Thursday, March 11, 2010

Numbers, Chapter 21

King Arad the Canaanite attacks the Israelites, who pray to god, who then lets them destroy the Canaanite army and cities. So what happens when two countries with the same religion go to war?

After winning, they travel a bit, but immediately start complaining about the food again. God's punishment this time is poisonous snakes. So Moses prays, and god tells him to make a snake, thus violating the second commandment yet again, and put it on a pole. People who looked at the fake snake would then be cured. Yes, Moses is the first snake oil salesman.

They wander a bit more, and at one point stop to dig a well and sing a well-digging song.

Eventually, they get into another spat, this time with Sihon, king of the Amorites, who doesn't want to let them pass through, and sends his army to attack them. They defeat them, and get their cities.

They get in one final tussle with Og, king of Bashan, and god again helps them out. In the end, they massacre everyone and take more cities. So that's 3 wars and one poisoning by snakes in one chapter. This book is like a Paul Verhoeven film.

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