Tag Archives: jealousy

The Story of the Lost Ark—
God Gives You Cancer

May 16, 2023Bible storiesanimals, ark of the covenant, blessings, buildings, curses, david, death, destruction, failure, god, idols, illness, ingratitude, injustice, israelites, jealousy, marriage, massacres, michal, mind control, miracles, murder, nudity, overreaction, philistines, punishment, reputation, self-defeating, sex, theft, warR. A. Absalom

Back when Israel was led by Samuel, there had been a war between the Israelites and the Philistines, and Israel was losing. The Israelites thought it might help if God was with them, so they brought out the ark of the covenant. When the Philistines heard that a mighty enemy god had arrived, they were afraid, and they knew they would have to fight hard to defeat Israel. So the Philistines fought hard, and defeated Israel.

They killed tens of thousands of Israelites, captured the ark of God, and took it to the temple of their god Dagon. But then Dagon started bowing down to the ark, and the Philistines started getting tumors. They tried moving the ark to different cities, but Philistines died wherever the ark went.

After seven months of this, the Philistines decided they should send the ark away. They put the ark on a cart and let two cows take it back to Israelite territory. When the Israelites saw that the cows had brought their ark back, they were so grateful that they… killed the cows.

But then when 70 Israelites looked inside the ark at the things that God had told Moses to put there so people could look at them, God killed them all. Now the people who had found the ark of God didn’t want to keep it, since it seemed to bring death everywhere it went. So they sent the ark to the house of some guy named Abinadab.

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The Story of King Ish-Bosheth—
The One Where Nearly Everybody Gets Killed, But It's Not God's Doing for a Change

April 16, 2023Bible storiesbetrayal, buildings, curses, david, death, evil, execution, failure, false accusation, family, fighting, foolishness, infidelity, ingratitude, injustice, israelites, jealousy, joab, judgment, marriage, mistakes, misunderstanding, moral influences, murder, obedience, overreaction, pointlessness, polygamy, poverty, punishment, rebellion, revenge, saul, scapegoating, spying, theft, warR. A. Absalom

After Saul and his whole family died, his dead son Ish-Bosheth succeeded him as king of Israel. But David was made king of the tribe of Judah. The commander of the army of Israel was Saul’s cousin Abner, and the commander of the army of Judah was David’s nephew Joab.

These commanders thought it would be fun to see some men stab each other to death. So they made two dozen of their soldiers stab each other to death. But Joab’s brother Asahel didn’t like that, so he chased Abner. Abner didn’t like that, so he stabbed Asahel to death. Joab didn’t like that, so he chased Abner, too. But then Abner suggested not chasing him. So Joab stopped chasing him.

King Ish-Bosheth offended his commander Abner by accusing him of sleeping with Saul’s girlfriend. So Abner decided to desert Ish-Bosheth and help David take over Israel. When Abner offered to help David become king of all Israel, David agreed to let him do that… but only if he did David a favor first.

By this time David had married at least four women. But Saul had taken back his daughter Michal, David’s first wife, and given her to somebody else. David had Abner steal Michal back for him and make her other husband go away. After doing that, Abner went off to convince the Israelites to make David their king.

But David’s commander Joab didn’t like Abner, who had killed Joab’s brother. Joab thought Abner must have only come there to spy on David for Ish-Bosheth. So Joab found Abner and stabbed him to death. David didn’t like that (even though he had previously declared that Abner must die). So David put a curse on Joab’s family, and later had his son kill Joab.

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The Story of Samson’s Riddle—
Out of the Strong, Some Way to Cheat

February 9, 2022Bible storiesanimals, betrayal, blessings, coercion, death, destruction, discrimination, escape, failure, fire, food, fraud, god, hair, imprisonment, israelites, jealousy, marriage, massacres, miracles, mistakes, misunderstanding, murder, nagging, overreaction, philistines, promises, punishment, revenge, reward, samson, scapegoating, secrets, spying, teamwork, theft, wineR. A. Absalom

Samson was another judge, who saved his people when God let the Philistines take over Israel. Samson was a life-long Nazirite, which required him to abstain from wine, corpses, and haircuts.

While Samson was on his way to a Philistine city to visit a Philistine woman, he was attacked by a lion. God gave him the strength to easily kill the lion with his bare hands. Later, when he was on his way to the Philistine city again to marry the Philistine woman, he found that some bees had made a nest in the lion’s body. He took some honey out of the dead lion and shared it with his parents. But he didn’t tell anyone where the honey came from.

