CHAPTER 15
Here’s another chapter that’s nothing but priestly duties
and roles. While it’s more boring bookkeeping, there is a point to all of
this. From what I remember from “WhoWrote the Bible?” by Richard Elliot Friedman, a lot of what’s going on here is
a tug-of-war on how to properly perform the Hebrew religion. The priests were sure that it should all go
through them. Sacrifices and offerings
were to be made at the Temple and at the Tabernacle. That’s what it was there for – and that’s what the priests were
there for. But many laity had their
more localized places to issue sacrifices.
And they did an end-run around the priests. With that came alternate forms of worship, as the Official
Religion mixed in with folk religion.
(At one point, that’ll even lead to the erection of some golden calves,
but that’s getting ahead of things).
The priests are horrified by it, and one motivation for
writing all of these various works (that later get combined into the Torah) is
to boost priestly power. Hey, it isn’t
just us saying this – it’s Moses saying it – and Moses is repeating the word of
God! So do what we say because we’re
doing what Moses and God said!
A lot of these really boring parts of the Torah are just a
big priestly power play. And my golly,
are there ever a lot of boring parts in the Torah.
CHAPTER 16
This is weird. You
get two different stories – both of rebellions – smushed together as one. It’s fairly clearly two stories. It works better if you pull them apart and
read first one, and then the other. But
when the Redactor (the editor who put the Torah together) combined his sources,
he kept going back-and-forth instead of first one than the other. I guess he figured it would look weird to
have two separate rebellions.
Perhaps. Or maybe he thought he
could make it work well, like how George Martin and Geoff Emerick took the two
speeds of Strawberry Fields Forever and ran them together so that no one
notices. Perhaps. Whatever the theory, it doesn’t work.
One rebellion is led by a guy named Korah, from the house of
Levi. He wants to know why only Aaron
and Moses are the holy ones. If God is
with us all, then shouldn’t we all be holy and therefore don’t need Moses and
Aaron. He and 250 men complain, and of
course God isn’t happy. Fire consumes them all. Bummer.
The other rebellion is led by brothers Dathan and Abiram,
Reubenites. They complain that Moses
has led them away from the land of milk and honey to die in a wilderness. They
are swallowed up by the earth, along with their “wives, their children, and
their little ones.” Again, bummer. It happens, right on cue, too, as Moses says
if they be right, let them die an ordinary death, but if they’re wrong, let the
ground swallow them up and have them go to Sheol alive. And so they do.
(Looking it up, the P source wrote the story of Korah and the J source handled the rebellions of Dathan and Abiram).
I imagine this for a second from the point of view of an
average Israelite. OK, God killed a
bunch of Egyptians to led you out of bondage.
Good for God. But now, if you
ever go against God, he’ll kill you.
When you put it like that, it’s like they exchanged bondage to the
Egyptians for bondage to God. Yeah,
there are tons of other things I’m leaving out, but boy – do what the powerful
almighty says --- or he’ll punish you in ways a slave owner wouldn’t even dream
of doing.
CHAPTER 17
This is more priestly junk that no one cares about. It’s essentially the priests from the
Kingdom of Judea writing down their interpretation of the Hebrew religion and
putting it in the mouths of Moses and God.
It’s just yet another power play.
We’re told that “no unauthorized person, no one who was not
a descendent from Aaron, should draw near to offer incense before the LORD,
lest he meet the fate of Korah and his faction.” See? Give the priests all
the authority over religious matters.
But people complain anyway. Huh – I guess what I said at the
end of Chapter 16 was felt by many Israelites.
They aren’t taking the deaths as a sign that they were wrong, but as a
sign that they’re being wronged. Lord
tells Moses that he’ll “consume them at once.”
And so a plague hits them, and 14,700 die. This is at least the second plague to hit them since leaving
Egypt. Rough year, isn’t it?
People still grumble.
Yeah, killing your opponents can give you power, but it can’t make you
loved. God seems to have trouble
figuring that out here in the wilderness.
CHAPTER 18
It’s even more priestly gunk. As boring as Leviticus was, at least it tended to focus more on
the laws than this stuff.
There is some more effort made to sanctify the power of the
House of Aaron over religion. God
ttells Aaron that he’ll be in charge of the contributions made to the
Lord. Fun fact: the priests of Judea
considered themselves to be descended from Aaron. So all the power given to Aaron is power given to them. And they’re the ones writing much of this
Torah. Imagine that.
There’s also more talk of firstborn animals to be
sacrificed. The more I read this, the
more convinced I am that the 10 plagues – especially the 10th plague
is written backwards. You sacrifice the
firstborn to show the Lord how important he is to you – he’ll have the first
serving. Then later on, when folk
memory comes up with the story of how they got out of Egypt, you have the Angel
of Death kill all the firstborn sons in Egypt to dramatize the sacrifice of
firstborns to the Lord – and then that bounces back to be the new reason why
you sacrifice first born animals to him.
CHAPTER 19
This is a purification ritual. It involves an unblemished red heifer. Why red? I dunno – I
guess it was considered more valuable, being red and all.
That said, I’m really getting sick of all the chapters like
this. Fortunately, actual stuff happens
in the next chapter.
EDITED to add: Click here to continue with Numbers: Chapters 20 to 25
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