The Book That God Wrote, Numbers Part 1

Ah finally, in honor of Pi Day, I present Numbers, the stuff I'm good at. This book contains awesome things like ... census taking, job allocation, and tribe arrangements. Yeah ok, so Numbers starts out slow (i.e. BORING), much like a continuation of Leviticus, which is why this post has been so long in coming I'm afraid. But it gets good again once the Israelites pack up their bags and finally leave Mt. Sinai, which was way too long in coming if you ask me. Spoiler alert, shit hits the fan, the Israelites take their inane whining to the next level: Rebellion. Who in their right mind would try to rebel against Moses, or for that matter God? What happens to these awful little mutineers? Read on to find out.

Counting and Rebellion:

So Numbers is a fairly apt title for this book, since it starts with a lot of numbers, and I mean a lot. God tells Moses to take a census of every Israelite bombing through the wilderness, and to also write down the name of every male old enough to fight in the army. I guess after Moses and the Levites kill off 3,000 folks they needed to know how many were left in case they got blood thirsty again. So every tribe is counted in exact detail, interestingly the Levites are counted separately at a later time. It seems God has a special plan for these guys. So if you were wondering there are 603,550 non-Levites bombing in the wilderness and 22,000 Levites, so 625,550 Israelites in all. Hrm, let's see, if they killed off exactly 3,000 in Exodus along with the 3 in Leviticus, then since the Israelites left Egypt their numbers have dropped about 0.48% which actually isn't that much. Actually, there's a shit ton of Israelites here, in fact in 2008, the population of Nashville (Davidson County) was about 626,000. So there's basically all of Nashville bombing around in the wilderness right now to give you some perspective. Damn it, see what I mean about all these numbers? Now they've got me doing it, and I'm an easy target too, yikes.

Moving on now, was there any reason God set the Levites apart? Surely he's either going to punish them for being so violent or reward them for being so violent. Maybe he'll make them the official army of God, or the scary church police? I mean I'd certainly choose the Levites to be my army, I'd just keep them in crates and open them up at the start of every battle and just watch the carnage unfold. No, turns out that God set them aside to be the tabernacle custodians. Really? The meanest mother fuckers in this outfit have been picked out specially to be the poor bastards who have to take the tabernacle down when they leave, build it back up whenever they stop somewhere, and tote everything around when they're on the move? What is God thinking here? He says it like it's an honor, but I consider it terrible allocation. Give this job to those frilly Naphtalites or the cooks from the Asher tribe, not to the sword wielding psychopathic Levites. Maybe this was actually punishment. Hm, a ragtag group wandering out in the wilderness escaping their oppressors and trying to find the promised land? Not to mention counting everyone obsessively, allocating tribes and their jobs, this is starting to sound a lot like:

But you know, without the space and robots. Though who knows, that might just come later (Lord knows crazier shit comes later).

Now after all the counting and allocating and other accounting bullshit the Israelites finally leave Mt. Sinai, thank God. Except now God seems to also be completely fed up with his whiny people, finally, and starts killing them off at various intervals. I guess he wanted to know how many there were before killing them off (Wait I said that already, man it's too early to be reusing snarky comments, damn). Right after leaving Mt. Sinai, and I mean right after, the Israelites start their usual bitching, and God just says "Fine, if you're going to complain no matter what I do, then I'll give you something to bitch about." So God rolls up his sleeves and shoots down some fire and burns up people on the outskirts of camp. Snap, usually Moses is able to talk God down, but now before Moses can even say a word God's gone behind his back to toast a few of his awful children. In fact the best Moses can do is start praying for God to stop the fires, you'd think that the Israelites would quit their incessant whining now right? Oh no, in fact immediately after this (no kidding, the next fucking paragraph) some Israelites starting complaining again. "Oh, we haven't eaten meat in so long, all we get is this dumb ole manna. I fucking hate manna, I want steak." Now I'm confused, aren't they bombing around with a shit ton of cattle? Throughout Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers God has gone into tons of detail about rams and lambs and various other meaty things. Seriously, God might want some as offerings, but he'll only accept unblemished firstborns, I mean shit, aren't the Israelites known for being badass shepherds? And don't they keep all these animals around for eating? I mean sure wool too, but surely some of them are for eating right? Also, these cats are in the middle of a fucking desert, and God has been giving them fucking food from heaven every single day so they wont starve, you might want to be grateful assholes. Sure who wouldn't start getting sick of manna after a million days of it, but still, it's better than fucking starving to death.