Samson challenged 30 Philistine men to try to solve a riddle by the end of his week-long wedding feast. They agreed that the losing party would have to give the winning party 30 sets of clothes. So Samson told them a “riddle” that they couldn’t possibly make sense of without knowing about the lion incident that no one but Samson knew about.

The Philistine men realized that Samson was unfairly trying to take their property. So they threatened to burn down his new wife’s house unless she told them the answer to the riddle. Samson’s wife cried constantly for the rest of the week until Samson gave her the answer. Then she told the answer to the men, and the men gave the answer back to Samson.

Samson knew those 30 Philistine men must have cheated, since there was no other way they could have possibly solved his “riddle”. But he gave them the promised 30 sets of clothes… which he got by killing 30 other Philistine men.

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The Story of the Golden Calf—
Moses Receives the Commandments

January 27, 2021Bible storiesaaron, ark of the covenant, blessings, disasters, failure, fasting, genocide, god, idols, injustice, israelites, jealousy, joshua, massacres, moral influences, moses, mountains, overreaction, pointlessness, punishment, reputation, reward, sacrifice, ten commandmentsR. A. Absalom

On the mountain, or wherever

Moses climbed up Mount Sinai to meet God, who told him that his people needed to keep his covenant. Moses went back down and told the Israelites, and they said they would keep it. So Moses went back up the mountain and told God what they said. Then God said he was going to come and talk to Moses. Then Moses told God what the people had said, again.

God told Moses how the people should prepare for God to talk to Moses, and how Moses should keep the people away from the holy mountain while God was there. Then Moses went down and told the people what God had said. He also told them not to have sex during the visit from God, which God had not said anything about.

Moses stood at the foot of the mountain with the people and talked with God. Then Moses went up to the top of the mountain so God could talk to him. God told Moses to go and warn the people not to get too close to the mountain. Moses reminded the all-knowing God that they had already put limits around the mountain to keep people away, because God had told them to.

Then God told Moses to go down and get his brother Aaron. So he went down and told the people to stay away from the mountain, again. While Moses was down there with the people, God told them the Ten Commandments. But God was too scary, so the Israelites told Moses not to let God speak to them directly. So Moses went back up the mountain, and God gave him some more laws for Israel, so they would have more opportunities to sin. God thought that would help save people’s lives, but somehow it didn’t work.

Then God told Moses to come up the mountain with Aaron and some others. So Moses went down the mountain and told the people about all those laws. The people said they would obey them. Moses wrote down the laws, and then he came up the mountain with Aaron and some others. Then God told Moses to come up the mountain so he could give him the law. So Moses went up the mountain with his assistant, Joshua, leaving Aaron with the people. A week later, God started talking to Moses and giving him more instructions.

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The Story of Judah and Tamar—
Somebody Get Me Pregnant Already

October 4, 2020Bible storiesbad rules, death, deception, family, god, in-law-cest, jealousy, marriage, morality, murder, prostitution, punishment, rape, sexR. A. Absalom

Jacob’s son Judah had three sons: Er, Onan, and Shelah. God killed Er because he thought he was wicked, so Judah told Onan to have children with Er’s widow, Tamar. But if Onan had children with Tamar, they wouldn’t be considered Onan’s children for some reason. So he refused to do it. God thought it was wicked to not impregnate your brother’s wife, so he killed Onan too. Tamar wanted to have children, but Judah wouldn’t let her marry his last son, Shelah.

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The Story of the Tower of Babel—
Babble Babble Babble

April 21, 2020Bible storiesanti-intellectualism, buildings, curses, god, jealousy, language, misunderstanding, omnipotence, sabotage, teamworkR. A. Absalom

When Noah’s flood had reduced the world population to 8, and while the population was recovering for a while after that, everyone in the world spoke the same language. People who had moved to the East started to build a great, unifying city with a huge tower that would reach to the heavens.

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Reductio Ad Absalom

For the message of the cross is foolishness.

Tag Archives: jealousy

The Story of the Lost Ark—
God Gives You Cancer

The Story of King Ish-Bosheth—
The One Where Nearly Everybody Gets Killed, But It's Not God's Doing for a Change

The Story of Samson’s Riddle—
Out of the Strong, Some Way to Cheat

The Story of the Golden Calf—
Moses Receives the Commandments

On the mountain, or wherever

The Story of Judah and Tamar—
Somebody Get Me Pregnant Already

The Story of the Tower of Babel—
Babble Babble Babble