? Go read these laws God passes down (Ex Ch 20-23 or so), we don't do these things anymore. I mean sure, some of them consider behavior that's still punishable, but we don't put people to death for cursing their parents anymore (Ex 21:17). So how do you deal with a lot of these nitpicky things God's laying down to an ancient culture in a modern world? Oh, wait, do you think we should still put people to death for cursing their parents? Shit, every teenager would get the ax ... come to think of it, that's not a bad idea. So anyway, God finishes this all off with a promise, that they'll stroll into the land he promised Abraham so many generations ago. The land now held by the likes of the Canaanites and the Jebusites (heh Jebus). God is going to cast those assholes out and give their land to the Israelites. So Moses writes all this stuff down and takes it all back down to the people, who rejoice, "Hooray, we can't have any fun anymore, praise God."

Then Moses says, "Alright, everyone chill the eff out again, I'm going back up to talk to God some more, everyone be cool while I'm gone," and off he goes again to speak with God, only this time he's up on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights. It's during this visit when God gives Moses the cool stone tablets with the Ten Commandments on them. And then things start to get excruciatingly boring, God just starts listing off shit the Israelites need to build or make. And he doesn't just say, "Hey build an altar," no he feels the need to go into the most minute detail imaginable. "Have them make a chest of acacia wood - two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide and a cubit and a half high (Ex 25:10)," this is when I start zoning out, and when I come back a few paragraphs later, "Then make 50 bronze clasps and put them in the loops to fasten the tent together as a unit. As for the additional length of the tent curtains, the half curtain that is left over is to hang down at the rear of the tabernacle (Ex 26:11-12)." Zzzzz, "Make pomegranates of blue, purple and scarlet yarn around the hem of the robe, with gold bells between them (Ex 28:33)," zzzzzzzzz, "Take the following spices: 500 shekels of liquid myrrh, half as much (that is, 250 shekels) of fragrant cinnamon, 250 shekels of fragrant cane, 500 shekels of cassia - (Ex 23-24),"

ARGH! Shut the fuck up already! God you sound like some flaming interior decorator from a reality show on fucking HGTV. Seriously, here's what you need to know, they're going to build a tabernacle, a place God can come down and chill with his people, and when God's not there, it's where his priests can do their priest shit. Aaron is the first priest, and his sons are his next in command. Part of the tabernacle is the ark of the covenant which looks like this.

And it's where the awesome tablets with the ten commandments stamped on them will live. Done. Jesus, do you have to go through every single detail? Ok, there's one detail I'm really glad God thought of, "Make for the tent a covering of ram skins dyed red, and over that a covering of hides of sea cows (Ex 26:14)." No fucking joke, my translation actually says "sea cows" with a footnote saying, "That is, dugongs." Haha, hells yeah, God's tabernacle has dead manatees stretched over it, now we're talking. Wait, where are they going to get sea cows in the desert?

Meanwhile, as Moses is taking down extensive blueprints for the house of God, the Israelites are getting antsy. It's been a long time since Moses went up into that God cloud at the top of the mountain, for all they know he's dead. So they all get together an approach Aaron, "Hey Aaron, wtf is up with Moses? We need a God to worship, will you make us one?" So Aaron says, "Hm, well give me all your gold, earrings, bracelets, cockrings, whatever." So they hand over their gold, and Aaron melts it all down and hammers it into the shape of a calf.
"There, I think that's what God looks like."
"Hooray, go God, let's worship him."
So they start worshiping this golden calf, which leads them to partying. My translation uses the word "revelry" here. Were they just happy and drinking? Or was it orgy city under Mt. Sinai? Actually, the language is a little vague through this whole story. Was Aaron trying to make an idol representing God, or was he, and the rest of the Israelites, creating a brand new god from scratch? You'd think at least Aaron would have sense enough not to worship an idol right after God told them all not to (it's one of the Ten Commandments after all). Anyway, up on the mountain God's spider sense starts tingling, and he finally loses it. "Argh! Those whiny bastards, it hasn't even been two months and they've already forgotten everything I've told them. Oh, I'm going to kill them all for this shit." Surprisingly, Moses calmly talks God down, "What would be the point of saving us from Egypt just to kill us in the desert? You'll be the laughing stock of all the other gods, you know how these horrible kids are right? You just chill up here and I'll take care of this." Uh oh, Moses is way scarier when he's calm, I think the Israelites would be better off with God just killing them now, but down Moses goes to take care of things.

