Injustice in Numbers

1. God shows his hospitality with the admonition: "The stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death." 1:51, 3:10, 3:38

2. Two of Aaron's sons are killed by God for "offering strange fire before the Lord." 3:4

3. Don't touch or "go in to see when the holy things are covered." God kills people who touch or look at covered holy things. 4:15, 20

4. God tells the people to expel from camp "every leper, every one that hath an issue, and whoever is defiled by the dead." So by God's instructions, the sick are abandoned and left to suffer and die alone. 5:1-4

5. The Law of Jealousies. If a man suspects his wife of being unfaithful, he reports it to the priest. The priest then makes her drink some "bitter water." If she is guilty, the water makes her thigh rot and her belly swell. If innocent, no harm done -- the woman is free and will "conceive seed." In any case, "the man shall be guiltless from iniquity, and this woman shall bear her iniquity." 5:11-31

6. If you don't keep the Passover you'll be "cut off" from your people. 9:13

7. "And when the people complained, it displeased the Lord: and the Lord heard it." (He had his hearing aid on.) He then burned the complainers alive. That'll teach them. 11:1

8. God promises to give them "flesh to eat," not for just a few days, but "for a whole month, until it come out of your nostrils, and it be loathsome to you." Yuck. 11:20

9. "And while the flesh [of the quails] was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague. "The Bible isn't too clear about what these poor folks did to upset God so much; all it says is that they had "lusted." 11:33

10. Miriam and Aaron (Moses' brother and sister) criticize Moses for marrying an Ethiopian woman and thus breaking the law of God. But God makes it clear that his rules don't apply to his favorites, and he strikes Miriam with leprosy. Notice that only Miriam is punished, though both she and Aaron complained.  12:1, 9-10

11. More plagues and pestilence sent by God. God repeats one of his favorite promises: "your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness." 14:12, 29, 14:32-37

12. God punishes the children for the failings of their great-great grandfathers. 14:18

13. God killed those that murmured against him with a plague. 14:36-37

14. "If any soul sin through ignorance ..." but how can someone sin through ignorance? Don't you have to know that an action is wrong for it to be sinful? Oh well, if you do happen to sin through ignorance, you can be forgiven by God if you kill some animals. 15:27-30

15. The Israelites find a man picking up sticks on the sabbath. God commands them to kill him by throwing rocks at him. 15:32-36

16. Because of a dispute between Korah and Moses, God has the ground open up and swallow Korah, Dathan, and Abiram "and their wives, and their sons, and their little children." Then, just for the hell of it, God has a fire burn to death 250 "men that offered incense." 16:20-35

17. After God killed Korah, his family, and 250 innocent bystanders, the people complained saying, "ye have killed the people of the Lord." So God, who doesn't take kindly to criticism, sends a plague on the people. And "they that died in the plague were 14,700." 16:41-50

18. God threatens to kill those who murmur. To which the people reply, "Behold, we die, we perish, we all perish .... Shall we be consumed with dying?" 17:12-13

19. Stay away from holy things and places -- like churches. God might have to kill you if you get too close.18:3, 22, 32

20. God shows us how to make new friends by saying : "The stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death." 18:7

21. God describes once again the procedure for ritualistic animal sacrifices. such rituals must be extremely important to God, since he makes their performance a "statute" and "covenant" forever. 18:17-19

22. The purification of the unclean. These absurd rituals, cruel sacrifices, and unjust punishments are vitally important to God. They are to be "a perpetual statute" for all humankind. 19:1-22

23. Moses is punished for hitting the rock with his staff (like he did before in Ex.17:6) to get water, rather than just speaking to the rock (as God asked him to do this time). For messing up the magic trick, Moses will never get to the promised land. 20:8-12

24. "And the Lord hearkened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their cities." This verse demonstrates the power of prayer: If you ask God, he will destroy entire cities for you. 21:3

25. God sends "fiery serpents" to bite his chosen people, and many of them die. 21:6

26. God delivers the Amorites into Moses' hands. (You're in God hands with Moses.) So Moses does the usual thing, killing everyone "until their was none left alive." 21:34-35

27. God says to Balaam, "If men come to call thee, rise up, and go with them." Men come, and Balaam goes with them, just as God had commanded." And God's anger was kindled because he went" -- but he was just following God's instructions! 22:20-22

28. After the people "commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab," Moses has them all killed. Then God tells Moses to hang their dead bodies up in front of him; God says that this will satisfy him. 25:1-5

29. When one of the Israelite men brings home a foreign woman, "Phinehas (Aaron's grandson) sees them and throws a spear "through the man .. and the woman through her belly." This act pleases God so much that "the plague was stayed from the children of Israel." But not before 24,000 had died. 25:6-9

30. For impaling the interracial couple, God rewards Phinehas and his sons with the everlasting priesthood. 25:10-13

31. God tells Moses how to care for his neighbors by saying: "Vex the Midianites, and smite them." 25:16-17

32. The ground swallow Korah and his companions and a fire consumes 250 men. 26:10

33. "And Nadab and Abihu died when they offered strange fire before the Lord." When you go camping avoid making any unusual fires. 26:61

34. Under God's direction, Moses' army defeats the Midianites. They kill all the adult males, but take the women and children captive. When Moses learns that they left some live, he angrily says: "Have you saved all the women alive? Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves." So they went back and did as Moses (and presumably God) instructed, killing everyone except for the virgins. In this way they got 32,000 virgins -- Wow! (Even God gets some of the booty -- including the virgins.) 31:1-54

35. God killed all the Egyptian firstborn. 33:4

36. God tells Moses to exterminate the residents of Canaan and destroy all of their religious symbols and possessions. 33:50-52

37. But if the Israelites don't kill them all, then God will make them pricks in their eyes and thorns in their sides. And he will do unto the Israelites as he planned to do to the inhabitants of Canaan. 33:55-56

38. "The revenger of blood" must murder the murderer just as soon as he sees him. 35:19, 21

39. When a murder is committed the blood pollutes the land. The only way to cleanse it is to spill more blood by killing the killer. 35:30, 33