Numbers 21 is very long and very strange. It is stylistically anomalous -- it seems to come from a different source than the surrounding material. It is also inconsistent with the main thrust of the narrative. The people are supposed to be wandering in the wilderness and prevented from entering the promised land, but here they conquer and occupy land and cities. Some of them apparently keep wandering, but others settle down. In any case the genocide the Israelites perpetrate in Deuteronomy gets started here. As a matter of fact the conquest of Og will be retold in Deuteronomy. Then there is the fiery serpent thing, which is just another of those weird interpolations. I'll make numerous comments along the way.
21 When the Canaanite king of Arad, who lived in the Negev, heard that Israel was coming along the road to Atharim, he attacked the Israelites and captured some of them. 2 Then Israel made this vow to the Lord: “If you will deliver these people into our hands, we will totally destroy[a] their cities.” 3 The Lord listened to Israel’s plea and gave the Canaanites over to them. They completely destroyed them and their towns; so the place was named Hormah.[b]
This is the first glaring stylistic anomaly. Up until now, Moses has always spoken to God for the Israelites, but now disembodied Israelites speak to God, who is not called Yahweh but The Lord, further evidence of a different source. In this case anyway, after slaughtering the Canaanites and destroying their towns, the Israelites move on.
4 They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea,[c] to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; 5 they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”
Sheesh. You think by now they would have realized that this complaining is a really bad idea.
6 Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 7 The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.
8 The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.
Okaaaay. So all you have to do is look at the bronze snake on the pole and you are immune to snake venom. If God decided not to murder the people with snakes after all, he could have just taken them away. This seems to be an overly elaborate solution.
10 The Israelites moved on and camped at Oboth. 11 Then they set out from Oboth and camped in Iye Abarim, in the wilderness that faces Moab toward the sunrise. 12 From there they moved on and camped in the Zered Valley. 13 They set out from there and camped alongside the Arnon, which is in the wilderness extending into Amorite territory. The Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites. 14 That is why the Book of the Wars of the Lord says:
There is never any explanation as to why they have to keep moving. In the previous chapter, they were given a location with plenty of water, and they're eating manna so it doesn't really matter where they are. The Book of the Wars of the Lord has been lost. Remember that the compilers of the Torah had a lot of material to work with and they chose what to include.
16 From there they continued on to Beer, the well where the Lord said to Moses, “Gather the people together and I will give them water.”
17 Then Israel sang this song:
“Spring up, O well!
Sing about it,
18 about the well that the princes dug,
that the nobles of the people sank—
the nobles with scepters and staffs.”
All of these songs are another stylistic anomaly. It refers to a social hierarchy that has not been described in these terms before. We know that the tribes have leaders and that they carry rods, but they have not previously been called nobles or princes. As I've noted before, we are gradually seeing the emergence of an aristocratic warrior caste after what has been exclusively priestly leadership.
Then they went from the wilderness to Mattanah, 19 from Mattanah to Nahaliel, from Nahaliel to Bamoth, 20 and from Bamoth to the valley in Moab where the top of Pisgah overlooks the wasteland.
21 Israel sent messengers to say to Sihon king of the Amorites:
22 “Let us pass through your country. We will not turn aside into any field or vineyard, or drink water from any well. We will travel along the King’s Highway until we have passed through your territory.”
23 But Sihon would not let Israel pass through his territory. He mustered his entire army and marched out into the wilderness against Israel. When he reached Jahaz, he fought with Israel. 24 Israel, however, put him to the sword and took over his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, but only as far as the Ammonites, because their border was fortified. 25 Israel captured all the cities of the Amorites and occupied them, including Heshbon and all its surrounding settlements. 26 Heshbon was the city of Sihon king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab and had taken from him all his land as far as the Arnon.
So some portion of the Israelites stop wandering in the wilderness and settle here in what had been the land of the Amorites. That's not supposed to be the plot.
27 That is why the poets say:
“Come to Heshbon and let it be rebuilt;
let Sihon’s city be restored.28 “Fire went out from Heshbon,
a blaze from the city of Sihon.
It consumed Ar of Moab,
the citizens of Arnon’s heights.
29 Woe to you, Moab!
You are destroyed, people of Chemosh!
He has given up his sons as fugitives
and his daughters as captives
to Sihon king of the Amorites.30 “But we have overthrown them;
Heshbon’s dominion has been destroyed all the way to Dibon.
We have demolished them as far as Nophah,
which extends to Medeba.”31 So Israel settled in the land of the Amorites.
32 After Moses had sent spies to Jazer, the Israelites captured its surrounding settlements and drove out the Amorites who were there. 33 Then they turned and went up along the road toward Bashan, and Og king of Bashan and his whole army marched out to meet them in battle at Edrei.
34 The Lord said to Moses, “Do not be afraid of him, for I have delivered him into your hands, along with his whole army and his land. Do to him what you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon.”
35 So they struck him down, together with his sons and his whole army, leaving them no survivors. And they took possession of his land.
What more can I say? This is not a universal God, but a psychopath who murders entire peoples for the sake of the ones he has chosen -- a completely different conception of "God" than we grow up with, at least as overtly described. But right wing Christians today actually do see God in this way, they just think he has switched his allegiance from the Jews to them.
Footnotes
- Numbers 21:2 The Hebrew term refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the Lord, often by totally destroying them; also in verse 3.
- Numbers 21:3 Hormah means destruction.
- Numbers 21:4 Or the Sea of Reeds
- Numbers 21:14 Septuagint; Hebrew Waheb
- Numbers 21:15 Or “I have been given from Suphah and the ravines / of the Arnon 15 to
3 comments:
Bronze antivenin, in the form of what seems like a graven image.
Far out.
Well, you aren't supposed to worship the bronze snake, it's just a magic trick. So I suppose it's legal, though ridiculous.
Yes, it seems like hocus pocus, the stuff of Grimm fairytales.
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