The Book That God Wrote, Judges Part 2

Welcome back, it's time to keep this nutty crazy train a rollin with the second part of Judges. Today we'll talk about that nutjob Gideon, his pickiness about how you drink your water (pinkies out bitches), the deadly bread missile, and not to mention his awful woman hating son who takes Israel by force. Read on, read on.

Don't Drink The Water ... Defend Against The Bread:

So we last left Gideon as he began uniting all the Israelites Lawrence of Arabia style and he soon had a sizable army to smash the Midian's with. Now is when Gideon starts to sorta lose his mind. Don't get me wrong, a lot of the things he does he's flat out told to do by God, but for my money, when God starts telling people to do seriously insane shit (moreso than usual even) I interpret it as the person being completely batshit insane and he's just hearing voices. If you recall, that was my interpretation of Abraham's nonsense, and it's my interpretation of Gideon. Case in point, when Gideon and his gigantic army roll up to where the Midians are, God says, "Hey man, your army's too big, cut it down some," which seems like a completely crazy thing to do. So wait you want less people fighting here? Yes, apparently God wants less people fighting on his side so that, and I quote, "Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her (7:2)". Ah, so God wants to show off, I get it, thus Gideon sends out a decree, that any of his scared soldiers can go home, "Pussies get lost."

Alright, so not bad, you don't want anyone on your side that doesn't 100% believe that God is behind them and that they'll succeed, that's fair. And so twenty-two thousand people went back home, right on, army cut down, let's get to it. Well, no, apparently that still isn't enough (or is too much), God (i.e. nutjob Gideon) wants even less people fighting with him. Ok fine, less people, fine, I know what you're thinking, pick out the best soldiers of the lot right? Get the Spartans of the group, three hundred of the most badass men available, make every badass count right? Nope, what does Gideon do? He takes his soldiers down to the watering hole and God tells him, "Separate those who lap water with their tongues like a dog from those who kneel down to drink (7:5)," and that is how he chose which men to keep. Seriously, the three hundred men that lapped were kept on and everyone else was sent home. This is insane right? I'm not the only one who thinks this is completely crazy am I? I mean, what if your best soldiers would rather kneel, yknow, with all their equipment and swords and armor, or they just didn't want to stick their fucking face in the river. You're risking the entire battle on how these dudes like to drink water from a creek? Yeah, Gideon is crazy ... or God is trying to see what he can actually get people to do, "Yeah, yeah, now stand on one foot ... Haha, now do a cartwheel ... Yes! Now sacrifice your miracle son," Oh wait.

After this crazy ordeal, God wakes Gideon up early one morning, "Hey Gideon, in case you're worried about this upcoming battle, yknow with the whole thousands less people thing, sneak down into the Midianite camp and listen to their soldiers, then you'll be ready to slaughter their asses." So Gideon sneaks down to the camp, and right when he gets there he overhears some dude telling everyone about his dream. Now I want to preface this by saying that you are going to think that I made this up, but I didn't, check Chapter 7 verse 13 and 14 if you don't believe me. So here we go:
"Oh my god guys I had the craziest fucking dream last night."
"Yeah, what was it?"
"Man ok, so I dreamt that this huge loaf of bread bombed into camp and destroyed my tent. Seriously, it like zoomed in with such force that it clobbered the whole damn thing over."
Now if one of my friends had told me this I would've said any number of things, such as: "Damn dude that's crazy," or "Dude, no more Reuben sandwiches before bed for you," or "Sounds Freudian to me, like the loaf of bread is your penis and the tent is your mom, BAM," etc. But no, what does everyone in the camp say after hearing this dream:
"Oh my god, you know what that means right? It means that the Israelites will defeat us."

Wait, what? So one dude, one fucking dude, has a dream about a flying loaf of death bread destroying, not the entire camp, but his one tent, and suddenly that means the Israelites are going to win? What?!? I mean I could buy that something was going on if everyone had that same dream, but even then I'm not sure it had anything to do with the battle. Seriously, when you read other dreams being interpreted earlier in the Bible, they actually make sense. For instance, go read Joseph's dream readings in Genesis, when he says. "Yo Pharaoh, there's going to be seven years of abundance and then seven years of famine," well that came from a dream about seven fat ass cows that are suddenly eaten by seven skinny ass cows, YES, I can see that, it makes sense (and this was Genesis mind you, where almost nothing made sense). But here? What the hell? So the loaf of bread represents the Israelites? Like, was it rye bread? Or maybe matzo, did a huge ass matzo ball fuck up this dudes tent? Seriously, a killer loaf of bread, I just ... I ... well shit, I promise I didn't make this up, I mean I don't think I could have even if I wanted to.

