Samuel 8-10

Chapter 8:

Samuel gets old and has to retire. Judging people is a young man's game, so he puts his sons in charge. His sons are not good at being in charge of things. They take bribes and "pervert justice." Still, God doesn't threaten to murder Samuel and his dishonest sons, but he would he if his character was remotely consistent. 

The Israeli elders meet with Samuel. Since he is too old to rule and his sons suck, they would like a new ruler, a king. Kings are all the rage now. All the other nations have kings now. Being tribal is so genesis. Samuel is displeased because having a king is dangerously close to having a new god.

Samuel prays about it and shares the hot goss with the Good Lord. I picture the two of them drinking a bottle of cabernet, barefoot on the couch, just venting about how underappreciated they feel.

Weirdly I couldn't google my way to a photo of Maggie Smith drinking wine with God on a couch so please enjoy my garbage art instead.

God's big plan is for Samuel to disapprove even harder this time. Samuel gives it his best Maggie Smith. He warns the Israelites what having a king really means. A king would make them fight in wars and *shutter* tax them.

"He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves."

1. These people fight wars constantly anyway.
2. Being taxed is not the same as slavery.
3. You should know this.
4. Your people were literally slaves before you should know the difference .

The Israelites aren't having it. They know what they want and they're not going to let Ol' Judgy Samuel get in the way of it. Though, Samuel might be right. I don't think the Israelites fully understand what kings do:

"We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to leads us and to go out before us and fight out battles."

Fight your battles? They clearly haven't seen Game of Thrones.

After the Israelites defy Samuel yet again, Samuel tells God about their disloyalty and I brace myself for another plaguing smack down:

"The Lord answered, 'Listen to them and give them a king.'"

Me

Chapter 9: 

A boy named Saul goes in search of his father's lost donkeys. I have never known what any of the characters in this book have looked like until now. They were mere shadows destined  for suffering and death. But Saul is different. We finally get some character description because the authors really want you to know that this donkey hunter is hot af.

"Saul, as handsome a young man as could be found anywhere in Israel, and he was a head taller than anyone else."

Feel free to picture any tall and handsome person of your choosing. I'm not the boss of your imagination. I'll be imagining Lee Pace is case you were wondering. He's 6"4 and seems like he cares about animals.

So sad about those donkeys.

The donkeys prove difficult to find for Sexy Saul and he needs a little help. Saul hears about Samuel the seer who can speak with God. Personally, if I heard of a seer who could speak to an omniscient, omnipotent being about wars, murder and the destiny of humanity, I might feel a little self conscious asking him about where my lost donkeys went, but Sexy Saul has no such inhibitions. He already has the entitlement of a king. 

Samuel has been expecting Saul. God already told him the beautiful donkey boy would be king. Samuel doesn't tell Saul this directly but opts to be ominous and creepy instead. He first tells Saul that his donkeys are safe. Samuel then suggests that Saul, the young man (or possibly just an under-aged boy without supervision because the book really wasn't specific about his age?) stay the night "and in the morning I will send you on your way and will tell you all that is in your heart."

Chapter 10:

Samuel tells Saul that he has a message from God. I'll let the book's own words tell you what happens next. 

"Samuel took a flask of olive oil and poured it on Saul's head and kissed him saying 'Has not the Lord anointed you ruler over his inheritance?'"

Samuel informs Saul that he's a king now. That's how it works. No sword in the stone this time. Just oily kisses from an old man. Mmmmm. 

Saul is finally skeptical. Not because of the kissing but because he can't believe that a small town boy such as himself could ever be king. Samuel tells Saul that he will receive three signs from God as proof that he wasn't just molested by a delusional old man.

1. Two men are going to tell him his father's donkeys are safe.
2. Three men who have three goats, three loaves of bread, and one bottle of wine will offer food to Saul. "which you will accept from them."
3. Finally, he's going to run into prophets playing harps, pipes, and lyres. The prophet marching band is going to be so inspiring that Saul will feel the spirit of the Lord  "come powerfully upon" him.

I'll stop when they stop. 

If I was Saul, I would wonder if perhaps an old man stole my donkeys, lured me into his home and drugged me via wine and food. I would have asked for more miraculous evidence like parting oceans or creative plagues, but I'm not king material. Strangers offering mystery food and a marching band are enough for the stupid donkey lover who will be king.

Samuel calls the people of Israel together to cast lots for their king. Stupid Sexy Saul is chosen. They spot their new king in the crowd right away, because he is tall. Let's check in on my imagination again. 

Samuel 6-7

Happy New Year!

