Exodus 11-13

Happy New Year bible enthusiasts! I hope your holidays have been cheerful. That's probably enough small talk. Onward.

Chapter 11:

As you might remember, God has been playing weird puppet-master mind games with the slave children of Israel and the Egyptians. Moses gets to be God's secretary and relay his messages back and forth between God and the Pharaoh keeping the COI under slavery. God keeps telling Moses to pass on threats to the Pharaoh and then God keeps hardening the Pharaoh's heart on purpose to make him say no anyway then all the Egyptians suffer for it, then the Pharaoh says that he'll totally change his mind if God stops the suffering so God does then the Pharaoh's all "psyche" then God comes up with another creative way of punishing the Egyptians. It's been a weird little game.

Now God has the ultimate punishment to threaten the man who's heart he intentionally hardens, he's going to kill all the Egyptian first borns babies.

The days of childish God pranks are over now. No more frogs. No more bugs. No more turning phallic objects into snakes. Now God is going to commit infanticide to make a point. All the Egyptian first borns babies are going to be taken out. Even Egyptian cow babies. What's that you say? Cows can't pick religions and haven't actually oppressed the Hebrews? What else is that you say? Babies aren't capable of oppressing people either and have nothing to do with this? In fact, most of the Egyptian parents who are about to lose their children have nothing to do with the Pharaoh (whose heart is being hardened by God) not letting the COI go? All logical arguments. Unfortunately your logic has no business here.

Chapter 12:  

Now, if the Hebrew parents want to keep their first borns alive, they must kill a lamb and put its blood on their doors. When God sees the blood on the door, he will pass them over. They also have to eat unleavened bread for 7 days. God's all about the dietary restrictions. 

Things get pretty horrible:

"And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was no one dead"

After the Egyptian babies are smoted, the Pharaoh kindly suggests that the COI get the hell out of his country. And to take your cows too. He even throws this suggestion in:

"and bless me also"

The 600,000 COI (not including women or children or cows) rushed out of their homes to leave Egypt for good. They didn't have time to wait for their bread to rise but they did manage to find the time to loot the Egyptians for their gold and silver.

The COI make a holiday to celebrate this day in the future called "Passover" and God tells them how they can celebrate this holiday with strangers who might like to join in the future:

"And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised"

The COI don't break unleavened bread with foreskin wearers.


Chapter 13: 

Moses gets excited about future party planning and lets all the Hebrews know that the whole week long unleavened bread thing is going to be a tradition  and so is the circumcision thing. All the boys have to get their foreskin removed with a lovely flint knife to maintain their covenant with God. For once, I'm super fine with women being overlooked.

Moses carries around Israel/Joseph/Loki's bones with them so that he may remain with his children. The COI do a lot of desert wandering in search of the promised land of milk and honey. Sorry lactose intolerant Hebrews, you don't matter. God protects the COI with a pillar of a cloud during the day and a pillar of a fire at night. It's luxury desert travel.

Exodus 8-10

Chapter 8:

The magic pranks continue as God's glorified secretary, Moses, goes back and forth between God and Pharaoh. Here's what goes down:

Moses talks to God.

God says he's going to bring on the frogs.

God brings on the frogs.

Pharaoh says take away the frogs and I'll stop being a dick.

God takes away the frogs.

Pharaoh: just kidding I'm still going to be a dick.

Moses goes to God.

God says he's going to bring on the lice.

God brings on the lice.

Pharaoh says take away the lice and I'll stop being a dick.

God takes away the lice.

Pharaoh: just kidding I'm still going to be a dick.

Moses goes to God.

God says he's going to bring on the flies.

God brings on the flies.

Pharaoh says take away the flies and I'll stop being a dick.

God takes away the flies.

Pharaoh: just kidding I'm still going to be a dick.

What reading this chapter was like. 

Chapter 9: 

Moses goes to God.

God says he's going to kill the Egyptian cows but not the Israel cows.

God kills the Egyptian cows.

The Pharaoh continues to be a dick.

Moses goes to God.

God tells Moses to throw dust in Pharaoh's face.

Moses does this.

Egyptians get particularly nasty acne.

Pharaoh's fancy magicians can't do shit about this one. Acne stumped them. They fall before Moses.

God still continues to harden Pharaoh's heart. That's right. It's straight up God's fault. He's a bored little puppet master. He's doing this so the people can see the extent of his powers. The ability to give and take nasty magic pranks away. This way people will start talking about him and spread his name around the world. God wants everyone to know his name. Blogging wasn't invented yet so this was the best he could do.

God sends out another nasty prank. This time it's a hail storm. The fiery kind.

If people don't stay in for the day and take the warning seriously, they're going to die. As we have learned in previous chapters about God. He may not always be consistent i.e. sometimes people get away with raping their fathers but when he gives a direct order like "Don't look back" or "Stay inside" or "Don't eat that apple" he is not fucking around.

God brings the fire.

Pharaoh asks if they would kindly stop that and this time he is for sure going to stop being a dick.

God takes away the fire.

Plot twist: The Pharaoh is still a dick.

Chapter 10: 

Are you sensing a pattern yet?

Moses goes to God.

God says he's going to bring on the locusts.

God brings the locusts.

aaaaand you see where this is going?

Pharaoh says please take away those locusts and I'll stop being a dick.

God takes away the locusts.

Pharaoh continues being a dick.

Moses goes to God.

God says he's going to bring on total darkness.

God brings on total darkness.

Pharaoh actually becomes marginally less dickish and tells Moses he can take all the COA provided they leave their cattle, since all the Egyptian cattle are now dead. Moses politely declines. The Pharaoh is displeased and continues to keep the COA as slaves. He tells Moses to get out of his face before he murders it.

Exodus 5-7

Heya people who read my blog. I think you guys deserve an endearing pet name. I'll try to think of one for all three of you for the next Bible Tuesday. Anyhoo, you might remember last time that I struggled with some bad transitioning in Chapter 4. It was a bit of a circumcision interlude and circumcision mystery.:

"And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art though to me. So he let him go: then she said, a bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision."

