The Book That God Wrote, Deuteronomy

Hi everyone, guess who just finished Deuteronomy? Yep, me, and it's about time too huh? But seriously, have you ever read this book? If you have then you're probably lying, no sane person would sit down and read this book all the way through, I mean unless you wanted to skip Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers but still needed to know what happened, but why would anyone do that? Anyway, I'm here to tell you what it's about. It's about Moses being boring and then dying. Ok see you next time.

Fine, fine, I'll tell you more. Let's see, Deuteronomy is basically the clip show of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, do you remember those? They don't do them that much since the advent of dvds, but before you could get all your favorite shows on dvd or record them with your tivo there were episodes that you missed, it just happened. To make up for this, and to help with budget crises and such near the end of a season, or to help writers and actors rest, they'd throw together a clip show. Basically some random plot would be pieced together with the sole purpose of explaining why clips from previous episodes were being shown. Sometimes it was as bad as: "Hey we sure have had some crazy times huh?"
"We sure have, remember when I set fire to the couch and tried to put it out with my own urine?" Cue clip, cut back to dining room.
"Haha that sure was funny, remember when I tried to drug you with ether and make love to you while you were asleep? Good times," and on and on, this is exactly what Deuteronomy is. A terrible clip show of the Bible so far (minus Genesis) and told by an excruciatingly boring old man.

Alright so, where to begin? Hm, well first of all, what the fuck happened to Moses? That dude used to be so badass, he was a mad skull bashing brimstone spitting man of God who took shit from noone. This guy destroyed a  bronze statue with his bare hands, burned it up, threw the ashes in the water, and then forced the ash water down the throats of any panicky Israelite he could grab. This man was hardcore, but by the time Numbers rolls around he spends all of his time falling on his face and begging God to be a nice guy to all the horrible little shits under his command. I guess he went all soft in his old age, and now sadly, he's a senile old man rambling about the past. Don't get me wrong, I was actually looking forward to this book at first, Moses calling all the Israelites around to give them his final words. His last will and testament to the flawed assembly who had been under his command for well over 40 years. It promised to be weighty stuff.

Yeah, too bad it didn't work out that way. Here's an excerpt from his final speech:

So we went on past our brothers the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. We turned from the Arabah road, which comes up from Elath and Ezion Geber, and traveled along the desert road of Moab. ... The Emites used to live there -- a people strong and numerous, and as tall as the Anakites. Like the Anakites, they too were considered Rephaites, but the Moabites called them Emites. Horites used to live in Seir, but the descendants of Esau drove them out. (2:8-12)

Wow, and yes this is a whole book of this same type of meandering shit. It's like Moses is telling his story but suddenly has a tangential thought that he has to share at that very moment, mid sentence. You know who this reminds me of?



I don't understand, this is basically a retelling of the last three books of the Bible, why does it need to be so long? What more is there to say really? I mean there's a few things sure, a few new laws, a few selective memory type things, but seriously? 29 pages of this? So, in honor of brevity and the sanity of my readers, I present another one of my patented shortenings of the Bible: Deuteronomy.

Moses calls the entire assembly together, this will be the last time he speaks with them so it's a very somber time for everyone (unless you hate Moses). Moses recalls what happened to the Israelites from Egypt, to the Red Sea, to Mt. Sinai, throughout the wilderness, all the way to present day. He also recalls the laws passed down by God to be followed now and in the generations to come, including the Ten Commandments (See Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers for more details). He's doing this because as God promised in Numbers, all of the original Israelites (from Egypt) have died (save for Joshua, Caleb, and Moses), so none of them are old enough to remember these things, or they weren't alive. Moses is leaving this as a testament to his people as they go into the promised land without him.