When Moses descends Joshua is waiting at the mountain's base for him, "Moses, there's some kind of battle going on at camp." And Moses replies, "No, that's not fighting, those assholes are singing," and when he gets closer, and sees that his people are dancing around a golden statue, he smashes the shit out of the tablets. Yes, Moses is pissed, stand back. He bombs his way into the middle of his peoples' stupid party (cracking skulls on his way I'm sure) and overturns their lame idol. Actually, in front of their very eyes, he tears it off its altar and casts it into the fire. Then he stomps it to death, he fucking stomps a golden statue until it's basically just powder. Then he takes the powder and hurls it into the water, and then forces the Israelites to fucking drink the idol water. Wow, you do not fuck with Moses, ever. These whiny bastards finally caused Moses to snap, and Moses is really scary when he snaps, and he's not even done yet. Understandably, seeing this badass man bomb through destroying everything and forcing water down peoples' throats causes everyone to freak out. They're apparently taking off in all directions and screaming for their lives. So Moses stands tall on a table or something and screams, "Whoever is for the Lord, come to me (32:26)." All the Levites rally to Moses who then screams, "Take your fucking swords and bomb through this shit hole, each of you kill your brother and friend and neighbor, for God!" They all join Moses in a bloodcurdling scream before bouncing off for a little murder. Damn, remember when I guessed that I'd see some mean mother fuckers called Levites? Yeah I didn't know anything about this story, well not the part with Moses and his fellow Levites tearing through camp to thin out the Israelites. How is this justified? I mean the Israelites get punished for breaking one commandment by people breaking another commandment. Still, no one's going to argue that Moses isn't badass now are they? Especially when him and the Levites killed about 3,000 people that day.

When Moses confronts his brother during this cleansing (right before it actually) all the douche can say is, "Don't be mad, you know how these dicks are, they told me to make a god for them. So I threw their gold in the fire and out popped this golden calf. Jeez I don't know, please don't kill me." I'm sure this is when Moses decides to make Joshua his number two. After the massacre Moses tells his men that they are "blessed" for killing their own brothers and neighbors, which is a great message for the kids don't you think? Now after this whole ordeal, God is finally fed up with his people and tells them, "Ok, I'm sending an angel ahead of you, but I'm not coming, if I do I might just kill your dumb asses. Seriously I can't be around you any more." And the Israelites are really bummed to hear this. Really? It didn't take you long to start worshiping some gold piece of shit you just made, suddenly you're going to miss your real God? I'm sure someone has a brass donkey laying around that you guys can sacrifice shit to later. But like before, Moses talks God down some, and I think God decides to stick around, but I don't remember him specifically saying it, whereas he specifically says he's leaving. Take that how you will, I like to think he leaves forever, letting his angels speak for him from now on. It makes the story better anyway.

So what's left of Exodus? Not much, actually the Israelites just get to building everything that God told them to, and it's just as boring as God's excruciatingly dull directions. Seriously, whoever wrote Exodus just copied all the shit with God talking to Moses and then pasted it at the end of the book. Then he changed everything from "Then God told Moses, 'Build me a thing with these dimensions,'" to, "Then the Israelites built a thing with these dimensions." I'm not even kidding, it's the same exact shit, all over again. Couldn't the writer have employed a little brevity? Something like: Then the Israelites built the tabernacle and everything else God had told Moses about in Chapters 25-31, to every excruciatingly precise detail. Then Moses checked the tabernacle, in every nook and cranny, and compared it to the extremely accurate blueprints God had given him. Moses saw that the Israelites had done a great job. When God visited the tabernacle it was enshrouded in cloud, or fire at night, and no one could enter it when this happened, but this meant they should settle wherever they happened to be. Whenever God left the tabernacle it meant it was time for them to move on. And this was how they traveled through the wilderness.

There, I just condensed the last five or six pages of Exodus into a little paragraph. Was that so hard? We're trying to save trees here, and besides, the Bible is long enough already, any little thing to help shorten things would be appreciated. Ah well, that's it for Exodus though, but don't worry, Moses' story continues in Leviticus, which is Episode 3 in the book that God wrote. So we don't have to say goodbye to that crazed old badass just yet. Leviticus contains some of my favorite biblical passages of all time, and when you find out what they are it will only prove how immature I really am. The only other thing I know about Leviticus is that more laws show up, and I've suddenly noticed that root word "Levi." Looks like we'll have a few more stories of those crazy kids too. I can't wait, but sadly you'll have to. Next week will be a very hectic one in real life, so it may be a while before you see what happens next, but shit, get yourself a Bible if you're that impatient. But certainly be on the lookout for "What I Learned From Exodus," which you can expect on Sunday. Until then...