Surprisingly, God just says, "Yeah ok, I'll send you guys some meat, because I'm the best God ever. I'll even send you quail, tasty juicy quail." So God sends a wind that carries a myriad of quail to the Israelites, so many in fact that they covered the ground, "To about three feet above the ground, as far as a day's walk in any direction (11:31)." That's a lot of fucking quail, so rejoice, the Israelites go crazy collecting quail, yum now they can make - OH NO!

Turns out the quail are poisonous, in fact before they can even eat the quail, while the meat is still between their fucking teeth, God strikes them all with a plague. Damn, the ole, "Sure you can have meat, but jokes on you it's poisonous," move, and "There they buried the people who had craved other food (11:34)." As cruel as this is, you know, I'm starting to get sick of these whiny little bastards. After everything they've seen, after all the times God has bailed them out, all the times he's given them miraculous food or magical water, all they do is complain. Sure this is the human condition exaggerated, but earlier when God or Moses killed Israelites I was pretty appalled, now I say fuck em, they deserve it at this point. Sure God might be psychotic, but seriously, you'd think they'd at least pretend to be grateful of all the free food and water until after they get out of the desert. And you know, that was also a really creative (albeit dick) move there God, I can hear him now, "Well they never said that the meat needed to be edible," (Oh and in case you were curious, Admiral Ackbar is definitely not kosher).

So sure, I commend God's strange creativity here, but the Israelites are not happy, they're sick of this desert, and of having no meat, and of following that psycho Moses around, and of the fear of smitation (it's a word) and just life in general. Things have gotten so bad that it's not just the lame worthless Israelites complaining anymore, no, even Aaron and Miriam (Moses' sister) rebel against Moses. "Hey asshole, why are you so special huh? God talks to us too, why do you get to be God's number one man? Also your wife's a Cushite whore," (No kidding they actually make a racist crack about his wife, see 12:1). Well God hears this and bombs down there, I guess because he doesn't think Moses can handle himself? It actually says, "(Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth) (12:3)." Well if by humble you mean frighteningly badass then yes. "Aaron, Miriam, what the hell? Moses is badass enough for me to speak directly to him, and you have the gall to oppose him? Oh it's on." So God storms off in a huffy cloud and Miriam is struck with leprosy. Why does God only smite Miriam with leprosy? Unfortunately the Bible doesn't say, but it does say that Aaron sees his sister and screams like a pussy (ok actually it doesn't, but I like to think he does). So he pleads with Moses and says, well hell I'll just quote it, "Please, my lord, do not hold against us the sin we have so foolishly committed. Do not let her be like a stillborn infant coming from its mother's womb with its flesh half eaten away (12:11)." Haha what? Let's be really specific about it why don't you, "Oh please, don't let her look like a rotted fish head with rupturing pustules and troll eyes, oh please." I'm sure she appreciates it, she already has leprosy asshole, you don't have to give her the brutal blow by blow description.

So Moses calls up God, "Oh please heal Miriam," which I swear is all he does in Numbers, he's either falling on his face when people oppose him or God, or he's asking God to stop whatever awful (read: awesome) retribution he's throwing down. Is Moses mellowing out in his old age? God I hope not, is he even that old at this point? I have no idea how long they've been out in this desert (It probably says somewhere, this is Numbers after all). Well God says, "Oh fuck her, if her father spit in her face then she'd be unclean and have to live outside the camp for seven days. So tell her to nut up and do that." I'm paraphrasing here (obviously) but he actually says that "spit in face" part. So off Miriam goes to live on the outskirts of town for seven days, when she comes back TADA no more weird dead baby skin.

