The Bible contains a lot of questions, and it doesn’t always provide satisfactory answers. So I’ve been answering some of the Bible’s questions myself. This time, I’m looking at questions from the books of the prophets after Ezekiel.
Hosea asks Israel: What will you do on the day of your appointed festivals, on the feast days of the Lord? Answer: I assume they will feast.
Joel asks: Who can endure the day of the Lord? Answer: The author of Revelation seems to think a lot of people can. While writing about the events associated with that day, he keeps forgetting that he already said everybody died, and having something kill everybody again. Also, Jesus says whoever loses their life will preserve it, so I guess everybody can endure it?
Amos claims that for some reason, people who oppress the poor ask: When will the New Moon be over? Answer: In a few days or less.
Micah asks: Should it be said, “Does the Lord become impatient?” Answer: No, you’re right, Micah, people should not say that, if they mean to imply that God doesn’t become impatient, because God does very often become impatient and unreasonably violently angry.
He asks: With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Micah’s answer: No, God just wants us to be just and merciful and humble and stuff. Alternative biblical answer: Yes, he would be pleased. Not satisfied, maybe, but those sacrifices are certainly the sort of thing that God demands.
Then he asks: Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? Answer: Nah, God probably wants your second-born. Well, he might not mind having your firstborn too… Better kill both.
And he asks: What does the Lord require of you? Micah’s answer: Justice and mercy and humility. Alternative biblical answer: To kill anyone who does any work on the wrong day of the week. To never let your sex slaves go free. To destroy entire nations if they’re in your way. Etc.
Nahum asks: Where now is the lions’ den, the place where they fed their young, where the lion and lioness went, and the cubs, with nothing to fear? Answer: I’m guessing it’s in Nineveh, since that’s what this book of the Bible is about.
Nahum asks the king of Assyria: All who hear the news about you clap their hands at your fall, for who has not felt your endless cruelty? Answer: Everyone who doesn’t live in your little corner of the world.
Habakkuk asks: How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save? Answer: Until you realize he’s not your friend.
Habakkuk asks God: Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Answer: Because God is an unjust wrongdoer.
Zechariah asks an angel with horses: What are these, my lord? Answer: Horses.
Zechariah asks the angel again: What are these, my lord? Answer: These are trees, and a lampstand.
Malachi asks: Do we not all have one Father? Answer: Yes, we each have one father.
Malachi asks his people: Why do we profane the covenant of our ancestors by being unfaithful to one another? (By which he apparently means “unfaithful to Jewish women collectively“.) Answer: Because God never actually said you couldn’t marry foreigners in general. He just said you couldn’t marry Canaanites.
Malachi asks: What does the one God seek? Answer: An all-knowing God would not seek anything, because he would already know where everything was.
Malachi says the people of Judah have wearied God with their words, and he says they ask: How have we wearied him? Answer: With your words.
Malachi asks: Who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? Answer: Probably depends on which coming you mean. God makes plenty of appearances in the Bible without anyone dying.
God accuses his people of robbing him, and he says they ask: How are we robbing you? God’s answer: By giving him gifts, but not quite as much as he would like. Real answer: You’re not. Giving gifts is the opposite of theft.
Amos’s questions
Amos asks: Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so? Implied answer: No. Real answer: Yes.
He asks: Does a lion roar in the thicket when it has no prey? Does it growl in its den when it has caught nothing? Implied answer: No. Real answer: Yes, lions do roar for reasons unrelated to hunting.
Then he asks: Does a bird swoop down to a trap on the ground when no bait is there? Answer: Depends on what you mean by “bait”. Birds can be attracted with things other than food. Including sounds.
And he asks: Does a trap spring up from the ground if it has not caught anything? Implied answer: No. Real answer: Yes.
He also asks: When a trumpet sounds in a city, don’t the people tremble? Answer: No, not anymore.
And he asks: When disaster comes to a city, hasn’t the Lord caused it? Answer: No, and I’m not sure why you would want to blame all disasters on your god anyway.
Then he asks: The lion has roared—who will not fear? Answer: Samson.
And he asks: The Sovereign Lord has spoken—who can but prophesy? Answer: Non-prophets.
Amos asks: Won’t the day of the Lord be darkness, not light—pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness? Implied answer: It will. Alternative biblical answer: It will not.
When he sees God preparing to unleash devastating swarms of locusts on Israel, Amos asks: How can Jacob survive? Answer: Same way Egypt survived the worst plague of locusts ever.
Sailors’ questions
The captain of the ship asks Jonah: How can you sleep in this storm? Answer: By going below deck.
The sailors ask: Who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? Answer: God.
The sailors ask Jonah: What have you done that has angered your God? Answer: Refused to tell a lie.
They ask him: What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us? Answer: You should take him back where you found him, rather than try to kill him. But of course, God isn’t going to let you do the right thing.
Kings’ questions
Nebuchadnezzar asks Daniel: Are you able to tell me what I saw in my dream and interpret it? Answer: Yes.
Nebuchadnezzar asks: Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire? Answer: Yeah, just three. What’s up with that? Why didn’t you put Daniel in there too? He didn’t worship your statue, did he? Did he??
