Jehoshaphat of Judah joined forces with Joram of Israel and the king of Edom to fight against Moab. The Bible says Jehoshaphat did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, but Joram did evil in the eyes of the Lord. So was fighting against Moab the right thing or an evil thing to do, in the eyes of the Lord?
Continue reading Did God want the Israelites to fight the Moabites?Tag Archives: israelites
The Parable of the Two Sisters
There were two sisters named Oholah and Oholibah, who were prostitutes. A man married both of them, even though he thought their prostitution was disgusting. Then the man got all the women’s lovers to come and murder them and their children after cutting off their noses and ears.1
The end.
The moral of the story
Don’t marry someone who hates you.
Interpretation
Continue reading The Parable of the Two SistersThe Parable of the Nymphomaniac
Some Canaanites had a baby girl, but they hated her for some reason, so they left her to die in a field. A man found the baby lying there naked, and he magically made her grow up and become beautiful. Then he abandoned her too.
Later, the man came back and noticed that the naked girl was all grown up! She had boobs and everything. So he married her. But this woman had an extremely high sex drive, and her husband couldn’t satisfy her. So she started having sex with her well-endowed Egyptian neighbors, and with every stranger who passed by. She made statues of men and had sex with them, too.
Her husband was furious and called her a whore, even though he knew that she was actually the one paying for all that sex. He tried to punish her by stripping her in front of all her lovers, as if they hadn’t already seen her naked. Then the beautiful woman’s lovers got a mob to come and kill her, for some reason.
The end.
Interpretation
Continue reading The Parable of the Nymphomaniac
The Story of the Exile of Israel and Judah—
The End of the Independent Hebrew Kingdoms
Where the Samaritans came from, according to the Jews
Jotham’s son Ahaz was an evil king of Judah, so God sent the kings of Israel and Aram to fight against him and defeat him after God had promised they wouldn’t defeat him.2 After God predicted Assyria would destroy Judah, Ahaz got the king of Assyria to instead help him attack Israel, by giving him all the gold and silver from the temple of God.
Hoshea, the next king of Israel, was an evil traitor. When the king of Assyria found that out, he took Hoshea prisoner and conquered his country, putting an end to the kingdom of Israel. The people of Israel were exiled to Assyria, becoming the Ten Lost Tribes. The king of Assyria sent foreign pagans to settle in the former land of Israel, becoming Samaritans.
How Hezekiah used the gift of success
Ahaz’s son Hezekiah was the most righteous king Judah ever had. So God made him successful at everything. Hezekiah successfully convinced God to let his people break God’s law by celebrating the Passover in any way they wanted.
He successfully rebelled against the king of Assyria, so God told the king of Assyria to destroy Judah. But righteous Hezekiah kept the king of Assyria from conquering Judah by giving him all the gold and silver from the temple of God (which his father had already given to the king of Assyria). After Hezekiah successfully convinced the king of Assyria not to conquer Judah, the king of Assyria continued to try to conquer Judah, as God had commanded him, until God got him killed.
Hezekiah got sick, and God sent a prophet to tell him that he would never recover. But Hezekiah successfully convinced the never-changing God to change his mind, and so he recovered anyway.
Men from Babylon came to visit Hezekiah, and he showed them all the treasure and stuff he owned. The prophet told Hezekiah that now that the Babylonians knew about all that treasure, they were going to steal it all some day. And they would kidnap and castrate some of Hezekiah’s descendants. Righteous Hezekiah said he didn’t mind that, since he wouldn’t be around when it happened.
Continue reading The Story of the Exile of Israel and Judah—The End of the Independent Hebrew Kingdoms
Did God allow a census of Israel?
The Bible says when David took a census of Israel, that was Satan’s idea. Joab couldn’t believe David wanted to do such a repulsive thing, and he only helped because he had to. David was conscience-stricken afterward, and believed he had done a very foolish thing and sinned greatly. And God agreed that there would have to be a severe punishment for this evil act.