I wanted to know what was up with this section and Leslie, one of my three fans, had answers. In so many words, she explained that Moses didn't know he was one of the Hebrew people his whole life because he was raised up by the Pharaoh's daughter as Egyptian, which actually makes him a little more noble in his efforts to try and stop the Egyptians from abusing the Hebrews. Because Moses hadn't known about his roots, he didn't know about the rules of circumcision. If Moses is going to lead his Hebros he needs to be foreskin free. Moses still failed to do this because he's, as Leslie suggested, either wimpy, lazy, or forgetful, so the Lord confronts him about. Moses can't lead the Hebrews if he's not like one of them. Zipphorah, Moses's wife, gets the job done instead. She takes a flint knife and removes Moses's foreskin. Perhaps this was just the excuse Zipphorah needed to express her dissatisfaction with someone leaving the toilet seat up. I'm sure it was all very quick, smooth, and painless for Moses. Here's what a flint knife looks like:

I can feel your wincing from here gentlemen. 

Now I understand the badly transitioned passage. Though it's sort of like when people try to fill in Star Wars plot holes with explanations from the expanded universe. 
____________________________

Chapter 5: 


Moses and his brother/spokesman Aaron go off to the Pharaoh, Moses's adopted grandfather, and ask for the children of Israel to be let go to go on a field trip for a few days in the wilderness, to worship the Lord and whatnot, like Boy Scouts but with circumcisions. Anyway, the Pharaoh, as God predicted, is a dick about it. The Pharaoh doesn't know who God is or why he'd have any kind of authority. Only doctor's notes are accepted in Egypt, no God notes.

He decides that if the COI (children of Israel) have the time to go worshipping, they must be too idle. He decides to take away the COI's materials to build with. They must find their own materials to do his slave work but they must also manage to accomplish as much work as they did before in a day. I'm guessing that there are current company CEOs out there that wish they could get away with the kind of shit the Pharaoh did.

Everyone is naturally super pissed off at Moses now. Moses goes whining to God about it.

______________________________

Chapter 6: 

God says a lot of pretty words which can be summarized to "I've got your back Moses." Moses passes along the message to the COI but they still don't care. Moses goes back to whine some more and God tells him to talk to the Pharaoh again. Moses whines some more and wonders how he can accomplish this if the Hebrews don't believe him still and he also utters this gem:

"how then shall Pharaoh hear me, who am of uncircumcised lips?"

Oh look, Moses forgot to circumcise his lips too. What a coward.

Then we get a history of how Aaron and Moses were begatted into existence. Annoying and boring but it answered my question about whether Aaron was an adopted Egyptian brother or a long lost Hebrew brother; he is the latter. Also this is just thrown in:

"And Amram took him Jochebed his father's sister to wife; and she bare him Aaron and Moses."

They must have some interesting family reunions.

The chapter ends with Moses still being concerned over his uncircumcised lips.
________________________________________

Chapter 7: 

God tells Moses to go freak out the Pharaoh with his horrifying pranks, though God points out that he himself will continue to harden the Pharaoh's heart against actually freeing the people...God is into some weird roleplaying games.

Aaron gets to do the rod-snake trick to the Pharaoh but the Pharaoh gets wise men to do the same trick and turn everyone's rods into snakes too, thereby making God's magic less impressive. Now it's a magic off! Aaron outdoes everyone by having his snake eat all the other snakes because obviously God would have the biggest snake. God probably has an anaconda. Pharaoh still doesn't really care. That's when things get bloody.

Aaron and Moses turn the waters of the Nile into blood, killing all of the fish and making it impossible to drink. Pharaoh's wise men did the same trick...somehow...even though the water has already been turned to blood. Again the Pharaoh is still unimpressed with God who's pranking can be done by his own wise men. End.

Until next time.

I'm sorry I didn't have very many pictures or gifs in this installment. To make up for it, here's a bunch more pictures of lego people getting circumcised I found on this magnificent website http://www.bricktestament.com/home.html:

by Brendan Powell Smith. all rights reserved "The Brick Testament" 
http://www.thebricktestament.com/home.html

Exodus 3-4

Chapter 3:

Moses is hanging out doing shepardy things and runs into a burning bush. He does not put out the fire because that burning bush talks to him. There is an angel in the burning bush. Whenever you come across something on fire, before you run off trying to put it out, give it time to talk to you, just in case. God might be sending a message.

Just give it a minute.

God introduces himself though the burning bush and tells Moses to take his damn shoes off because he's on holy ground now.  God gives Moses the spiel about being the God of his father's father's fathers. God has heard the Hebrew slaves cries and will now help them by bringing them to a land flowing with milk and honey which sounds messy, sticky, and unpleasant but I guess the Hebrews are into that. God tells Moses to go to the Pharaoh and get to saving his He-bros with God's help.

Moses wants to know why he was chosen to be the leader which may be the first time anyone has asked that in this book. Everyone else has just been like "Build an ark in 2 weeks? Got it." "Go travel back and forth around the country, build altars and remove my foreskin? I'm your man." Moses wants to know what he should tell the children of Israel. Who should he say sent him? What should he call God? And God's all:

"I AM THAT I AM."

Which is sooooo gangster.  He tells Moses just to go on up to the Hebrew slaves and inform them that he will be their leader and he was chosen by the God of their forefathers. Then go tell the Pharaoh to let everyone go. No biggie. God let's Moses know that he knows the plan won't work because the Pharaoh's going to be a dick about it but Moses should ask just to be polite and when that doesn't work God will do some smiting.

Chapter 4: 

Moses is naturally still skeptical. He asks God how anyone is going to believe him. He knows better than to go around telling people he's been talking to all mighty beings in burning bushes. God's all "hey what's that in your hand?" Moses notices a rod in his hand. God snuck a rod in Moses's hand...which uh...then turns into a snake. Is that like the hole in the popcorn trick? Moses jumps away from the snake. God tells him to pick it up again by the tail and it turns back into a rod.

God messes with Moses some more. "Hey put your hand on your bosom." Then:

"When he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous as snow."