Let's see how much worse things can get!

I mean in this book.

But also this planet right?

I wonder if I'll finish this book before the world ends.

Anyhoo...

Previously on The Holy Bible...

A woman wanted a baby. She asked God for a baby. God gave her that baby. That baby was Samuel. 

She gave that baby up to some priests because that was the deal. A stupid deal. 

The priest family wasn't perfect. The sons sucked and the father was complicit in their sucking. 

God told Samuel that he's going to kill the priest family because of all the sucking. Samuel became a celebrity because he was a vessel for murder messages. 

There's a war! With the Philistines! The Israelites lost a battle. They also lost the Ark of the Covenant. (Yeah, like the Ark from Raiders of the Lost Ark.) The priest family died just as Samuel predicted. Hurray?

The Philistines were excited about their new God chest until people started getting tumors. The Philistines became less excited about their God chest. 

What will the Philistines do now? Let's find out!:

Chapter 6:

The Philistines don't know what to do with their cancer chest. Keep it and continue to let their people die? Get rid of it and not allow their people to keep dying? It's a real headscratcher. They ask their best priests and diviners what to do. The priests and diviners suggest getting rid of the murder box. 

The priests and diviners suggest returning the murder box to the Israelites along with an apology gift. Personally, I might send food or money in order to buy food but these guys are more of the handcrafted gift type. (i.e. the worst people). They suggest:

"Five gold tumors and fives gold rats" . . . "because the same plague has struck both you and your rulers. Make models of the tumors and of the rats that are destroying the country, and give glory to Israel's god. "

                                               Question Corner with MJ:

1. Do you really need to make a mold of a tumor? 
2. Can't you just like...sculpt an amoeba shape? 
3. Will they even be able to tell that they're tumors?
4. Won't they think you just gave them sloppy amoeba shaped gold?
5. Gold rats...
6. Doesn't this all seem kind of passive aggressive?
7. Maybe it's just the bubonic plague?





They send the murder box and the golden rat tumors back to the Israelites on a cart pulled by two cows. The cows go to the Israelite town of Beth Shemesh. All the Beth Shemeshians rejoice except for the 70 that God smites for peaking in the murder box. It wouldn't be a reunion with Lord God without some casual smiting. 

Chapter 7:

The Israelites have started experimenting with some polytheism again.

They start worshiping Baal and Astarte. A storm god and a sex goddess, who sound so cool I want to worship them too. I sympathize with the Israelites, they want to branch out, see other gods but unfortunately, God doesn't take open relationships well. Seeing other gods tends to lead to plagues for the Israelites. Samuel, the celebrity judge, gets to judging. He reminds them that the Lord won't help them fight the Philistines unless he's in a monogamous relationship. The Israelites listen to judgy Samuel and do as they're told. No conflict happens whatsoever. It's almost like none of this was necessary to add to the book and even less necessary for me to repeat here. 

The Israelites get to battling the Philistines again. Samuel sacrifices a lamb to God because God likes his sacrifices innocent and fluffy. The going rate for this baby animal is thunder. God makes thunder noises which definitely has absolutely nothing to do with his insecurity that the Israelites wanted to worship a storm god.

The thunder freaks out the Philistines but not the Israelites. My theory is Israelites always carry battle earmuffs for such occasions. It's never mentioned so my theory is not proven, or disproven. 

The scary God thunder gives the Israelites the advantage they need. They get to slaughtering and win their lands back. The land they keep losing. And have to keep winning back. Again. And again. And again. 

Samuel lives out the rest of his days walking around the countryside.  

"From year to year he went on a circuit from Bethel to Gilgal to Mizpah, judging Israel in all those places."

Samuel, the Maggie Smith of the bible. 

Samuel 3-5

Chapter 3: 

Samuel's trying to get some sleep but God keeps trying to send him a message

Samuel hears his name and assumes it is Eli calling to him. For three nights he gets up to see what his adopted priest father wants and during the first two nights, Eli doesn't know what Samuel is talking about and tells him to back to sleep. On the third night, it occurs to Eli, that maybe the fact that his adopted son is hearing voices in his head each night should be a cause for concern. 

"Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy. So Eli told Samuel 'Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, 'Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.' "

The Lord comes, stands over Samuel, and calls his name and rather than freak tf out, as I would have done, Samuel lets Lord know that he is listening. Lord won't continue a conversation unless you signal that you're listening. Validation is very important to him. 

Lord informs little Samuel, in so many words, that he is going to kill his family. 

