Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible

by David Plotz

  chapter 20

  This chapter was my brother’s bar mitzvah portion. (June 1980. I wore dorky glasses. John had a Jew-fro.)

  Moses’s sister, Miriam, who hasn’t spoken a word since God afflicted her skin, dies and is buried in a single sentence. It doesn’t take a radical feminist to see unfairness in God’s treatment of Moses’s brother and sister. Miriam is plagued, banished, shunned, and ignored. Weak-willed Aaron, three times a traitor, is rehabilitated—speaking still to God and advising Moses.

  Again the Israelites are parched and they wish they were dead. God instructs Moses and Aaron to assemble the Israelites in front of a rock, and then “order the rock to yield its water.” Instead of talking to the rock as instructed, Moses strikes it twice with his staff. Water pours forth anyway; the Israelites are mollified.

  The Lord is furious because the brothers hit rather than spoke to the rock. Because they didn’t trust in Him, the Lord rules that they too must die before they reach the Promised Land. This seems awfully harsh. First of all, in previous droughts (back in Exodus), God instructed Moses to strike rocks to release water. Isn’t it possible that Moses simply made a mistake this time? And even if the striking was intentional, hasn’t Moses earned the right to be a little bit frustrated? God, after all, flies into a towering rage whenever the Israelites whine or cross Him. Moses, by contrast, has been a paragon of patience, enduring the most outrageous behavior of the Israelites (and of God) with tolerance and wisdom. Yet when Moses displays even the tiniest bit of pique and whacks the rock, God issues a death sentence. It’s terribly unfair to His greatest servant.

  See you never, Aaron! Soon after this episode, the feckless brother dies—stripped naked on the top of Mount Hor. I’ll miss Aaron—he really gives you someone to root against—but I’m sure the Israelites are going to do better without his sorry, no-account self.

  chapter 21

  The Israelites are bellyaching again, this time about the manna. (“We have come to loathe this miserable food.”) The Lord, as always, responds unpleasantly to their complaints, unleashing a plague of vipers against them. (Snakes on a Plain?) The terrified Israelites apologize. At God’s advice, Moses fashions a serpent out of copper and attaches it to a flagpole. Any victim of snakebite who looks at the statue is immediately healed.

  I’m pretty impressed by the variety of God’s afflictions. So far, the Lord has inflicted on the wandering Israelites skin diseases, food poisoning, sundry plagues, several fires, an earthquake, and now snakes. It’s like a Saw movie.

  chapters 22–24

  A long, bizarre episode about the Moabite king Balak, the seer Balaam, and Balaam’s donkey. The story goes like this. King Balak, fearing the Israelite army, asks Balaam to curse the Israelites. Though not an Israelite himself, Balaam consults with God, who orders him not to help Balak: “You must not curse that people, for they are blessed.” So Balaam refuses Balak. But the king won’t take no for an answer. Balaam consults God again, who tells him to visit Balak but to obey only the Lord’s orders.

  At this point, the story is interrupted by one of the most curious incidents in the Bible so far. God is seemingly irked at Balaam for accepting Balak’s invitation—even though God Himself told Balaam to accept it, but hey, that’s Yahweh for you—and blocks Balaam’s way with an invisible angel. Balaam keeps urging his ass forward, but the angel won’t let the animal pass. Balaam beats the ass, who proceeds to open her mouth and protest, “What have I done to you that you have beaten me?” The Lord reveals the angel to Balaam, who apologizes (though not to the ass).

  Say what you will about the Bible’s reliability, about its improbable events and unbelievable miracles, but the Good Book does not— unlike Greek and Roman mythology, many fairy tales, and most religions—traffic in talking animals. Balaam’s ass and the snake in the Garden of Eden are the only exceptions I can think of. I have no clever explanation for this absence of chatty camels and sassy roosters, but it certainly makes the Bible a more persuasive book. I suppose the Bible suspends its usual prohibition against talking beasts because Balaam’s ass is an effective way to teach us about the invisible powers of God. Balaam can’t see the angel, and so he assumes nothing is there. He can’t imagine that the ass could be a thinking, feeling creature, and so he beats her cruelly. The ass’s voice and the revelation of the angel remind him of the endless and impossible powers of God. And indeed, the story ends with Balaam fully on God’s team. Instead of helping Balak, Balaam praises Israel and predicts Moab’s defeat.