Do you see what happens when you get skeptical? Snakes and leprosy. Moses puts his hand back on his bosom and is just fine. God tells Moses that these 2 weird tricks should convince people but if that still doesn't work to take water from the river and pour it on dry land and that water will turn into...blood. Is God an 8 year old boy?! Can't he do nice tricks?

Moses is then concerned over his public speaking skills. He isn't eloquent and talks slow. God gets sassy:

"Who hath made man's mouth?"

i.e. Hey dummy. I made your mouth. I can make it do whatever I want.

God then informs Moses that he will be with Moses's mouth always:

"Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth"

Moses is still being whiny and suggests that God send someone else. God gets pissed off but says something along the lines of "FINE your brother will speak for you. Have I solved all your problems yet?" Moses runs out of things to bitch about and sets off to Egypt with God's rod in his hand. God tells Moses to demonstrate his neat new tricks to the Pharaoh but tells him that it's not going to work because God himself is going to harden the Pharaoh's heart?:

"When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go."

 So like...is he just fucking with everybody? Like a bored little puppet master?

Anyway, God also tells Moses to tell the Pharaoh that the children of Israel are God's children. Israel was his first son so if the Pharaoh does not let God's first son go or he'll kill the Pharaoh's firstborn.

Then, there's some really shitty transitioning and a section that makes no sense. Just no sense at all people:

"And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art though to me. So he let him go: then she said, a bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision."

1. What did I just read?
2. Who is the "him" God is suddenly trying to kill? Moses? Moses's son?
3. Why would God try to suddenly kill Moses or his son?
4. What?

If someone could explain this all to me. That'd be great.

Now back to the ...story. I guess. God talks to Moses's brother and future spokesperson, Aaron. He tells Aaron to meet Moses in the wilderness. The brothers meet and kiss and get on to talking to the Hebrew elders. They did their special tricks and the elders are excited.

That chapter was super long and frustrating. Until next time.

Genesis 50; Exodus 1-2

FINALLY I have finished the first part of the book Genesis and all of it's exciting begatting and characters with strange logic. I can now move on to the second book titled "Exodus the Second Book of Moses." I had one pesky chapter of genesis left so let's get that out of the way real quick.

Chapter 50 Genesis: 

Joseph buries Jacob where he said he was going to without any problems. The children of Jacob/Israel live happily ever after. Moving on.

I think that effort deserves a celebrational gif:

I am 50 chapters into this book and according to my kindle, 4% of the way finished. At this rate, I might finish this blog just before I die, if I stay healthy.

Chapter 1:

So the Jacob clan continue what the bible folk are good at, begatting. After many a year, there is a new king of Egypt who never knew Joseph who helped the king before him so he doesn't have any loyalty. He mostly just has hate and paranoia. He decides that those Hebrews do far too much begatting and could be a threat against the Egyptians someday. So to prevent them from becoming future enemies, he enslaves them to make pyramids and such. He also tells a couple of midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, to kill any Hebrew baby boys. Girls don't count.

The midwives do not do this because they are not monsters. They lie to the Pharaoh and God rewards them with some houses. The Pharaoh is super pissed and order that all Egyptians should kill Hebrew boys by throwing them into the river.

This panda properly conveys how I feel about babies being thrown into rivers:

Chapter 2: 

There is a Hebrew boy named Moses born who is a descendent of Levi. His mother hides him in some bushes by the river and the Pharaoh's daughter finds him and takes pity. She sends for a Hebrew midwife to nurse him. An Egyptian midwife wouldn't do because Hebrew babies need Kosher nips. The Pharaoh's daughter takes Moses as her own son.

The book skips over Moses's growing up and teenage angst. Now he is a grown man and sees an Egyptian beating up a Hebrew. Moses diplomatically and passionately speaks to the Egyptian and convinces him violence and prejudice is wrong. JK he just murders him and hides the body. Fantastic role model. On the second day, Moses sees two Hebrews fighting. He asks them why they would fight when they are brethren. The Hebrews get sassy:

"Who made thee a prince and judge over us? Intendest thou to kill me, as thou killdest the Egyptian?"

i.e. "Who made you the boss? Are you going to kill us like to did the Egyptian? Is that how you solve all your problems Moses?"

Moses realizes that word has spread about his murdering and decides to flee. He goes to Midian and sits by a well and meets 7 daughters of a priest. He helps them water their flock and his minor effort convinces their father that Moses should get one of his daughters as a wife. Is that the second or third time someone's gotten a wife by sitting around a well? It's pretty easy to land yourself a wife in this book. They're practically handing them out. Hold a door open? Bam wife. Buy a lady a drink? You could probably marry her and her sister.

And now you shall bare my children.

Back to Egypt. The children of Israel/Jacob cry about their plight and God hears them and suddenly remembers that covenant he made to protect the Hebrews. Must have gotten it smudged on his calendar.

Genesis Chapter 46-49

Chapter 46: 

Jacob takes his whole family to Egypt with God's blessing. There's a big list of everyone's names. Jacob reunites with Joseph and says that he can die now. I thought he might literally die on the spot because that seems like something that would happen in this book. Joseph tells his family that they must be cattle people now because Egyptians aren't into sheep people. Sheep people are no longer stylish.

Sheep are so last season.

Chapter 47:

Back to that famine thing. Apparently, the famine is so bad that people are feinting from hunger now. The cost of corn is going up and people can't afford to pay anymore. Joseph cuts them a deal that they can trade their livestock in for food. They can trade they're walking, living, breathing food, for corn. They are trading in what could be prime rib and frozen yogurt for...corn. People then run out of livestock to trade so they offer themselves and their land. They offer to sell themselves as servants to the Pharaoh. Joseph's such a nice guy that he takes them up on their offer to sell themselves into slavery. They buy up everyone's land in Egypt and give them seeds to grow food. He tells them that they get to keep 4/5ths of the crops but 1/5th goes to the Pharaoh. So...they just had those seeds laying around the whole time did they? Couldn't...plant them before in these last 7 years to stop the famine? This famine thing is a half-assed plot device.