I think I figured out the connection in this meandering book of random characters and dropped story lines. It's all about Lord. It's a collection of short stories about this epic villain Lord starting off with good intentions and then just torturing everyone. At first we were kind of with him, seeing his intentions, characters talked to him more directly. Everyone disappointed him because they didn't love him enough and he runs away to his bat cave for awhile to think about stuff. Then he comes back worse than ever, to haunt children like the bogeyman and threaten their families. I wonder if anyone will be able to defeat him in the end. Or maybe someone will save him?

Eli asks Samuel what Lord said. Samuel is resistant at first to tell his adopted father that he and his whole family are going to die, but after some prodding, he passes on Lord's murder message. After that, Samuel is named a true prophet and becomes a celebrity at the expense of his dead family. 

Chapter 4: 

The Israelites and Philistines are fighting. The Israelites lose a battle and decide what they really need to win, is God's pokeball, the Ark of the Covenant. The Philistines are terrified, so terrified that they inspire each other to do better, win the battle against the Israelites, steal the Ark, and kill Eli's sons. 

Eli receives news of his dead sons and he takes it okay because he knew his sons were garbage but then they tell him that the Ark has been stolen and he falls back and cracks his head open. The pregnant wife of one of the dead sons receives news of her dead husband and the lost Covenant as she's giving labor...seems like they could have waited on that. She dies during labor, but not before she names her son:

"She named the boy Ichabod, saying 'The Glory has departed from Israel.'"

You remind us only of disappointment and failure.

Thanks mom.

Chapter 5:

The Philistines try to figure out where their new piece of god furniture should go. They start by putting it in the temple of one of their gods "Dagon." When they go to the temple the next morning, the statue of their god is kneeling before the Ark. That is some horror movie shit right there. 

They put the statue back and the next morning the statue is bowing again, only his head and hands have been broken off. 

God starts giving tumors to the people in the town surrounding the temple and the Philistines start to rethink the feng shui of where they put the Ark. They suggest sending it to another town, Gath, presumably because they hate them or the people of Gath are too poor to do much about it. 

Gath is no more tumor resistant than the last town, so they try to pass the pipeline Ark, onto Ekron. Ekron brings up that they are also not very tumor resistant, so the Philistines decide to give the Ark back to the Israelites. 

Samuel 1-2

Chapter 1: 

A man has two wives named Peninnah and Hannah. Aside from having a dope name that reminds me of Panini sandwiches, Peninnah has a womb just bursting with babies. Peninnah has all the babies, but the other wife, with the less interesting name, is barren. Anyone else think "barren" kind of sounds like the vagina is haunted? That's how I choose to think of it. Hannah isn't thrilled about her haunted vagina because Panini, can't stop flaunting her unstoppable ovaries to Hannah, so Hannah's super bummed that she can't do the only thing this book finds valuable about women. 

Still, Hannah's husband really seems to love her and doesn't mind that she can't have babies; he even gives her extra servings of food. If I were Hannah, I'd be excited about the infertility and special treatment. Then again, I'm someone who almost high-fived my OBGYN at the age of 16 when she told me I was going to have fertility problems throughout my life and wasn't likely to have a baby easily. She emphasized that I might feel differently about it in the future. I think about what she said now  sometimes when I'm looking at happy families, pushing their babies in strollers and on swings, and I think to myself,

"I wish I could call her now, and tell her that she's still super wrong."  

Anyway, Hannah doesn't have my outlook or any hobbies, so she prays to God to be able to have a child. She promises to dedicate her child  to God i.e. give the child to the Priest Eli to raise in the Lord's house. i.e. she's not even going to raise the child she's praying for.

She has a son named Samuel (like the chapter title!) and gives him away to Eli the priest. Priests, the most qualified to raise your sons alone without supervision.  

Chapter 2: 

Hannah channels her inner Kanye:  

"My mouth boasts over my enemies, 
for I delight in your deliverance"

"Do not keep talking so proudly 
or let your mouth speak such arrogance,
for the Lord is a God who knows"

"She who was barren has borne seven children, 
but she who has had many sons pines away."

TLDR: She can have kids now. Lord is her special friend. Peninnah can suck it. 

Samuel is doing really well as a priest in training and once a year Hannah visits him and brings him a new robe. Samuel appears to have no qualms with being given up to a stranger and having his entire life's purpose decided for him. He doesn't have any moody teenage outbursts or anything. Maybe some other literary chosen people could take a page out of the Samuel book: 

Eli, already has two sons of his own, Hophni and Phinehas and they are garbage people. They steal food meant to be sacrificed to Lord and they sleep around with women right in Lord's tent. Eli knows his kids are garbage and tries to warn them but they can't hear their father's warnings because Lord wants to relieve his glory plague days: 

"His sons, however, did not listen to their father's rebuke, for it was the Lord's will to put them to death."