The Land of Milk and Honey:

After a bit more wandering the Israelites finally come to the border of Canaan, the promised land. Wow, that didn't take long, in no time they'll bomb in, send the Canaanites packing and live on milk and honey for the rest of their lives. So Moses collects twelve guys, one from each tribe of Israel, and sends them on a scouting mission through Canaan. Two guys of note in this reconnaissance team are Joshua (remember him) and Caleb (another badass dude in Moses' entourage). Moses sits them all down and tells them to do the usual scouting shit, and make a report: What kind of land is in Canaan? What kind of trees do they have? What kind of crops? How many kosher animals? How many cities? Are they fortified? And how many people are there? And then he tells them to bring back some grapes for whatever reason. So off they go to explore the land of Canaan, the land they plan to steal from the Canaanites. If you're curious (like I am) or are just a map-o-phile (like most men are) here's a map of Canaan:

So you can see Egypt there, and that bit of water at the bottom that looks like it forms into some kind of lake? That's the Red Sea, and the desert of Sinai is nicely marked for us. So as you can see, the Israelites have been bombing around the south east of this little map, probably even further down than we can see. My point here is they've been in a fucking desert for ages and they just stumbled onto Canaan, which borders the Mediterranean Sea, so they went from being in a desolate wasteland to stumbling right into:

I imagine they freaked. So these spies of God check the place, wander around for about forty days or so and come back to make their report: "Snap, this really is the land of milk and honey, the land is awesome and green and ohh horticulturegasm. But the people there are strong and mean, we saw Canaanites (duh), Amalekites (wait I thought God wiped them out completely in Exodus), Hittites, Jebusites (no comment), Amorites, and we even saw some descendants of Anak up in there." Wait a second, who are the descendants of Anak? Hang on...

Oh wow, let's go back to Genesis for a second. Back before the flood, something so incredibly badass happened and I completely missed it. See there were these angels bombing around on earth, and they see human women and start to think about having sex with them. Hm I can see the conversation now.
"Hey Raziel, have you seen these human bitches lately?
"Yes, they're so hot now, way hotter than our angel wives."
"Let's go have sex with them."
"...Okay."
Man that sounds familiar, where have I heard this before? Oh right, I guess it's ok when angels want to fuck humans but not other way around huh? Even though angels are supposedly genderless. Anyway this crew of angels make it with these human women, which would be totally easy for them, "Hey there beautiful, did you know that I'm an angel?" Maybe the Sodomites heard about how awesome angel sex was from this story? It all makes so much more sense now. So the angels sleep with these woman, who then get pregnant. But what kind of offspring comes from a human mother and an angel father you might ask? Fucking giants that's what. Oh ... those poor poor women, can you imagine their next visit to the gynecologist? "Ok so let's take a loo- What the fuck happened down here?!" (Serious props to anyone who knows where I used that same exact joke before). Ok, so you're telling me that in Genesis, in the days before the flood, there were giants bombing around? Man, how the fuck did I miss this? Well all I can say is go read Genesis 6:1-4, depending on your translation you might just miss it too, but after a little research (not to mention reading another translation) I finally saw it. So what does this have to do with anything? Remember the descendants of Anak? Anak was one of these giants. Shit yes, the promised land is guarded by fucking giants, this book has gotten good again. The Israelites are about to stroll in with nothing but mean ass Levites holding the ark of the covenant, and are going to take on giants, the long lost offspring of angel half breeds. And remember, these giants came before the flood, and they're still around (in some form at least). That's right bitches, a little water's not going to stop giants.

Caleb stands before the assembly, "Fuck them, we can take their land. So what if they have giants? We have God on our side." Which is a good point, but the other jackasses from the spy trip were not so faithful, "We can't attack them, that was your plan? They're way stronger than us, and they'll take our wives and children as plunder." So these unfaithful spies spread rumors through the camps, rumors that the land of Canaan swallows people whole and that it's guarded by giants (well ok that part was true). And oh the Israelites are pissed, Moses dragged them all the way out here through countless deserts only to find another wasteland guarded by huge men that would rape and eat their children? I can hear them now, "It would've been better if we had died in Egypt," that's their fucking mating call I swear. Well if God is finally fed up with his people, then his people are finally fed up with him too, and they conspire together to replace Moses. "It would be better if we went back to Egypt," they say, "we should pick a new leader who will take us back. It's time for Moses and his cronies to go down."