Jacob/Israel knows he's dying. He calls his son over for his favorite thing, thigh caressing: 

"I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me"

 He tells Joseph that he doesn't want to be buried in Egypt. His body must be taken to where his own fathers are buried.

Chapter 48: 

Jacob blesses Joseph's two sons. His vision isn't great and he puts his favorable blessing hand on the younger son Ephraim. Joseph is a little annoyed, thinking his father is having a senile moment and tries to switch his father's hands. 

"Not so, my father: for this is the firstborn; put thy right hand upon his head." 

Jacob informs his son that this is not a senile thing. The younger son, Ephraim, is going to be better and have awesome seed. I think this is probably because Jacob still has some issues about being the less favored younger brother who had to steal his blessing. He's passing his daddy issues down onto his son. 

Then Jacob says: "Behold, I die." I hope I get to say that when I die. 

Chapter 49: 

Ok I guess Jacob STILL isn't actually dead. He calls all his sons together to insult them a bunch. Reuben is unstable and "shalt not excel" because he slept with his father's prostitute. Thought he'd just forget about that eh Reuben? Simeon and Levi are "instruments of cruelty" because they slaughtered a bunch of people for their raped sister. 

Yolo.

Jacob then proceeds to bless his other less shitty sons. He compares Judah to a lion and says that his future offspring will be royalty and have money and wine and stuff. Even though Judah did some messed up stuff such as suggest that his younger brother Joseph be sold into slavery and screwing around with his daughter in law, he redeemed himself by risking himself a couple of chapters ago. I am not going to review how he did this because I can't make it sound funny, just go back and read the blog. Zebulun gets the sea or ships or something. Isaachar gets called a "strong ass" but in a nice way. He's going to have burdens. Probably slavery burdens. Dan will be a serpent and does anyone else think Jacob's blessings are starting to sound like zodiac horoscopes? I don't think this whole blessing will thing would be legally binding today. 

Anyway, Dan's a snake that's going to bite horse heels which probably isn't a good thing. Gad will have a troop overcome him but...he's going to be ok in the end. Asher will have royally fat bread. Naphtali is a deer let loose. Joseph is a fruitful bough? By a well? I wish I could make this make more sense. Just...so many damn metaphors in this. I need pictures. Diagrams. Something. 

Jacob continues with the fruitful bough metaphor. Joseph is a fruitful bough. His brothers are archers with shitty aim. Joseph is special and will be blessed with breasts and wombs. 

Benjamin, the cute youngest brother that Joseph was so fond of will be a ravenous wolf. He will devour pray and just be generally awesome and horrifying. It's always the cute ones. 

Jacob reminds them that they better make sure he gets buried in the right place. 

The End. 

Fuck metaphors.  

Genesis Chapter 42-45

Chapter 42:

The famine's still going on and it's so bad that it spreads past Egypt where Joseph's horrible brothers live. Jacob/Israel sends his sons out to go get corn. Everyone in the world is stuck eating corn for 7 years. I just need to emphasize this. All the brothers except for the youngest go out to Egypt to retrieve the only food left and meet up with the brother they sold into slavery. Joseph hides his face and proceeds to mindfuck with his brothers over the course of the next couple of chapters as he well should.

He claims that he thinks that his brothers are a bunch of spies and has them locked up. Good start. He asks them about their family, if they have another brother and if their father is alive. They tell him yes to both questions. Joseph then tells them that the only way he can trust that they're not spies is if they send the youngest brother back to him. He will let them all go except for Simeon who has to stay tied up in Egypt as collateral. The brothers think that this is retribution for what they did to their brother. They are very intuitive.

He sends them off with tons of corn and sneaks the money they were going to use to pay for the corn back in their bags. This serves to make the brothers super paranoid. They explain what happened to their father and insist that they need to take Benjamin, the youngest back to Egypt so they don't get in trouble. Reuben promises that he'll bring Benjamin back to Jacob and even offers to kill two of his own sons, Jacob's grandsons, if he fails. Yes, because after losing 4 sons, the thing that would cheer Jacob up is to kill off some grandkids. Reuben is an idiot but at least his sandwiches are nice.

Chapter 43:

Jacob has still refused to send Benjamin after all this time. I guess he didn't really like Simeon all that much to begin with. Eventually they run out of food and Alzheimer Jacob's all:

"Hey go get more food."

And his sons are all:

"Hey remember when we were called spies and locked up and how one of your sons is still locked up? Remember when that happened?"

They insist again that they need to take the youngest Benjamin to Egypt if they want more food...and also if they want to free that other brother or whatever. Eventually Jacob agrees and sends Judah with Benjamin along with the original money, more money, and treats for the mysterious man who locked them up. Here's where I get confused. They say there's a famine and all there is to eat is corn one minute and the next, Jacob's family has honey and almonds to send. Almonds beat out corn every time. Why haven't they been eating almonds?

So they all head out and meet up with Joseph again but they still don't know it's Joseph. Joseph has a weird emotional moment when he sees his younger brother Benjamin:

"And Joseph made haste; for his bowels did yearn upon his brother"

I care a lot about my little brother too but I can't say that my bowels have ever yearned for him. I guess I just don't love enough.

Joseph comes off as really generous. He frees Simeon and they all have dinner together but not with the Egyptians because Egyptians don't eat with Hebrews; that would be an abomination.

They give the money and snacks to Joseph and all is well. When the brothers are sleeping, Joseph has their bags packed with the money again along with food and a silver cup put in Benjamin's bag.

Chapter 44:

Once they head out, Joseph sends his steward after them to accuse them of stealing. See? Mindfucking. He has them brought back and says that the one who has the silver cup in his bag must stay and be his servant. Perhaps this is because Benjamin and Joseph share the same mother unlike the other brothers and he feels a special connection or perhaps this is because Joseph's bowels yearn for Benjamin.

Judah goes on and on about how giving him Benjamin would just kill their father. Benjamin is the only son Jacob has left from the wife he actually wanted to marry in the first place, the other son is gone. This moves Joseph to reveal himself.

