The Book That God Wrote, Numbers Part 3

Oh my God, finally I'm back. It's been about a year, but for your reading pleasure I present the finale of Numbers. It's been a slow monotonous road, but it's thankfully at an end. So, who's this Balaam fellow I've been hinting at? Where's this crazy sex I promised? Do the Israelites continue their unstoppable crusade? And wait, did I just mention sex? Read on, read on, the answers await you below the cut, it's so damn good to be back.

Balaam's Sweet Ass:

So Balak, king of  ... wait who is he king of again? Moab? Jericho? Midian? Canaan? I can't tell anymore, it reads like it's Moab, but those godless assholes all died in Part 2. Well, maybe they didn't all die, right so maybe Balak is the king of the remaining Moabites. Let's just go with that. Anyway, he calls for the freaky deaky voodoo super wizard Balaam to curse the Israelites. The Bible doesn't give much (read: any) physical descriptions of people (though God's tabernacle is described in excruciating detail), but Balaam is a voodoo priest crossed with a jedi, just take my word for it. He's got your typical doody robe going on, but instead of a lightsabre he's got chicken feet and newt eyes. And he's powerful, on the eve of war, if, for example, he decides that "Those Midianite sons of bitches are going down," then down they go, so it's only natural that Balak wants this old coot on his side when the ferocious Israelites come knocking. So a messenger makes the trek out to Balaam's freaky deaky shack to hire him.

Unfortunately for Balak, Balaam knows all about the God of Abraham. See Balaam is a freaky witch doctor, he's spent his entire life learning about all the different gods, and this Israelite God has been making quite a stir recently. This God certainly made a splash with his huge flood (pissed all the other gods off with that one to be sure, which is why they all went and made their own), and really made a name for himself with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, but he'd been pretty silent since Joseph's generation (four or five generations ago). If Balak had been asked to curse the Israelites 100 or so years ago he probably would've said "Bring it." But now? This God has been making a power play for the top god spot the past 50 years or so. What with the fuck down of Egypt, and the steam rolling of Moab? Balaam knows not to trifle with this god, and he plans to be on the right side of this rising power. So he tells the messenger to get bent, "I can't curse the decedents of Jacob, their God is the man."

Well Balak, like most stingy baby-like kings, won't take no for an answer, so he sends a bunch of princes and kings out to Balaam to make their case. The Israelites have set their sights on Canaan, a lot of people are going to die, and for no plausible reason, surely Balaam will do the right thing. So when the princes show up Balaam invites them to stay the night. That night, while Balaam is doing one of his crazy naked chicken dances, God appears to him. "Who are these people staying with you?"
"Oh, um, some douches from Moab I guess, they want me to curse your people."
"You better not, they're blessed you know, they're going to fuck up Canaan no matter what you do."
"I know, don't you worry."
So Balaam sends these princes packing, and again Balak wont take "no" for an answer, so he sends even more renown princes to woo Balaam (and he probably sends some whores to sweeten the deal too), pretty much rinse and repeat, except this time God's like, "Eh, ok just go with them, but you better do what I tell you to."

So Balaam loads his donkey with chicken feet, bat wings, monkey skulls, sea cow skins, and heads to Jericho with these specialer princes, "But God was very angry when he went, and the angel of the Lord stood in the road to oppose him (22:22)." Ugh, what the fuck? Does this happen every single time God tells someone to go do something? Remember it happened with Moses in the beginning of Exodus? When suddenly God was ready to kill Moses because his son wasn't circumcised or something? So is God so indecisive about choosing new people to represent him, or is he really that fucked up in the head? Anyway, this angel stands in the road with its sword flashing every which way, and Balaam can't see it, but his donkey can, and being scared shitless and all, it turns and runs into the field. Well this crazy old coot Balaam takes his staff and beats the poor donkey in the head until it gets back on the road. Animals were certainly harmed in the making of the Bible. So, then the angel moves in front of the donkey again, in between two walled vineyards, and so the poor animal freaks out again, and smashes Balaam right into one of the walls. Again, Balaam beats the ass of his ... ass until she gets moving again. Now the angel moves ahead of them again, and this time the poor donkey throws in the towel, she just collapses and wont move anymore, no matter how vigorously Balaam smashes his staff in her face.