But the Bible also says that census was God’s idea! David was just doing what God wanted him to do, as he always did, so why would God have a problem with that? There was never any law against taking a census. On the contrary, God had commanded his chosen leaders to take a census of Israel multiple times in the past, and it was not a problem. God had also made laws about how to do it properly, which implies that taking a census was going to be a regular occurrence.
Continue reading Did God allow a census of Israel?
The Story of Queen Athaliah—
Seven Year Bitch
God told a man named Jehu to murder Ahab’s son Joram so Jehu could replace him as king of Israel. So Jehu murdered Joram and his whole family. God was pleased. Ahaziah king of Judah was visiting Joram at the time, so Jehu also murdered Ahaziah and 42 of his relatives. Then Jehu murdered all the Israelites who worshipped Baal.
Continue reading The Story of Queen Athaliah—Seven Year Bitch
The Story of the Evil Kings of Judah—
David's Dynasty Starts to Approach Hitler Levels of Evil
Rehoboam, the first king of Judah, was evil. He and his cousin Maakah had a son named Abijah, who succeeded him as king and was also evil. With God’s help, Abijah killed half a million Israelites.3
The next king of Judah was Abijah’s son Asa, and he always did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. Asa brutally oppressed his own people, led them to steal building materials from the king of Israel, and imprisoned people when they criticized him. He took money from God’s treasury and used it to pay the king of Aram to fight against God’s people Israel. God was displeased with this, because he had wanted to fight against Israel himself. So then Asa developed a severe foot disease, and he died two years later.
Continue reading The Story of the Evil Kings of Judah—David’s Dynasty Starts to Approach Hitler Levels of Evil
The Story of Elijah’s God Contest—
The Gods Must Be Lazy
During the reign of the evil King Ahab, some of the Israelites began to abandon their God. They started worshiping another god, called Baal. So Elijah, a prophet of God, challenged Ahab and the 450 prophets of Baal. He had them meet him on a mountain in the presence of the people of Israel.
Elijah had a bull killed and put it on an altar to sacrifice it to God, but didn’t set it on fire. The prophets of Baal did the same for their god. The prophets kept calling to Baal all day, asking him to prove his existence by setting his bull on fire himself, but Baal didn’t respond. Elijah suggested shouting louder, in case Baal was asleep or something, but that didn’t help.
Continue reading The Story of Elijah’s God Contest—The Gods Must Be Lazy
The Story of Rehoboam and Jeroboam—
The Kingdom Splits in Two
God wanted to punish King Solomon for worshiping other gods. But he liked Solomon’s dead father too much to do that. So he decided to wait until Solomon was dead and punish his son instead.
A prophet announced that God was going to let most of Israel be taken over by Jeroboam, one of Solomon’s officials. Solomon wisely attempted to hinder God’s plan by killing Jeroboam. But before he could, Jeroboam fled to Egypt, where he waited for Solomon to die. Solomon was succeeded by his son Rehoboam.
The people of Israel told Rehoboam they would serve him, but only if he didn’t make them work as hard as his father had. Rehoboam wasn’t sure how to answer them, so he asked for advice. The elders he asked said he should give the people what they wanted. But the young men he asked said he should make the people work even harder. While torturing them with scorpions.
To punish Rehoboam for what his dead father had done, God made Rehoboam decide to follow the bad advice of the young men. This caused most of the Israelites to turn against him. Israel made Jeroboam their king instead of Rehoboam, but the tribes of Judah and Benjamin seceded from Israel. They became the kingdom of Judah, and kept Rehoboam as their king.
Continue reading The Story of Rehoboam and Jeroboam—The Kingdom Splits in Two
The Story of David’s Census—
Morning by Morning He Dispenses With Justice
God was feeling angry at his people, and needed an excuse to punish them. So he told David to take a census of Israel.4 David’s commander Joab thought God’s idea was repulsive for some reason, but he helped David count the Israelites anyway.
After taking the census, David decided that Joab was right, that what he had done was foolish and sinful, and God agreed. God sent a prophet to ask David how he would like to be punished for obeying God. David didn’t fear God as much as he feared men, so he said he would prefer God to punish him himself, rather than sending David’s enemies to punish him.
Continue reading The Story of David’s Census—Morning by Morning He Dispenses With Justice