Why let people grow and learn from their mistakes when you can just kill people and make an example out of them?

A man of God comes to Eli to tell him that he and his whole family are screwed. Everyone in his priest family line will die in the prime of their life and the few that he will "spare" will be blinded and weakened. 

Hey look Lord is back and getting on his favorite hobby: randomly and disproportionately punish people for minor slights. It's cool if you want to gang rape women to death and mutilate their bodies, but you better not drink that Lord broth. 

Ruth 3-4

Hi 1-3 people who read this blog. I hope you're having a nice plague free day.  Last time we left off, Ruth and Boaz had a meet cute that isn't so different from what I've been reading in the Weinstein exposes. She worked in his industry, doing farm stuff, tried to make her way in the world, then she catches Boaz's eye. He asks around about her, then aggressively tells her not to work anywhere else and that he'll set her up with all the perks. To review, the perks were: water and not getting sexually assaulted. So actually Boaz is a step up from Weinstein. 

Chapter 3: 

Naomi wants to make sure Ruth, her daughter in law, is well provided for and pushes her to wife up with Boaz. Naomi plays Hitch and her methods are only slightly creepier than the ones employed in that movie. 

Naomi tells Ruth to wash up and throw on her finest peasant rags because it's time to snag a man. After Ruth's makeover montage, she must go to the fields and wait for Boaz to lay down and sleep.Then

"go and uncover his feet and lie down. He will tell you what to do."

Ruth doesn't ask a single question. She gets right on those feet. Tarantino style. 

Boaz wakes in the middle of the night and to his credit, does not scream or kick at Ruth. He asks who she is. 

"I am your servant Ruth."

"The Lord bless you, my daughter."

Boaz let's her know his appreciation. He's amazed that she hasn't run after a younger man. Sort of a backhanded compliment but okay. Boaz says he'll do anything for her but there is another man more closely related to her that she's supposed to marry. This book is more incestuous than a key party at a family renunion. 

Even though Ruth is promised to another man, Boaz suggests that she stay the night and in the morning, if the new guy wants to marry her, he can. Ruth does not share opinions on the matter. She is merely passed around like a game of patriarichal hot potato. 

In the morning, Boaz tells her to leave. 

"No one must know that a woman came to the threshing floor" 

Is that a penis thing?

Chapter 4: 

Boaz tells the new guy that he has land to redeem. It would be Naomi's land but women can't own things probably because we'd lose them in our vaginas or something. The new guy gets excited about redeeming some land until Boaz gets real with him. 

"On the day you buy the land from Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the dead man's widow."

Up there you'll find your widow.  

Not only that, but any children he has with Ruth, have to keep the name of the dead guy. The new guy isn't into that. Boaz doesn't mind raises a ghost man's babies, anything for a woman who will lie at your feet and call you daddy. So he takes the new guy's place. Then he and Ruth ride into the sunset and begat away. 

The End. This probably isn't going to be turned into a romcom anytime soon. 

Ruth 1-2

This section of the book is titled Ruth. A woman has a name? AND her name is in the title? I want to be excited about it but I assume horrible things will happen to Ruth. 

Chapter 1:

The chapter opens to tell us we're still in the time of Judges,so in a way, we haven't escaped that section of the book and possibly never will.

Elimelek a simple man just trying to raise his family during a time period when the government sanctions kidnapping for diplomatic purposes, lived in Bethlehem with his wife, Naomi, and his two sons, Mahlon and Kilion. 

But there's a famine in Bethlehem and the schools PTA is really intense, so Elimelek takes his family to Moab.

Let's visualize this family so you can care when bad things happen to them:

Picture this but with more famine. 

Elimelek dies in some way that is not mentioned.  

Oh, Elimelek we hardly knew ye.

Naomi raises her two sons alone which is rough but at least they're slightly less likely to be kidnapped. 

Mahlon and Kilion get married...soooo picture them as slightly older than the above photo. Their new wives are Orpah and Ruth. They spend an adjective-less ten years together.

Then, the two sons die. No. No the book does not explain how. 

Oh, interchangeable sons who didn't matter. We hardly knew ye.

Wait. Is this book about to give us a story about women and only women? AND they ALL get names?!

Please don't get kidnapped please don't get kidnapped please don't get kidnapped. 

Naomi decides to head back home after hearing the famine is over. Her daughter-in-laws want to come with her. Naomi tells them politely that they should go home to their parents. Orpah and Ruth insist on coming with her. Naomi then gives them a reality check.