In the middle of this beating, the donkey finally decides she's had enough and says, "What have I done to you to make you beat me three times? (22:28)," and Balaam answers, "You have made a fool of me-" wait, what? Did this donkey just talk? What the fuck? Lo and behold, this donkey talks, could all animals talk back then? Sadly no, "Then the Lord opened the donkey's mouth (22:28)," so it was God's doing, but what's awesome about this is that Balaam's response isn't, "What the fuck?! You're talking?" No, he just takes it nonchalantly, as if he always chats with his donkey over coffee. Actually, he might get so stoned during his voodoo peyote-a-thons that he thinks his donkey talks normally. Anyway, Balaam says, "You've made a fool out of me you mischievous little ass."
"But," the donkey moans, "I've been your faithful donkey all these years, have I ever acted this way before? Don't you think that maybe there's a reason I'm doing this?"
"Hmm," Balaam muses, "I never thought of it that way."
Then POOF the angel appears before Balaam, "Hey asshole, why have you been beating the shit out of your donkey? She was trying to save your life, truly I would've killed your dumb ass and spared your donkey. Wait ... yeah."
So Balaam falls on his face, "Omg angel of God, I've sinned."
"It's ok, I was going to oppose you, but eh go ahead to Jericho, just be sure to only do what God tells you to do, capiche?"
"Yes, yes, of course." Ok, so what the fuck? That was completely pointless, I mean I enjoyed the talking donkey and everything, but seriously? First of all, why didn't the angel just appear to Balaam in the first place? He could've spared that poor donkey some serious beatings if it had. Second, the angel goes through all that hullabaloo just to tell Balaam what God already told him a few paragraphs ago. I see no point to this other than God wants to fuck with Balaam, "Haha he's beating his donkey in the face, this is rich, ooh now position yourself between those stone walls. Hahaha now I'll make the donkey talk weee." God is such a dick sometimes, granted I might've been tempted to do the same shit if I was in control of everything.

Balaam's Oracles:

So Balaam finally meets up with the bratty king Balak who decrees, "Balaam, I'll take you out to the mountains overlooking the Jordan where you can see the Israelites and curse those little trouble makers once and for all."
"Ok," Balaam says scratching his lice encrusted mane, "but I can only say the words that God puts in mouth, nothing more."
So Balak takes Balaam (is anyone else getting really confused with these two names?) up to the mountain, and Balaam sets up a bunch of altars filled with voodoo incense, tears off his clothes and begins his so called curse, "The Israelites are the shit, their God loves them, and so does everyone else. People who hate them are schmucks and those who oppose them are douchebags, and the one who curses them should go fuck themselves, Go God!"  So yeah, Balaam blessed the Israelites instead of cursing them, who didn't see that one coming? Well, Balak for one, but Balaam tried to warn the dumb asshole.
"What the hell was that man?"
"I told you I could only say what God told me to."
"Fine," Balak concedes, "I'll take you to the other side of the mountain where you can get a better view of these mongrels, and then you'll curse them." Have I mentioned that Balak isn't all that smart? He isn't.

So, Balak takes Balaam to another part of the mountain, where they set up altars again, and again Balaam rips off his clothes, does a freaky voodoo dance with a chicken foot, and again he blesses the Israelites instead of cursing them. So Balak, getting a little more upset, doesn't send the old coot away, but instead takes him to another part of the mountain to repeat the same fucking process all over again, and this happens five times. Five fucking times Balaam blesses the Israelites instead of cursing them, and each time the blessing gets better and better and starts sounding more and more like a curse against Balak and his people. By the last oracle Balaam is jumping up and down, foaming at the mouth and screaming, "Israel will fuck up Jericho, they will steam roll all of Canaan. Anyone who opposes them will get skull fucked by the army of God, even the gigantic descendants of Anak will be ass raped by Israel. Do not fuck with the God of Abraham because he will cut off your balls and feed them to you, Jericho is fucked, Canaan is fucked, and your mom is fucked. Amen." So finally, the idiotic Balak gets the picture and sends Balaam's freaky ass (along with his talking ass) packing back home, and goes back to stew in his palace about what to do regarding this Israelite pest. Goodbye Balaam and his donkey, I sure will miss you.