See, was that so hard? There you go, that's like 26 pages of Deuteronomy in one paragraph. Seriously, I'm starting to see why the Bible is so fucking long now. What do you expect if after four books they have another whole book summarizing the last three? Are they going to do this a lot? Should I just plan on skipping every couple of books? Well apparently not, becuase despite my ultra fast summary there's a few things not mentioned in the previous books. For instance a few new laws like, "Do not eat anything you find already dead. You may give it to an alien living in any of your towns, and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner (14:21)." Wow, that's awesome, no eating roadkill, but hey, we can sell it to those saps down the street that don't even speak proper Hebrew, nice. Or who could forget, "A woman must not wear a man's clothing, nor a man wear woman's clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this (22:5)." But God, don't you realize how comfortable women's panties are? Seriously, it's a comfort thing, that's all. Oh well, it seems God hates cross dressers too, is there anyone left he does like?

There's also a selective memory going on in this book, or maybe what you'd call contradictions, but the way I see it is that Moses is a pretty unreliable narrator here, I mean he's basically a rambling senile old man. So sure there's some contradictions, and maybe it is God changing his tune, or maybe it's just Moses being an old fart. For instance, "And they hired Balaam ... to pronounce a curse on you. However, the Lord your God would not listen to Balaam but turned the curse into a blessing for you (23:4-5)." Yeah, I actually remember that differently. I remember Balaam not wanting to go with those assholes, I remember it was God specifically telling Balaam to go and to only say the words God put in his mouth. Then I remember God fucking with Balaam only to tell him the same thing again, and I remember Balaam giving the Israelites five increasingly awesome blessings, and finally I remember the Israelites killing him anyway for his help. I don't know, maybe I read the Balaam story wrong, which is possible but I don't think so. There are a few other rewrites of history, but I can't remember most of them now, and I'll be damned if I'm going to read through this book again to find them, but the Balaam one stuck in my mind for sure. Yeah, the Israelites' treatment of the old magical coot really ticked me off, I mean he did help them after all assholes.

Alright, what else happens in Deuteronomy? Well, God comes to Moses after his speech and predicts that the Israelites will rebel in the near future. I know, I can't believe it either, but there it is, God basically says, "Yeah, these little shits are reformed for now, but in a generation or two they'll rebel, and they'll wonder why their lives suck so bad." And I kid you not gentle reader, God has this plan, a plan that he thinks is so badass that will help the Israelites when they turn astray. What is it? What could this brilliant plan be? He teaches Moses a song, and when the Israelites rebel and their life sucks and they wonder why, well they'll just sing this song and remember to trust in the Lord and everything will be ok again. Seriously, I didn't make this up, they even give the entire song verbatim (See Chapter 32). Ok, this is a terrible idea, and even if it wasn't, the song is fucking awful. God might have created the world in seven days but he's no Kris Kristofferson that's for damn sure. Here, take a listen, "How could one man chase a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, unless the Lord had given them up? For their rock is not like our Rock, as even our enemies concede (32:30-31)." First of all, it doesn't even rhyme, how the hell are we expected to remember it if it doesn't rhyme? Second, that was just an excerpt, this song is fanatically long, seriously, it's sixteen paragraphs, sixteen! Plus there's no chorus, no hook, nothing. Also the song refers to God as "the Rock" a whole lot- Oh my God, I know who God is now!

The song gave it away, "He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just ... He abandoned the God who made him and rejected the Rock his Savior ... You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth (32:4,15,18)." Ha, it's perfectly clear now, can you smell what the Lord your God is cooking? Bam.

Now how does this book finally end? Like Genesis did, Moses blesses all the tribes of Israel. Seriously, bad idea writers of Deuteronomy, the worst thing you can do in a book this boring is remind me of the infinitely better one at the beginning of the Bible. Anyway, after his blessing Moses climbs Mount Zebo, looks upon the land promised to his people and goes gently into that good night. This is certainly the end of an era, and I think the best way to end this entry, summarize my "What I Learned," and honor the badass Wizard of God is to quote the final passage of Deuteronomy:

Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, who did all those miraculous signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt -- to Pharaoh and all his officials and to his whole land. For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.

Hear hear, I'm certainly going to miss that crazy ole skull beater. Until next time gentle readers, which may be a while as I'm leaving on vacation in two days (thank God) and then have a guest visiting the next week. Look for Joshua part 1 shortly following that, I hope for it to be a new beginning to this Bible reading project, hopefully all this time off will give me a breath of fresh air. Goodbye old friend, I'll miss you *pours out beer*

In Memoriam