Chapter 45: 

Joseph finally reveals who he is to his brothers. He tells them that he's totally over the slavery thing. That actually they didn't do this to him, God did. God had a plan for him to save everyone from the famine. Joseph is the most optimistic guy ever. It makes me a little sick. Joseph sends his brothers to get his father so that he can see him again. He tells them that they can come and live with him in Egypt and he will take care of them during the famine. Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin return to Jacob who is super thrilled that Joseph is alive. Here's how I imagine the conversation:

"Hey dad! Good news! Your favorite son's alive!"

"OMG this is great news."

"Yeah! And he's practically the king of Egypt!"

"How did he get to Egypt? Wasn't he supposed to be killed by an animal or something?"

"Ummmm....."

Genesis Chapter 39-41

Chapter 39: 

Now we're back to the adventures of Joseph, the brother sold to slavery in Egypt. He's a good and prosperous little slave and his master makes him the top slave of the house.  Joseph brings good luck with him just like his father Jacob did. They've got that God luck. The master's wife is pretty into Joseph and takes to sexually harassing him. Joseph explains to her his reservations:

"Hey, do you want me to die? Is that what you want? Your vagina is not worth dying for."

Actually he was more noble about it and said the master gave him everything a master could give aside from his wife (or freedom) and taking advantage would not be very cool.

The wife doesn't particularly care. One day, all the men are gone from the house except for Joseph. She grabs onto his "garment" aggressively. Here's a reenactment.

Joseph panics and runs from her, leaving his "garment" behind in her hand. I'm going to assume garment means pants. The bored housewife decides to call rape just for funsies. When all the men return, she tells them that Joseph tried to seduce her until she screamed and he ran away. She's got his pants as proof after all. She lays on a guilt trip pretty thick for her husband:

"The Hebrew servant, which though hast brought unto us, came in unto me to mock me" i.e. This is your fault for hiring a Hebrew.

The husband is none too pleased and sends Joseph to prison but Joseph carries his God luck to prison too. God makes the guy in charge there like Joseph, so Joseph is rewarded with the responsibility of looking after the other prisoners and being held responsible for their actions. I fail to see how this is a reward.

Chapter 40: 

The Pharaoh of Egypt gets pissed off at his butler and baker for some reason and sends them to jail with Joseph. Both the men have strange dreams and Joseph offers to interpret for them because that's something he does. The butler has a dream that he comes across a vine with three branches budding with grapes. He takes the grapes and serves them in a cup to the Pharaoh. Joseph has good news. The butler is going to be restored to his position in three days and get the privilege of serving another man. Oh joy. Joseph asks the butler to tell the pharaoh about him and how he was wrongly put in prison.

Now onto the baker's dream. He dreams that he carries three white baskets on his head filled with meat pastries for the pharaoh but the birds eat them form the baskets first. So that means he's going to be restored in three days in serve the pharaoh again right? Joseph's got some bad news and doesn't bother to break it easily.

"Yeah so in three days the pharaoh's going to hang you and birds will eat your flesh."

The people in this book could really benefit from some sensitivity training.

The dream prophecies come to pass but the butler forgets all about telling the pharaoh about Joseph. I bet the baker would have remembered.

Chapter 41: 

The pharaoh has bad dreams about fish and corn. Seven fat fish are eaten by seven thin fish and seven rich ears of corn are...eaten somehow by seven thin ears of corn. The evil corn must have looked like this:

The pharaoh is very upset about all this and sends for wise men and dream interpreters around the world but no one can figure it out. The butler finally has a lightbulb moment and remembers Joseph. They bring the dream master in. Joseph rarely has good news. The dreams mean that there will be seven prosperous years for Egypt followed by a seven year famine. He recommends that they store up as much corn as possible over the years to prepare.

The pharaoh is pleased by the idea so much that he makes Joseph the new leader of Egypt. Joseph gets promotions very quickly. The pharaoh still gets to be the pharaoh but Joseph gets to do all the fun responsibility stuff a leader's supposed to do. The pharaoh gets Joseph a wife because that's how bible promotions work.

The famine comes along as promised and everyone gets to eat corn for seven years which is the most tragic thing in the book so far.

Genesis Chapter 37-38

Chapter 37:

Israel, the prophet formally known as Jacob has a favorite son, Joseph. He loves Joseph, the baby of the family, so much he gives him a fabulous multi-colored jacket.

Naturally Joseph's brothers are jealous of this special treatment and Joseph's sweet jacket. Joseph goes ahead and makes things worse for himself by having prophetic dreams. He dreams that he will rule over all his brethren. He then blabs and brags about it to everyone. The prophet formally known as Jacob is also concerned about these dreams. He decides that the best course of action when his favorite child is hated by all his brothers is to send him out by himself to check if his brethren are cool with him ruling them.

Joseph's brothers see him from a distance and start scheming. They debate whether to kill their brother. The concubine loving Reuben comes up with a cleaner solution, that they merely leave Joseph in a pit to die rather than actually kill him themselves. So they throw Joseph in a pit and do brunch. As they're brunching, traders heading to Egypt stop by and Judah suggests "hey, why don't we make money from our brother instead? Let's sell him as a slave." Sibling rivalry is really extreme in this book. So they sell their brother into slavery for 20 pieces of silver, then bloody up his gorgeous jacket with goat bits. They show the evidence to Jacob/Israel who is very sad and gullible. The traders sell Joseph to higher up political Egyptians that are apart of the Pharaoh's court.

Chapter 38:

Weird kinky confusing stuff happens in this chapter. Judah (the brother who suggested selling Joseph as a slave) goes to hang out with an Adullamite named Hirah and sees a nice girl named Shuah:

"And he took her, and he went in unto her."

They do that a few times until they have 3 sons: Er, Onan, and Shellah. I'm unclear whether it was consensual or if there was marriage. I think she's just a baby mama. When the sons grow up a bit, Judah goes on down to the biblical wife store and gets his son Er a wife named Tamar. Apparently Lord God didn't particularly like Er and decides to slay him. Because reasons. Judah insists that his second son Onan then marry Tamar to keep the family line. Onan knows that when Tamar has a baby, it will be his brother's and not his and for some reason...doesn't want to mix up the seed?:

"when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled IT on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother." 