Jars and Stars (There's a Seriously Inside Reference):

So Gideon runs back up to his own camp screaming, "Get up, God has delivered the Midianites into our hands. Seriously, a dude had a dream, we're good to go." Once everyone's awake he hands them all trumpets and clay jars with torches in them ... yes, jars with torches in them, and tells them all to follow him. They quietly surround the Midianite camp, and on Gideon's command they all blow their trumpets and break their jars, which causes the Midianites to freak their fucking minds, and they all draw their swords and start stabbing each other. Seriously, I guess the killer bread dream had them all on edge so when they hear a massive blast of 300 trumpets and suddenly see a bunch of fireballs surrounding them, they had no other choice but to stab each other. Further, after most of the enemy forces slice themselves into little pieces, the remaining bad dudes left get rooted out by Gideon's army.

Now somehow, in the midst of all this war type chaos, two kings of Midian are able to escape, which leaders of Israel's enemies are wont to do, and surprise surprise Gideon takes after them. During the pursuit Gideon's forces stop in two towns, and in both Gideon asks the people living there for water and shit for his men, and in both towns they mock him. "Don't you already have the hands of these two kings?" Guys, Gideon just fucked up a huge army, and with only 300 dudes, maybe you shouldn't be taunting this guy.
"Alright," Gideon says, "just for that, when I get back I'm cutting your ass with desert briers," and to the other town he says, "Fine, when I return I'm tearing down your stupid tower." And when he returns after capturing these kings (spoiler alert, he totally captures these two kings) that's exactly what he does, he cuts the one town up with thorns, somehow, and pushes the other guys' tower down. Seriously, they had it coming.

Ok, for anyone still on the fence about whether or not Gideon is completely insane, how about this: When Gideon captures these two kings he tells his oldest son Jether to kill them. Now Jether hasn't really been mentioned yet, but assuming he's on the warpath with Gideon, one would conclude that he's an adult right? Well, "Jether did not draw his sword, because he was only a boy and was afraid (8:20)." Seriously, dude, what the fuck is wrong with you? Even the two gentile kings are like, "Woah dude, what the fuck?" and they tell him, "Come, do it yourself. As is the man, so is his strength (8:21)," basically, "Be a real man asshole." Which for real Gideon, be a man and do it your fucking self, which he does, but God, trying to get a kid to do some wartime execution shit for you, well, that's some Breaking Bad shit right there, and it's completely fucked up. Gideon is a man of God? I'm starting to become concerned.

Abimelech, Chauvinist to the Bitter End:

And so Gideon went back home and lived out his days Judging the Israelites and procreating like a champ,  "He had seventy sons of his own, for he had many wives (8:30)." Seriously, thanks for clearing that up Bible, and here I thought he had one poor ass wife that had to pop out seventy kids for this insane shithead. And you know? Here I was going to accuse the Bible of exaggeration, "Seventy sons? Yeah right Bible, now you're just making shit up." But, yknow, if he had ten wives, it'd only take about seven years to have seventy sons, provided he only had sons, which is highly unlikely, seeing as how you have a sort of 50/50 chance to spit out a daughter (though I think my grandfather would cry foul about that 50/50 chance stuff). So who knows, I certainly don't, all I know is that one of Gideon's sons was named Abimelech, which is a strange name for an Israelite considering it was a common name of Philistine kings (thank you Wikipedia), I suppose that's what you call foreshadowing, that and the fact that his mother was one of Gideon's concubines, a concubine from Shechem even. Seriously, why is Shechem even a town anymore?

Seeing that Gideon had seventy sons there were many many applicants for the next Judge. I didn't know Judges were all in the family like a monarchy, but maybe it's just that they'd be obvious candidates. Hell Bush Sr. was such a good president that W. Bush was just a shooin right? Right? That's kindof what it's like right? I mean God always chose the next Judge, and yknow God liked Bush and everything, right? Ok, I'm done, so anyway, Abimelech (who I'm calling Abi from now on) wants to be the next Judge, and he doesn't give a good goddamn what God thinks on the matter. He strolls into Shechem, and asks the people there, "Hey, would you guys rather have some stuffy old Judge, like one of my half-brothers, or someone like me? A Shechemite, the son of a concubine, a common man, not an elitist like those other Judges." Ok, first, bragging about being a Shechemite is a bad idea, they went down in history as raping the daughter of Jacob, and then being circumcised and killed, why is this town still around? Seriously? Second, um, wait, I don't think I have a second, anyway, the Shechemites are like "Word, we'll follow you," and so with the Shechemites rallied around him, Abi storms to Ophrah (Winfrey?), captures his remaining brothers, and murders them all on a single stone, and so takes the title of Judge by force.

