An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 27: Everyone's a whinger (Numbers 11-15)

Numbers 11-15

Everyone's a whinger.

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology. 

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT

For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

Numbers 11

“And when the people complained, it displeased the LORD: and the LORD heard it; and his anger was kindled; and the fire of the LORD burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp”

Oookaay… No-one comes out of this chapter looking very good, I’m afraid. The Israelites start complaining, and in the quoted passage it’s not obvious what about. Later, they complain about having to eat only manna and not having any meat. They’re a herding people surrounded by sheep and goats, of which they have plenty to offer as sacrifice, and yet they don’t have any meat? Perhaps not surprisingly, Moses goes and complains to God about having to lead this bunch of ingrates, and God promises that he’ll give them so much meat it will be “coming out of their nostrils” and they will be sick of it.

God also offers to make another seventy of the elders into prophets to help Moses, which he does. Two of them, Eldad and Medad, run around the camp prophesying rather than stay in the tabernacle, but this is deemed okay since they are acting God’s will. And then the camp is infested with quails which the people eat, but then get sick and die which serves them right for complaining about being hungry, apparently.

Now, as far as I can tell it’s been a year or two since the Israelites escaped from Egypt, and they’ve spent most of that constructing the tabernacle. It’s not obvious how many of the several hundred thousand Israelites share the same religious fervour as Moses – not many, it would seem, given how often they keep complaining, breaking his laws, worshipping golden calves and so forth. So to be sat around eating brown goo that appears on the ground in the dew for two years whilst your leader builds a really elaborate tent – it’s not surprising some of them complained. But also, folks, try eating your damn sheep if you’re hungry, you pack of idiots. Not that I think they really deserve to be burned to death and/or die of sickness just for complaining. But that’s gods for you.

Numbers 12

“And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman.”

A short little chapter, but with some truly excruciating writing (see the quote above). Because Miriam and Aaron speak out against Moses’ Ethiopian wife (who I don’t think has been mentioned before), God calls them to the tabernacle and gives Miriam leprosy. Not Aaron, you’ll note. But when Moses pleads for mercy on her behalf, God relents and says that Miriam should be shut out of camp for seven days and can then be allowed back in.

This is kind of a working example of the rules in Leviticus about how to deal with people with diseases, but there’s a nasty little warning fable in there which I think essentially warns women not to gossip lest God strike them down for it.

Numbers 13

“Send thou men, that they may search the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel: of every tribe of their fathers shall ye send a man, every one a ruler among them”

The online version of the KJV that I’m using for this read-through illustrates each chapter with a Gustave Doré engraving, and this chapter is the first for a long time that has featured one – a sure sign that things are actually happening.

The Israelites are encamped at Paran, on the borders of Canaan, and so Moses sends one man from each of the twelve tribes into Canaan to spy out the land, to assess its defences, the people and how fertile the land is. They bring back a bunch of grapes, after forty days, and reports of the people that live there (Amelakites, Canaanites, Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites). These are the same peoples that inhabited the land back in the days of Abraham, but there are also intriguingly the “children of Anak”, who are of giantish descent. I like the sound of them!

That’s about it, but I do want to flag up a rhetorical style that the KJV has used a lot when describing onomastic myths. Vs23-24 run thus:

“And they came unto the brook of Eshcol, and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff; and they brought of the pomegranates, and of the figs. The place was called the brook Eshcol, because of the cluster of grapes which the children of Israel cut down from thence.”

To me, this is the wrong way around. Should it not be “They came to a brook, and cut down … etc.” before going on to say “The place was called the brook Eshcol…”. I mean, if it’s called “Grape Brook” or whatever the name translates as, it’s not called that before they name it for the grapes, is it? This happens a lot, and I find it annoyingly poor writing. Whether the fault lies in the translators (because surely the meaning would be obvious in Aramaic or whatever) finding a rather clumsy way of explaining the meaning, or whether it lies in the original, which would be so old as to be written in a fairly clumsy and unsophisticated style, I don’t know.

Numbers 14

“And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness!”

Whingeing Israelites are whingeing. Again. Angry God is angry. Again. The people complain now that they won’t be able to stand against the people who currently live in the promised land, which makes God angry with them and once again Moses pleads for mercy. The upshot is, however, that anyone who doubted loses the protection of God and is doomed to wander the wilderness and not make it to the promised land, and this even extends to the spies who bought back reports, apart from Joshua and Caleb, which seems a bit harsh as they only reported the truth (although I suppose the idea is that they exaggerated the danger thus instilling doubt in the people). I’m starting to feel a bit sorry for Moses, having to arbitrate between God and the people, who seem to go out their way to anger each other.

After this, some of the people rather unwisely decide to enter the land of the Canaanites and Amelakites, and get resoundingly smote and discomforted for their efforts. And serve them right.

Numbers 15

“And will make an offering by fire unto the LORD, a burnt offering, or a sacrifice in performing a vow, or in a freewill offering, or in your solemn feasts, to make a sweet savour unto the LORD, of the herd, or of the flock”

Here we go again. Once again, this chapter is all about the correct way to make offerings. Surely by now this has been covered enough in remorseless detail many times? To make matters worse the units of measurement have changed, here we have “deals” of flour and “hins” of oil, where we had “ephah” before. There’s some more on the forgiveness of sins through offering a sacrifice which I can see as laying the groundwork for future New Testament thinking, but otherwise its yet more of the same. And to cap the chapter there’s a little illustrative story about a man caught collecting sticks on the Sabbath. For which he is stoned to death. Just in case you didn’t think we meant business with this whole covenant thing.