So Onan uh...pulled out? God decides to kill him too because God's not a fan of pulling out. Tamar's not having the greatest luck with men. Judah tells Tamar to just hang on and stay a widow until his youngest son Shellah's old enough to marry her. Later on, Judah's wife dies and "Judah was comforted" because Judah is a dick. Judah celebrates his new found bachelorhood by going to a new town with his buddy Hirah. Tamar the widow wife decides to meet up with him. She changes out of her widow's clothes into a veil that a prostitute would wear to...seduce him. It would be nice if someone explained this character's motivations to me. I don't understand most of these people. They just seem to do things. Things just happen. This book is chaos. Is this a nihilist book? Anyway, Tamar goes and hangs out in the road until her father-in-law shows up.

Joseph propositions her with his majorly smooth skills:

"let me come in unto thee"

i.e. "Can I put it in?"

Judah doesn't know he's trying to buy the sexy services of his daughter in law. This book is just like one long Jerry Springer episode. He offers her a goat as payment. I know this is the time of bartering but I find the idea of trying to buy sex with a goat vastly amusing and I hope that one of you someday try to offer a prostitute a goat for his/her services for my sake.

Tamar says that she's going to need some collateral until that goat's delivered on her doorstep. She asks that he give her his staff (teehee), his signet, and his bracelets. He agrees and they do some conceiving. Judah sends the goat to be delivered with his pal Hirah and expects to get his stuff back. The girl cannot be found so Judah goes on a door to door harlot search. Everyone assures him that this is a family friendly environment and therefore harlot free. He eventually finds out that Tamar is the lady in the veil and he insists that she be burned. Men are swell. Tamar's a tricky lady herself and tells everyone that she has his baby in her belly and she has his collateral items to prove it.

Judah kindly leaves Tamar to be a single mother and never sees her again. Tamar has twins. The birth is kind of horror movie creepy. One kid starts to come out, reaching out with one hand, and the midwife puts a scarlet thread around his wrist then the kid decides he's not ready just yet and draws his hand back. The other one comes on out and Tamar names him "Pharez." The noncommittal baby with the scarlet thread finally comes out and she names him Zarah. I was curious if babies reaching their hand out during birth was a thing. I used google images. If you feel like ruining your day a little bit, you can do the same.

Genesis Chapter 34-36

Hello Bible Blog readers. I missed something last time and a reader commented. The part I misunderstood is when Rebekah steals her fathers' expensive idols and hides them in her tent. She hides them under some camel furniture and sits on it. She says:

"Let it not displease my lord that I cannot rise up before thee; for the custom of women IS upon me."

I didn't really know what this meant. I thought maybe "the custom of women" meant that women weren't supposed to stand up in the presence of men in tents or something. At this point, it wouldn't surprise me but actually "the custom of women" means their "lady time." Rebekah was pretending to be on her "lady time." Men are squeamish about "lady time." Tampax wasn't a thing yet so if she stood up, things would get gross.

Now that that's all cleared up, onward.

Chapter 34:

Dinah, Jacob's only daughter goes on a stroll to get to know the other young girls in their new home. She meets the son of a prince, Shechem, who is very taken with her. I thought maybe this moment would lead to long flowing romance novel hair, jumping off of horses and running to embrace each other much like Isaac's romance. Instead, we get rape. Schechem rapes Dinah. Schechem is not a very nice prince's son. I'm going to go ahead and picture him like this:

Schechem and his father Hamor the prince, go out to meet with Jacob and his sons to say "sorry." Just kidding, they suggest that Jacob's family marry Dinah off to her rapist and in addition that they marry all their daughters to the Hamor clan and the Hamor clan will marry their daughters off to the Jacob clan. If you recall, the Jacob family isn't into marrying foreign. They like to keep it in the family. Also, shockingly, they're not fond of the idea of marrying Dinah off to her rapist. I do not mean this sarcastically. I do find it shocking. Finally, girl rape matters.

Dinah's brothers Simeon and Levi are devious bastards much like their father. They have their sister's back. I'm going to picture them this way:

They explain that they couldn't possibly marry Dinah off to an uncircumcised man. Rapist? sure, but not a foreskin wearer; they're not barbarians. In fact, if the Hamor family wants to have a marriage agreement with the Jacob family, their entire clan will have to remove their fleshy anteaters. The prince and his son are happy with this agreement and run off to tell their clansmen the good news. I'm sure the clansmen are equally thrilled with the proposal. Once the clan all gets circumcised, they're fairly sore and weak, that's when the brothers make their move:

"Dinah's brethren, took each man his sword, and came upon the city boldly, and slew all the males."

Was this an excessive method of protecting their sister? Sure. But will a man ever rape Dinah again? Probably not, because they're all dead now. A man won't so much as make eye contact with Dinah again.

Jacob is displeased and tells them that they will have to move again before vengeance is taken. The brothers sound pretty remorseful about slaughtering an entire clan of people:

"And they said, Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot?"

i.e. "Yeah, we'd do it again."

Chapter 35:

God tells them to return to Bethel. Nobody bothers them on the trip because Simeon and Levi are terrifying. On the way some people die. First Rebekah's nurse and later Rebekah during childbirth. It's ok though, because she has a baby boy and he survives. It would have been a real tragedy if she gave her life for a baby girl. God reminds Jacob to stop calling himself Jacob, his new nickname is Israel and he has to stick with it. And then this little tidbit is thrown in:

"And it came to pass, when Israel (Jacob) dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father's concubine: and Israel heard it. Now the sons of Jacob were twelve." 

1. Two wives not enough Jacob? Two wives and their maids not enough? Had to get a concubine too? It's a good thing super gonorrhea wasn't around then.
2. There is no follow up. Jacob heard his son Reuben getting it on with his concubine and...that's it. I thought maybe the sentence "Now the sons of Jacob were twelve" implied that Jacob killed Reuben off but I went back and did the counting, same number of kids as before. J&J have terrible transition skills.

Anyway, Jacob visits his dad Isaac who dies at 180. Esau and Jacob bury him.

Chapter 36: 

Esau married foreign chicks. Those chicks had babies. And those babies have babies. And so forth.