"Am I going to have any more sons, who would become your husbands? Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons—would you wait until they grew up?"

Women can only hang out if they're married to each other's male relatives. This book is failing the Bechtel test pretty hard. 

This convinces Orpah not Oprah to give up and return to her family. Ruth isn't convinced. She doesn't need a man to hang out with Naomi. Ruth is the most progressive person in this book and also potentially in love with Naomi. 

"Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me." 

No one has ever loved their mother in law this much. 

The two of them go on a road trip to Bethlehem where Naomi insists on nicknaming herself:

"Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter."

Naomi has been listening to a lot of Morrissey albums. 

Chapter 2:

Ruth goes to work in the field picking up leftover grains to sell, when a man named Boaz notices her. 

"Who does that young woman belong to?"

Boaz makes a move with his unparalleled flirting skills:

"Hey daughter,"

Hey daddy.

"I have told the men not to lay a hand on you."

The other women are totally fair game, but you girl, you're special.  

"And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled."

Remember dumb woman, when you get thirsty, drink water. 

Ruth is into it. She falls at his feet and asks 

"How have i found such favor in your eyes?"

Boaz heard what she did for Naomi so she gets that special treatment: water and going unassaulted. 

The flirting continues, at meal time he shares bread and dipping sauces with her. He secretly tells the men not to yell at her and to help her by essentially doing the work for her without her knowing it. 

Awww how sweet, he doesn't think she's capable of working. What a romantic story of mutual respect. I'll stick with the Samson romance of multiple wives actively trying to murder him thank you.

Judges 21

Good news. This is the last chapter of Judges.

Bad news. My head hurts from the amount of stupidity I had to read in this chapter.

In the last chapter, the Israelites went to war with the Benjamites (who are also Israelites) and win. It took them three tries. They outnumbered the Benjamites by hundreds of thousands...but it took them three tries.

The Israelites vowed to never let their daughters marry the Benjamites, which is fair because some Benjamite men raped and murdered a woman and the rest of the Benjamites stood by those men. Still, the Israelites feel really bad about the whole thing because they've already forgotten about the raped and dismembered woman. The Benjamites aren't such bad guys. They were just drunk. This one act doesn't represent who they are. They're really good swimmers. Don't be such a nag okay?

The Israelites can't bear the thought of their fellows Israelites, the Benjamites dying off. A whole Israelite tribe gone forever? It's unthinkable. Though, they can't possibly break their vow. Their solution? The dumbest thing you're going to hear today, provided you do not read about any current events.

The Israelites also made a vow to kill any tribe that did not help them in the war against the Benjamites. Jabesh Gilead did not help in the war. So...

The Israelites decide...wait for it...to kill everyone in the Jabesh Gilead tribe (except for the virgin girls) in order to give wives to the Benjamites...the people they went to war with. They can't stand the thought of an Israelite tribe dying off...so they kill off another one instead. They are killing their own people who didn't help them to kill the people they were at war with in order to help the people they were at war with. 

That's like...if I got into a fight with my brother because my brother was being a total dick.One of my sisters wanted no part in the violence, so she sits it out. Then, later, I feel bad about fighting with my brother....even though he shows no remorse and I was totally justified in fighting him in the first place but I feel bad about it anyway and I just want to get along again. So my solution is to MURDER my sister to make my dick brother feel better.

Wait guys. It get dumber.

After giving the Jabesh Gilead virgins to the Benjamites like a non-consensual fruit basket, they realize there still aren't enough wives for them. Solution? Kidnap more virgins.

The Israelites tell the Benjamites to go to Shiloh where there is a festival of women (probably little girls) dancing to get a husband. Dancing is a very important skill, some say, the foundation of a marriage.

The Israelites can't break their vow and just LET the Benjamites marry any other Israelites, but the Benjamites can kidnap the women (little girls) from another Israelite tribe. You see, these men wouldn't want to break their vows and lose their honor...so...they promote kidnapping women (little girls)...women (little girls) in their own tribes...

The Benjamites hide in the bushes, watch the dancing, then kidnap the women (little girls). When the fathers of  the women (little girls) come to complain about it, this is what the other Israelites tell them:

"Do us the favor of helping them, because we did not get wives for them during the war. You will not be guilty of breaking your oath because you did not give your daughters to them."

TLDR: The Israelite method of arguing

It works. The plan works. All these honorable bros agree on the loophole and little girls continue to get passed around to their own war mongering cousins.

End of Judges.

Have a nice day.