There's some serious bad blood in Israel right now, because everyone rallies to this cause, and I can actually understand why. After finally getting to the gate of the promised land you're told by someone who went in there that it's worthless and guarded by neanderthals, I'd want to carve the word "mutiny" into Moses' forehead too. So all the Israelites bomb over to the tabernacle and (somehow) subdue Moses, Aaron, and anyone else in his entourage that weren't out for blood. "This is a mutiny bitches, we're going back to Egypt, all you've done is lead us to another wasteland."
"No," Caleb and Joshua scream, "the land of Canaan is the shit, sure it might be difficult to take, but with God on our side how can we fail?"
"No more of your shit, hey fellow mutineers: go out and gather some rocks, we're going to have ourselves an old fashioned stoning." With many hoots and hollers later, the Israelites have Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and Caleb all tied up and ready to be bludgeoned to death with stony projectiles, but of course God would have none of this.
"You miserable little bastards, how many times will you rail against me? After everything I've done, did you not trust me to hand over Canaan? Did you not trust me to keep you safe? Fine, for your contempt you'll get exactly what you've asked for. None of you here will ever see the promised land, none, only Joshua and Caleb who had unyielding faith in me and your children, the rest of you will wander in the wilderness for forty years, and there you'll rot and your bones will dry." And with that God kills off the ten spies that conspired against him and tells the Israelites to get fucking packing, they're heading back to the Red Sea.

Oh you stupid idiots! You were right there at the fucking gate of the promised land and you went and bollocksed it all up by not trusting in God again. Now you're getting sent back into the wilderness, back to the fucking Red Sea? Are you fucking serious? Argh, that's so frustrating. I was ready to see some God brand violence against the Canaanites and you all ruined it. I fucking hate the Israelites, Moses needs to stop saving their dumb asses and just let God wipe them out one day. And you know what's rich? After all this, there's a group of Israelites that decide to bomb into Canaan anyway. So of course, Moses is like, "Um hey geniuses, God's not on your side if you go in there now, you'll be killed," but off they go anyway. Ugh, the fucking Israelites, you just mutinied against Moses to go back to Egypt, but now when you're told to head in that direction you say, "Nah, now I want to go into Canaan after all." I hate these guys so much right now. Anyway, these dumb Israelites bomb into Canaan and the Canaanites get target practice. Without God on their side, these Israelites get their asses handed to them by the first Canaanite raiding party they meet, and reading about the Canaanites fucking their world up really did me some good.

So off the Israelites go in the direction they came, back to the Red Sea, and don't think for a second that everything's ok now either. Things are worse, imagine it, you were tricked into thinking that Canaan was a shit hole and now you're sent back to the fucking Red Sea where this whole cluster fuck started. Yeah, the Israelites are seething, especially now that a man is put to death. Morale's already rock bottom and a dude is seen collecting fire wood on the Sabbath (the strictly enforced day of rest), and God just says, "Put him to death, you know my laws," and so the people of God had to stone the poor guy for wanting to make a fire on Sunday. Well this is too much for Korah the Levite, Moses has done nothing but completely fuck up since this whole exodus thing started, and he feels he could do a better job. But the last coup didn't work, Korah knows this, but he's determined to at least try. Moses has gone too far, God has gone too far, it will be worth any punishment to try, something has to be done. So Korah meets with two like minded Reubenites, Dathan and Abiram, and they begin to plan. Maybe there's a way their rebellion can succeed, perhaps with a non-violent approach God will see reason. Maybe with enough Israelites on their side they can convince God in a democratic manner, it's time for new leadership, and maybe God will listen to their case if it's made in a peaceful and precise manner. They're certainly going to try, they've got to try.

To be continued ... yeah I know, dick move, sorry. Part 2 of Numbers is gold though, stay tuned, it will be worth the wait. In it we learn Korah's fate, and see if any coup against Moses can succeed (Spoiler alert: never mind, you already know don't you?). We also meet Balaam in Part 2, who's this crazy awesome sorcerer who loves God, and we finally get to see some sex and violence again (both at the same time actually), thank the maker. Until next time fellow traveler.