Genesis Chapter 31-33

Hello kind people who read my blog. As promised I am blogging 2X this week because you deserve it. I mean this positively. I am not punishing you. If you want to follow the blog you can press the "join this site" button near the top left, bellow the summary or you can like it on facebook.

Onward.

Chapter 31:

We start off with Laban being a little miffed that all the new farm animals being born aren't perfectly white, which means they belong to Jacob. In fact, just about all of them will belong to Jacob. Though it turns out Jacob's speckled stick psychology trick didn't have anything to do with it, it was that sweet God blessing insurance.

God: "You are blessed so I took care of it."

Jacob: "So my speckled sticks didn't work?"

God: "I'm concerned with your grasp of science Jacob."

Jacob knows he's going to have some in-law issues now and gathers his ladies to share his side of the story. "I'm just going to say it. Your father's being kind of a dick." The women agree. They're not pleased with the loss of money and are down to run away with Jacob. Jacob only takes the cattle, sheep, and goats that are his when they run off but the little sister Rachel has other ideas. She steals her fathers "gods" i.e. fancy schmancy idols made of expensive things.

Laban is displeased and sets out to chase the family down. Even though he has a dream where God threatens him not to say anything good or bad to Jacob, "better keep that conversation neutral" he still accuses Jacob's family of theft. Jacob is deeply offended; he only steals identities, not objects. Laban and his men search everyone's tent for the stolen idols but save Rachel's tent for last. She's super sneaky. She hides the images in "camel furniture" and sits on top of it. When Laban and his men enter the tent, they search everywhere but the camel furniture because she won't move:

"Let it not displease my lord that I cannot rise up before thee; for the custom of women IS upon me."

i.e. Oh sorry I can't move. Guess your patriarchy's keeping me down.

When the search is finished, Jacob has a hissy fit. He goes on for awhile about how he served Laban for 20 years, never stole anything, served his daughters, his cattle, etc. even though Laban tricked him and changed his wages 10 times, points out that Laban probably would have screwed him over more if it weren't for the God blessing.

Laban's response "These are MY daughters and their children are MY children, and these cattle are MY cattle. So you know what THAT means? Means you're my family and it'd be a shame to lose you guys. Want to make a covenant?"

Jacob grabs one of his comfy rock friends invites everyone to set up a rock friend of their own. This separates Laban's land from Jacob's land. They solve their problems like bad roommates.

Chapter 32:

Jacob goes back to his family's land. He sends a message out to Esau to let him know he's back. Esau sends a message back that he will meet Jacob with 400 men. This concerns Jacob since Esau has a lot to be angry for and might murder Jacob and all his people. Jacob splits his people into two so that way only one half dies. You're cool with that right Jacob's slaves? Oh right it doesn't matter if you're cool with that.

Jacob sends a gift to Esau of just a whole bunch of animals as a peace offering. I also get people food when I think they might be mad at me. Jacob then sends his family away for safety. Then...something I don't really understand happens. Jacob meets a stranger and wrestles with him...all night? Then there's some...thigh action?

"And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh."

...so that happens.

Maybe I just have a dirty mind. Maybe it doesn't go down like I'm picturing it at all. Let's google image that:

Totally platonic. 

 When the sun rises the stranger comes to his senses and is all "stop touching me." And Jacob's all "no silly not 'til you bless me." Jacob is very aggressive when it comes to negotiating with higher powers. The stranger asks Jacob what his name is. When Jacob tells his name, the stranger's all "No, no you're Israel now." This is the type of person who immediately forces nicknames on people. He gives him this name because it means prince. "You're such a prince let's wrestle some more." Jacob asks his name but we don't find out because reasons. Jacob name's the wrestling place "Peniel" which uh sounds a lot like...uh. I'm just going to say it. Penis. It sounds like penis. Jacob wants to commemorate his thigh touching wrestling experience by naming a place a name that sounds like penis. There. Said it. As Jacob moves along, the sun rises and stops at his thigh, specifically the hollow of Jacob's thigh. SYMBOLISM. Probably.

Chapter 33: 

As the sun rises, Jacob sees Esau and his 400 men approaching. He bows to his brother 7 times. Esau runs and gives his brother a big old bear hug. They kiss and weep. Esau's excited to meet Jacob's family like the big goofy uncle you'd picture Thor to be. Then Esau's all "what's with all the animals you sent me?" Jacob: "Because I was a royal prick." Esau: "Don't even worry about it. Take your walking food back." Jacob: "No you keep it." Esau: "No. No. I insist." This goes on.

Genesis Chapter 28-30

Heya people,

1. Sorry for the lack of bible blogging last week. I was sick and incapable of doing much more than napping and eating.

2. I will make up for this by posting 2X this week. Today and Thursday (Fridayish for my Korea bound friends).

3. I am bad with technology but have recently figured out how to add a follow button. It was strenuous. So if you'd like to follow the blog (you should) press the blue "Join this site" button to the left side below the blog summary...near the top of the page. Ok now to the bible.

Chapter 28:

Jacob's not allowed to marry foreign chicks. Part of Isaac's blessing was for him to go off and marry his cousin. So he goes off to do that. Back to ADD Esau who gets side tracked from murdering his thieving brother with thoughts of marriage. Esau unfortunately missed out on the privilege of marrying a cousin. He is faced with the burden of marrying foreign chicks instead. So he goes and does that.  

Poor poor Esau. 

Back to Jacob who...is taking a nap.  He takes a nap using a nice rock pillow that used to be all the rage in those days.

Jacob then has a trippy dream sequence where he sees a ladder to heaven. Cue the Led Zeppelin soundtrack. Jacob sees angels doing angely things. One of the angels assures Jacob that he's going to have outstanding seed so long as he continues with his family's tradition of serving God. Sperm and the removal of foreskin is very important to these people. The assurance of robust seed is important at a time when all the women who aren't slaves are barren.  After Jacob wakes up, he names the area he saw the ladder in "Bethel" which means House of God. There you go. You learned something.

