Book of Zechariah, ...saith the LORD of hosts

Zechariah 1-14

Damn, one more longish book.  Can you guess what it's about?

I love this line;

1:15 And I am very sore displeased with the heathen that are at ease: for I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the affliction. Can you believe that there is reference to Santa n the Holy Bible? It's true!  Zechariah prophesied Santa Claus over a thousand years before he came to be.  You couldn't make this stuff up if you tried! 2:6 Ho, ho, come forth, and flee from the land of the north...

And the fact that it comes up in our reading JUST BEFORE CHRISTMAS?!?!  There is no way that is a coincidence!



Zechariah eats peyote and writes several more chapters on his visits with angels, God, Joshua, The BRANCH and a flying roll. They all have something profound to say.

Chapter 8 gives us some nice, encouraging words fro God.  He gets sentimental after a few beers;

8:3 Thus saith the LORD; I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth; and the mountain of the LORD of hosts the holy mountain.
8:4 Thus saith the LORD of hosts; There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very age.
8:5 And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof.

This is an odd prophesy.  Anyone know who the ten men are supposed to be?

8:22 Yea, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the LORD.
8:23 Thus saith the LORD of hosts; In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you.

God admits he's punishing the innocent;

10:3 Mine anger was kindled against the shepherds, and I punished the goats

Once again the future is foretold!

14:12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth. The last part of Zechariah is apocalypse, end of the world stuff but it falls pretty flat in my eyes.

Book of Joel

Book of Joel 1-3
The book of Joel seems to be all over the place.  He covers a lot of ground in three short chapters. If only the previous prophets were so kind...
Still, I'm REALLY bored with this repetitive shit.

First, Joel gives us the standard doom and gloom (The end of the world is nigh, but if you repent...).  He's very unhappy about the drought, wether real or metaphorical.

He then slowly changes the tone to one of the LORD loving his people and promising to be nice to them and give them the bounties they deserve.  "I'm coming back to you, and then we'll all eat ice cream and cake!'
I always get a kick out of this line which is repeated in various ways throughout the Old Testament;

2:13 And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil. We finish with Joel not quite understanding what has happened to the people of Israel.  He seems to think that other nations came in of their own accord and ransacked the land, scattering the people and their wealth. 3:4 Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? will ye render me a recompence? and if ye recompense me, swiftly and speedily will I return your recompence upon your own head; 3:5 Because ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my goodly pleasant things: 3:6 The children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might remove them far from their border. Silly man.  That was all Gods doing.  He destroyed Israel and sold his own people to other nations because of their disobedience.  God must be pissed that Joel didn't give him full credit. God will get his revenge on the people that took HIS people captive. 3:8 And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off: for the LORD hath spoken it. Remember, he hasn't yet changed the rules to "Turn the other cheek" and "Forgive those that trespass against us" Funny, the shorter the book, the more I write about it. :-)

Book of Nephi ...and it came to pass

I thought we'd take a field trip today and visit The Book of Mormon.
Why?  Because it starts with the First Book of Nephi and takes place at the same time as the Book of Jeremiah.

Nephi's father was Lehi, a prophet in Jerusalem and they witnessed the fall to Babylon.  Like Jeremiah, he was disliked by the jewish population for telling them that God hated what they have become.

But, unlike Jeremiah they hauled ass out of Jerusalem and into the wilderness.

No need to go deeper then the first few chapters unless you want to count the insanely repetitive phrase
"And it came to pass".   It's used so much it becomes a comedic element.  Joseph Smith was in desperate need of a thesaurus!

Book of Jeremiah 41-45 But they hearkened not

Jeremiah 41-45

Now, where were we?
The chase is on.

Chapter 41 reads like the police beat section of the local paper.

41:17 mentions Bethlehem.  An obvious prophecy about Jesus.

The start of chapter 42 made me laugh!

42:2 And said unto Jeremiah the prophet, Let, we beseech thee, our supplication be accepted before thee, and pray for us unto the LORD thy God, even for all this remnant; (for we are left but a few of many, as thine eyes do behold us:)

42:3 That the LORD thy God may shew us the way wherein we may walk, and the thing that we may do. I think the LORD has made his wishes quite clear over the last few hundred years!  This is a dense group of people.  They decide that Jeremiah is lying to them and they head off to Egypt to escape the invading horde.  God will be disappointed in them I'm sure. Chapter 44 has God/Jeremiah going on and on and on about punishing those that went to Egypt. We get it, they'll die by the sword and b the famine. That'll teach them for burning incense to the wrong god.

Book of Jeremiah 37-40 So Jeremiah sunk in the mire

Jeremiah 37-40

UPDATED
We finally get to the good stuff!!!
Egypt and the Chaldeans duke it out in Jerusalem.
Jeremiah runs away to Benjamin but is thrown in jail for being a pompous dick.  Again.

Is this a new prison term for Jeremiah or is this just Quentin Tarantino style of writing?

Jeremiah gets stuck in the mud and has to be pulled out by ropes!!!  LOL!
Is this what the OT has come to?  The hell and brimstone has devolved into cranky prophets stuck in the med.

Zedekiah asks for jeremiah to give it to him straight.  Jeremiah lays out the kings options

Jerusalem falls to Babylon after two years of battle.  Zedekiah flees with family but is caught.  The Chaldeans decimate Jerusalem.