He asks: Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty? Answer: I guess so.
The king of Nineveh asks: Who knows if God will be willing to relent? Answer: God knew all along that Ninevah wasn’t actually about to be overthrown. So he had no excuse for making Jonah (who also knew it wasn’t going to be) say that it was going to be.
Angels’ questions
An angel asks Daniel: Do you know why I have come to you? Answer: No.
An angel asks God: How long will you withhold mercy from Jerusalem and from the towns of Judah, which you have been angry with these seventy years? Answer: Probably about 70 years.
The angel asks Zechariah, who has just asked him what these are: Do you not know what these are? Answer: Obviously not.
The angel asks: What are you, mighty mountain? A mountain’s answer: I’m a mountain!
The angel asks Zechariah again: Do you not know what these are? Answer: Dude, he already told you he doesn’t know, in addition to asking you three times.
God’s questions for the Hebrews
God asks: What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you, Judah? Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears. Answer: You could stop injuring them and tearing them to pieces. That might help make them stop stopping loving you.
He asks: How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? God’s implied answer: He’s feeling compassionate, so he won’t do it. Real answer: He’ll do it by getting the king of Assyria to imprison the king, besiege Samaria, and deport all the Israelites.
God asks his people: Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your ancestors? Implied answer: No. Alternative biblical answer: Yes. Whatever new plague of locusts God might be planning, it will not be worse than the one in Egypt.
God asks: Are not you Israelites the same to me as the Cushites? Implied answer: Yes. Alternative biblical answer: No, Israel is the foremost of the nations, because God singled out Israel as his only chosen people above all other nations, and did things for them that he never did for any other nation.
He asks: My people, what have I done to you? Answer: Repeatedly killed many thousands of them for no good reason, among other things.
God asks his people: How have I burdened you? Answer: You gave them a set of laws that’s just about impossible to obey.
He asks his people: Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while my house remains a ruin? Answer: Judging by what it says two verses later, it’s probably not even a time when they are living in paneled houses.
He asks them: What you brought home, I blew away. Why? Answer: Because you’re a bully? And because you forgot that you don’t mind living in a tent?
God asks his people: When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted? Answer: What other reason could they possibly have for all fasting together at the specific times God apparently told them to fast?
He asks them: And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves? Answer: What other reason is there for eating and drinking?
And he asks them: Are these not the words the Lord proclaimed through the earlier prophets when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were at rest and prosperous, and the Negev and the western foothills were settled?
Answer: Not really? The closest thing I can think of to what you were just saying that any earlier prophets said was when Isaiah said God hated it when his people celebrated the festivals that God had told them to celebrate. And also when he complained that they weren’t fasting the way God had told them to fast, when God hadn’t actually told them anything about how he wanted them to fast. Anyway, no, not the same words.
God asks: When you bring injured, lame or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands? Answer: Sure, why not? You weren’t going to eat them anyway. And if you didn’t want those animals to be injured, lame, or diseased, then you shouldn’t have let them get that way. Do you think the people presenting these animals wanted their animals to be in that condition? Do you think the animals wanted to be in that condition? What a selfish God this is, who doesn’t care about that until it becomes his problem.
God’s other questions
God asks: The Israelites are stubborn, like a stubborn heifer. How then can the Lord pasture them like lambs in a meadow? Answer: By being omnipotent.
He asks: Won’t Israel return to Egypt, and won’t Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent? Answer: Partially sort of correct. Assyria conquered the kingdom of Israel, and the people were forced to live in Assyria. Later, something similar happened with Babylon conquering the smaller kingdom of Judah, but leaving some of the people in their own land. And then the ones who were left fled to Egypt. So no, Israel didn’t return to Egypt. A small part of Judah did.
God asks: Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction? Answer: Plagues and destruction lead to death and the grave, not the other way around.
He asks: What more have I to do with idols? Answer: Your ark is an awful lot like an idol.
God asks: Did I not bring Israel up from Egypt, the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Arameans from Kir? Answer: Yes, you did not.
God asks Jonah: Is it right for you to be angry? Answer: It’s right for him to call you out for forcing him to tell a lie.
He asks: Should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh? Answer: Sure, but if you do, you shouldn’t say you don’t.
God asks: Won’t all the peoples taunt my enemy with ridicule and scorn, saying [14 verses of what God imagines they’ll say]? Answer: Will all of them say all that? Not likely.
He asks: Of what value is an idol carved by a craftsman? Answer: I searched for idols on Google Shopping, and it looks like they go for anywhere from under $10 to thousands of dollars.
Then he asks: Of what value is an image that teaches lies? Answer: If it can talk, it’s probably one of the more valuable ones.
And he asks: Can it give guidance? Answer: Apparently.
God asks Satan: Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire? Answer: Yes, the man is not a stick.
God asks: What I’m planning to do for Jerusalem may seem marvelous to the remnant of this people at that time, but will it seem marvelous to me? Answer: Looks like you find it remarkable enough to remark on it.
And he asks: If I am a master, where is the respect due me? Answer: You don’t deserve any respect for being a slave owner.
To be continued…