Jacob isn't as fully satisfied with the God pact as Abraham or Isaac once were. He's wily. He wants God to sweeten the deal. He agrees to not only worship God, but he'll even throw in 10% of his earnings if God throws in some food and clothes. God accepts said deal. This is during a time when negotiating your worship of God in exchange for material goods was acceptable.

Chapter 29:

Jacob continues on his cousin marrying quest when he comes across some sheep surrounding a well. The poor sheep can't get any water because there's a rock blocking the well mouth. Jacob gets all heroic and tells the sheep they are his brethren (maybe there were people around but I prefer to think he was talking to the sheep). He tells the sheep not to worry and removes the big rock all by himself. Robust God blessed sperm gives you super strength.

Jacob meets a pastoral hottie named Rachel who is luckily(?) his cousin. The outcome is very different from Arrested Development; he is in fact encouraged to follow through with this attraction. Jacob makes a deal with Rachel's father, his uncle Laban, that he will work for 7 years in exchange for Rachel's hand in marriage. Laban's a little shifty and after the 7 years, gives Jacob his older daughter Leah instead. Jacob is very displeased but in all fairness, maybe Jacob should have bothered to look at his new wife's face before consummating the marriage.

They strike up another deal. Jacob offers another 7 years of service for Rachel to be his second, simultaneous wife. Laban agrees but is so generous that he lets Jacob go ahead and take Rachel as his wife while serving the 7 years, because ovaries have an expiration date.

Jacob of course gives Rachel more attention in the marriage triangle. God takes pity on Leah so decides to make Rachel barren and gives Leah a super uterus. Leah has a bagillion sons.

Chapter 30: 

Rachel gets jealous of Leah's super uterus. God changes his mind about Rachel and "harkened to her, and opened her womb."  God does a lot of womb opening in these chapters, yet doesn't have to pay any child support. Rachel and Leah have their own baby making olympics that even includes their handmaids. Luckily, Jacob has an unlimited supply of super sperm and what must be the stamina of a wild stallion. Just about all the babies are boys; this family's going to be a real sausage fest.

When every woman involved in this orgy of a marriage has enough kids to start their own basketball team, Jacob decides it's time to move away from Laban; he asks for his wages and his freedom. Laban wants to continue to reap the benefits of secondhand God blessing from Jacob. Jacob points out that Laban has a lot more than before Jacob came but now it's time for Jacob to move on and provide for his own enormous nuclear family.

Laban asks what Jacob wants as payment. As mentioned before Jacob is wily so he comes up with a wily arrangement. He suggests that he gets all the spotted and speckled cattle and goats and brown sheep. Laban tries to be tricky once again and removes all the spotted and speckled from the flocks and hides them with his sons. But Jacob has a trick up his sleeve.

"And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chestnut tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods. And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink."

So uh...looking at speckled sticks makes animals conceive speckled babies? I guess? It's uh it's psychology.

Genesis Chapter 26 and 27

Chapter 26: 

Isaac and his family have to escape a famine like you do and runs into God for some good old fashioned covenant making like you do. God repeats the promise he made to Abraham about all the nations and babies and whatnot this family's going to produce down the line and Isaac says "cool."

Isaac goes to Abilemech's territory and like father like son that sunavabitch tells people that Rebekah is his sister. And Abilemech's all:

Isaac's excuse is that he doesn't want to die for his wife. Rebekah, like Isaac's mother Sarah, is super fine. Too fine for men not to have their way with her. These men will kill Isaac for such a chance. So the only way to make sure that they won't kill Isaac, is to tell these men that Rebekah isn't taken, just a sister, so you know, have at it. Isaac's more comfortable with his wife, the mother of his children, being raped by strangers because he can't risk dying for his wife. He's probably got altars to build. What swell guys in this story. Super romantic.

And Abimelech's all: "What is this though hast done unto us? one of the people might lightly have lien with thy wife, and thou shouldest have brought guiltiness upon us." 

Let us take a moment to ruminate over the phrase "one of the people might lightly have lien with thy wife." 

"Might lightly have lien?" Lightly? A light rape? Like someone falls into her on accident a couple of times? Which would have been just fine if she wasn't Isaac's wife? I mean...these are the good guys right? These are the protagonists? So like...what the hell were the Sodom and Gomorrah people up to if this behavior is just fine? I guess they must not have been into "lightly liens."

Anyway there's this whole thing with wells. Isaac's daddy Abraham built wells and Abimelech's servants filled those wells with dirts...because reasons. So Isaac and his people bravely go on an epic journey to re-dig the wells.
_________________________
Chapter 27:

Isaac gets old and blind. He tells his oldest jock son Esau/Thor to go get him venison as his last meal and he'll bless him. He's only got one blessing to give...because reasons. Rebekah overhears this conversation and does some scheming. She calls her mommaboy Jacob/Loki over and tells him to bring some of his flock's meat to his father and pretend to be his brother in order to obtain the one blessing Isaac has to give.

Jacob/Loki has some concerns about pretending to be his brother. Exact quote right here: "Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man." 

In more ways than one. Amiright?

Rebekah solves this problem by putting animal fur on her son's hands and dressing him in Esau's clothes. Jacob successfully gets the blessing from his dying father. Isaac is a little confused that Esau sounds like Jacob but decides that if he smells and feels like Esau, that's good enough. Blessings are like super powers in The Holy Bible. It sounds like Jacob's brother and his descendants will have to serve him and if anyone curses him, they're screwed.

Later Esau/Thor shows up with his venison. He goes to his confused father and figures out what Jacob/Loki has done. He begs his father to bless him as well.

Isaac: "Nope. I gave all the good ones to your brother already. You're his servant now btw."

Esau/Thor: "You sure? Sure there's not anything else? Like a time share you maybe forgot about?"

Isaac: "Okay okay. You're going to have a fat house and the dew of heaven but you're still your brother's servant until 'though shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck.' "

I'm going to assume separating one's yoke from one's neck is a bad thing. So Esau/Thor's going to kill his brother. Rebekah overhears this because she's a nosy little lady and she relays the information to her mommaboy. She tells him to run off to relatives in Haran. This is probably the best chapter cliffhanger so far.