39:4 And it came to pass, that when Zedekiah the king of Judah saw them, and all the men of war, then they fled, and went forth out of the city by night, by the way of the king's garden, by the gate betwixt the two walls: and he went out the way of the plain.
39:5 But the Chaldeans' army pursued after them, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho: and when they had taken him, they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he gave judgment upon him. 39:6 Then the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah in Riblah before his eyes: also the king of Babylon slew all the nobles of Judah.

Sounds exactly like Muammar Gaddafi and his family.  The more things change...

Book of Jeremiah 16-18

Jeremiah 16-18

God starts off with a friendly warning to Jeremiah;

6:2 Thou shalt not take thee a wife, neither shalt thou have sons or daughters in this place.

Why?  Because he's going to cause the deaths of every man, woman and child in the neighborhood.

16:4 They shall die of grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented; neither shall they be buried; but they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth:and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their carcases shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.

Once again this loving god is going to kill innocent women and children and let their bodies be eaten by wild animals because their fathers have forsaken him.
I can understand when God ignores the people that stop worshiping him, but to actively seek out and kill them (especially the women and children) is unacceptable.
His stated reason is a show of power and ego.

16:21 Therefore, behold, I will this once cause them to know, I will cause them to know mine hand and my might; and they shall know that my name is The LORD. Great writing here! 17:1 The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars; The last part of chapter 17 seems to indicate that God will revitalize Jerusalem if his people will just observe the sabbath and take the day off!  Sounds like an easy enough task! Jeremiah gets really paranoid in chapter 18, like most of the previous prophets.  His dementia can't be total if he suspects that others will think he's making all this stuff up.  After all God himself said that prophets are liars!

Book of Jeremiah 13-15 Dirty Girdle

Jeremiah 13-15

Chapter 13 starts off sounding like a set up for a joke but there is no pay-off.  Can anyone make something funny out of it?

God is going to cause Jerusalem to expose it's proverbial privates to expose it's naughtiness.

13:26 Therefore will I discover thy skirts upon thy face, that thy shame may appear.

13:27 I have seen thine adulteries, and thy neighings, the lewdness of thy whoredom, and thine abominations on the hills in the fields. Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem! wilt thou not be made clean? when shall it once be?

If the city's already being bad, why does he need to expose it?

God once again tells them that they are screwed no matter what.  He ain't listening.

14:12 When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and an oblation, I will not accept them: but I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence. God also tells a prophet that prophets are liars!  Except for Jeremiah of course.  That was probably mentioned in his ad in the local paper. 14:14 Then the LORD said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart. 14:15 Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the prophets that prophesy in my name, and I sent them not, yet they say, Sword and famine shall not be in this land; By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed. I'm finding it interesting that the LORD is always threatening Israel with near utter destruction like in first part of chapter 15 but he never follows thru.  Unlike the bloodthirsty god of the first part of the OT, this god just talks shit he can't back up with action.

Book of Nehemiah 8-13

Nehemiah 8-13

Nothing like ANOTHER recap from a people separated by several centuries.  Again I ponder how long the Bible would be if they cut out the redundancy.  And don't get me started on the naming and the counting.

Several times through out the last two books, 'strange wives' are mentioned, meaning that the Israelites are marrying women from other tribes/countries.  Ezra and Nehemiah reflect on the Chosen People turning away from God and the sins committed but they keep coming back to the 'strange wives' as the big problem.
It reminds me of todays Christian politicians blaming the gays and the horror of gay marriage as causing the fall of America.

The more things change...


 

Book of Nehemiah 1-7 New Book, Old Construction

Nehemiah 1-7

We get yet another account of the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem.   This one is again devoid of the LORD and therefore devoid of killing!  Make for easier reading by us Atheists!

There is a certain sense of paranoia in this writing, and not without cause.When the Jews start rebuilding the city, the neighboring kingdoms get a little worried, perhaps remembering the past bloodshed brought on by the children of Israel in their bid to claim the promised land.  Is another war just around the corner?

Chapter 7 seems to be full of contradictions with the accounts of Ezra.  I'm sure an apologist can explain why the inspired word of God (as recorded by man) can't keep census numbers straight or do simple addition.

Book of Ezra 6-10

Ezra 6-10

A first person account!!!  I think this is a first for the Bible.  For me, it adds a feel of historical truthiness.

We learn more about the return to Jerusalem.  Ezra reports on a group of men trying to get back to the good old days (of God not killing them) and their efforts to follow the laws of Moses and practices of Aaron.

Strange wives could be a deal breaker so Ezra tells the men to send the unfit wives and children off to (die in the desert?).

This book seems to be written like an actual historical account.  I think it's because God, the LORD has no presence in it except for a people trying to get back on the good side of an absent deity.

What do you think?

Book of Ezra 1-5 for his mercy endureth for ever toward Israel

Book of Ezra 1-5

People move back to Jerusalem and try to get God to like them again.

After all the violence in the previous books, it's nice to read a few chapters where the LORD has no input.

I like the names Artaxerxes and Asnapper

Joshua 13-16 And She Lighted Off Her Ass

Joshua 13-16

Joshua is old. There is still much land to conquer.  How much time has passed between chapter 12 and 13?  5 years?

God and Joshua (I tend to first write Moses when I talk about interaction with God.  It's really ingrained in my brain!) discuss the borders of the promised land.

Here is a map of how the land was divided up.

At 14:7 we suddenly go to first person.  Is it Caleb speaking?  Why does he get the center stage all of a sudden?

15:63 As for the Jebusites the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not drive them out: but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day.

16:10 And they drave not out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer: but the Canaanites dwell among the Ephraimites unto this day, and serve under tribute.

What the heck?  God couldn't drive the Jebusites out of Jerusalem?