One of Gideon's sons escaped this fate though, Jotham his youngest, and in the heat of his escape, right after Abi took power, Jotham stands on the top of an overlooking mount and shouts at the new Judge and his lackeys. You'd think what he shouts would be something quick and badass like, "Abi, I will avenge my brothers' deaths, you monster," yknow, something to get his point across before getting the fuck outta dodge. Sadly no, he goes on this huge tirade about trees, and the trees asking for leaders and each tree declining and the one that agreed was a bad tree or something. I'm serious, his revenge scream was a dumb story about living trees, here's an excerpt, "One day the trees went out to anoint a king for themselves. They said to the olive tree, 'Be our king.' But the olive tree answered, 'Should I give up my oil, by which both gods and men are honored, to hold sway over the trees?' Next, the trees said to the fig tree (9:8-10)," and on and on until the trees ask the thornbush to be their king, and the thornbush agrees, and somehow he tries to relate it back to Abi and his men, "Now if you have acted honorably and in good faith when you made Abimelech king ... may Abimelech be your joy ... But if you have not, let fire come out from Abimelech and consume you (9:16-20)." Man, Jotham, what the fuck are you talking about? You better be glad Abi didn't try to send his men after you, because with all the blathering on you're doing from the hilltop they could have easily strolled up there and captured you. He seriously blathers on from verse 7 to verse 20, that's a whole Bible column. Dude, just take off your shades all badass and say, "I'll be back," and take off, it's not that hard. All you've done now is confuse everyone, "Wait, who is this guy screaming at us again? Is he the arborer?"
"I don't know, something about trees? Let's just get back to our celebratory orgy."
"Word."

And so Abi rules over Israel with an iron fist, which isn't a great idea when we're talking about Israel, because it won't take long for God to fuck you up. Now, you'd think that Jotham would come back and exact his revenge right? Yeah, that would be awesome, but that's not what happens, and here I thought the author of Judges had seen a few action movies, apparently not. I guess Jotham was too busy screaming nonsense to people about how awesome trees are or something. No, Abi only rules for about three years before people start rebelling, his own people no doubt, yes the Shechemites rebel. So Abi rolls in with his army to fuck the place up, and when the people retreat into the temple he uses a bunch of tree branches to burn the temple down with everyone inside. Man, burning a temple down, that's some serious evil Nazi shit right there. Maybe Shechem is finally wiped from the planet, I really fucking hope so.

Anyway, then some other town rebels, so Abi decides to roll into that town and give it the same business as Shechem, and the same basic thing happens. Abi and his men fuck the place up and the people retreat into a tower, and so Abi plans to gather a bunch of tree branches and burn the tower down. But this time, while Abi is at the base of the tower, deciding where to the best place the kindling and what not, a woman throws a giant stone at Abi's head. CRACK, Abi goes down, skull smashed in by a giant ass rock and he calls his shieldman over to to play out his death scene. Does he say something like, "Tell my wife I love her," or, "Give my stereo to Bilbo," or even "Any messages for the devil, cause I'm gonna punch him in the face," something like that? Nope, he asks his shieldman to stab him with his sword so that it won't go down in history that a woman killed him. Yeah, seriously, Abi's got a fucking rock sticking out of his crushed skull, brains are oozing out of his ears, he has seconds to live anyway, and he's concerned because it's a fucking woman who killed him? Ugh, what a jackass, so the shieldman kills Abi (which you'd think you'd get a swordman to do that instead, but hey, his brain was oozing out of his skull so it's a wonder he was able to articulate anything at that point). Hey genius, the shieldman might've stabbed you, but we still know that it's a woman that fucked you down with a rock, try as you might, it's still going down in history that you were skull fucked by a woman and her giant rock. Good riddance you chauvinist dick wad.

(Bonk!)

And you know? That's a pretty good place to stop for now. Next time we'll finally get to talk about that Samson fellow, the strongest dumbest man of God ever to grace the Bible, the man who has the worst luck with women, the man who randomly kills animals for no reason and then eats stuff growing from their dead bodies, the man who sets up a riddle contest using a riddle that cannot be answered (the jerk), and a man that's shown in the title picture above, fucking up some columns. Get ready for fun dearest readers. Until next time.