Sleeping With the Enemy:

So, the Israelites decide to settle on the banks of the Jordan for a while, I mean it makes sense, they don't want to plow into Canaan before they're good and ready, and more importantly, before God tells them to. Turns out though that they're surrounded by villainous godless assholes, they have the Moabites across the river and the Midianites to the north I think it is, and the more casual Israelites start getting to know these people. Remember, there's a lot of Israelites bombing around in the wilderness and only a few of them are the super devout ones like Moses, Joshua, and Caleb, and also only a small percentage in the army. The other Israelites are your average joes, and while they're out tending their flocks or planting their fields they might strike up a conversation with a wandering Moabite, or might flirt it up with a Moabite woman, and before you know it the Israelites are invited to Moabite parties and eventually to their church. And so the Israelites start sleeping with the Moabites and start worshiping their god: the Baal of Peor. After all, guys will do anything to get a woman in the sack, including sacrificing to another god, what do they care? Especially since these Moabite woman are probably sultry olive skinned beauties. Who wouldn't chose that over a nagging Jewish wife?

As you can imagine, Moses is not happy about this bullshit, so he tells the judges that anyone fucking a Moabite or worshiping their piece of shit god must be put to death. And so all the poor xenophiles are violently stoned for their sexual curiosity, poor little xenophiles, all they ever wanted was to make it with some hot foreign chicks, is that so wrong? Now you might think the story is over, but fortunately there's more, see there's this man Zimri, who loves nailing foreign women, and he laid low enough to survive during the Moabite lover culling and comes up with this bright idea. Moabite women are now off limits sure, but they didn't say anything about Midianite women, and they're right up north, and so Zimri decides to get in on this Midianite sex before it becomes illegal. So Zimri cruises the bars and picks up an easy Midianite named Cozbi and takes her home for a little action. Now I suppose the idea was to keep it all on the DL, but I guess they drank a bit too much at the bar, because they stumble right into a church service at the tabernacle. Zimri must've straight tongued this woman while all of the Israelites "were weeping at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting (25:6)," because he really pisses off Phinehas, a grandson of Aaron. "You bunch of cry babies," Zimri drunkenly slurs while awkwardly fondling his new Midianite lady, "I'm gonna go fuck my new baby mama, peace bitches," and they stumble into the tent to get it on. Phinehas cooly grabs a spear and follows the drunk couple inside. He impales them both right as Zimri is pounding Cozbi into the altar. At least Zimri died doing what he loved, and Cozbi? Well she always wanted to try two spears, just yknow, not a literal one. Oh well, death to the sexual experimentation, down with fun, praise God.

The Hazards of Love 3 (Revenge!):

So what else happens in Numbers? Well, not much, they count everyone again, that's fun. Oh right, and for the little bullshit that just happened the Israelites take revenge on the Midianites. They pretty much do what they did in part 2: kill, pillage, burn, and rape their way through Midian. "They fought against Midian, as the Lord commanded Moses, and killed every man. Among their victims were Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur and Reba -- the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword (31:7-8)." What? No, not Balaam, he fucking helped you guys like three paragraphs ago, that's a great way to show your appreciation, stabbing him in the face. I wonder if they spared his donkey? Surprisingly the Bible doesn't say, oh well. When the army reported back to Moses after their conquest he got all red in the face, "Why the fuck are you taking prisoners? Kill everyone, every child and woman ... well ok, we'll keep the virgins, but stab every other godless piece of shit in the face." Damn, Moses is starting to show his former face again, those Midianite sons of bitches are going down, except the virgins, we're taking them. Oh, so I guess it's suddenly ok to take foreign wives now? As long as they haven't had a Midianite dick in them already huh? Is that the grandfather clause? As long as the first cock inside a woman is a circumcised one then they're safe from stabation? "I'm a dick," says God, "get the fuck over it." He doesn't actually say that, but I like to think that he does.

Also, at some point God comes to Moses and tells him, "Go up to the mountain, and look over at the land I'm giving your people. After you see the promised land you will die." So, Moses' reign as commander and chief is finally at an end, and the Israelites are finally going to storm into Canaan. "Alright," Moses says somberly, "but there's something I need to do before I go." So, Moses sets about doing his final acts as leader. First he officially retires from his position and appoints Joshua as the new man in charge. That's no surprise, who didn't see that one coming? Second, he gathers all the Israelites around and sits before them on a stone, "Listen children of God, I have a story to tell you ..."

What is this story he tells the Israelites? Is this his last will and testament? Will Moses go down fighting or will he go quietly like his brother did? Well you'll have to wait until next time to find out. Deuteronomy records Moses' final lecture in the typical biblical asinine detail, but it's fun because he's old and likes to ramble, oh you'll see. Until next time fellow traveler. By the way, I was on fire with the section titles this time huh? BAM.