  God is very appealing in the story of Balaam, and I think I’ve figured out why. It’s the first Bible story told from the point of view of Israel’s enemies. Since the Garden of Eden, we have heard only from our side—from Isaac, not Ishmael; from Jacob, not Esau; from the Israelites, not the Egyptians. History is written by the victors. (Imagine the story of Exodus if it were told by Pharaoh. In fact, don’t imagine it; write it as a novel. And give me a ten percent royalty for the idea.) But this episode is seen through the eyes of Balak, who’s an enemy of Israel, and of Balaam, who, although not exactly an enemy, is not a friend. Oddly, the result is a story that makes God look much better than He does when He’s among the Israelites. With His Chosen People, God is bullying, capricious, and cruel. He doesn’t listen. He’s impatient. But with Balaam, God shelves the whole Almighty Avenger shtick. Instead, He cajoles the skeptical Balaam and wins him over to the Israelites’ side. It is here, away from His Chosen People, that God is the subtle, wise, and persuasive deity we know and love.

  chapter 25

  The Lord has made it abundantly clear that He dislikes sexual misbehavior, loathes intermarriage, and despises idolatry. What happens when you combine all three of His favorite sins? Gentle chiding? Sweet persuasion? I don’t think so. Let’s watch.

  The Israelite men go “whoring” with Moabite women and start to worship the Moabite god Baal as well. This drives the Lord into a rage. Rather than proposing to wipe out all of Israel—His usual response to idolatry and lawbreaking—He limits himself to ordering that the ringleaders be publicly impaled. Before this can happen, however, an Israelite man and a Midianite woman happen to stroll by the tabernacle. Aaron’s grandson Phinehas sees the mixed couple and immediately spears them to death. In modern America, this would be a hate crime. But God delights in the killing. He appoints Phinehas and his descendants as His priests “for all time,” and He orders Moses to take fierce revenge on the Midianites. (Given that all the loose Moabite women and only one stray Midianite girl were tempting the Israelites, it hardly seems fair to go after the Midianites. But the Lord’s ways are mysterious.)

  Not mentioned during this episode is that Moses’s wife Zipporah is a Midianite. This is another example of God’s allowing one law for Moses but imposing a much stricter one on His people. To be fair to the Lord, Moses married Zipporah before the Israelites were freed from Egypt, before they’d established a national identity, before God had issued all His laws. Here in the desert, decades later, the Israelites are in a death struggle with neighboring tribes. Only one tribe, and one God, can win. Viewed from this angle, God’s prohibition against intermarriage isn’t so vindictive. The Israelites are winning the war on the battlefield, but if they start picking up the local floozies and bowing to the local idols, they risk losing everything.

  chapter 27

  One of my favorite chapters, for a very personal reason. It begins by describing the plight of five sisters whose father, Zelophehad, has just died. He had no son, so the daughters are his only heirs. They petition Moses to be allowed to inherit his holding in the Promised Land. Moses appeals to the Lord, who rules that their cause “is just.” They can have the land. Furthermore, the Lord says, this is not just a single case; it’s pre ce dent: from now on, if a man dies without sons, his daughters inherit his property. Feminists like this story, because it’s the first major endorsement of women’s rights in the Bible. Legal scholars also study it: they call the petition by Zelophehad’s daughters the
world’s fi rst lawsuit.

  But that’s not why I love it. Four of Zelophehad’s daughters have names that sound in English like off-brand pharmaceuticals: Mahlah, Hoglah, Tirzah, and Milcah. But the fifth daughter is named Noa. (This is not the same name as Noah the ark builder’s, whose name is actually pronounced “No-ach” in Hebrew. Noa is pronounced “No-ah.”) Noa is a very popular Israeli girl’s name—there’s a famous Israeli pop singer called Noa. It means a lot to me because it is my daughter’s name. Unlike Jacob, whose nasty tendencies have made me sorry I’ve given my son his name, Noa is a straight-up Bible heroine. I hope my own Noa grows up to have as much moxie as her ancestress (though I’d rather that I didn’t have to die for her to get a chance to shine).

  Noa’s story isn’t the only incident in the chapter with important modern consequences. God instructs the dying Moses that it’s time for him to distribute his authority to his heirs. So Moses lays hands on Eleazar, son of Aaron, and invests him with priestly authority. And he lays hands on Joshua, and orders him to govern the Israelites. This is a profound moment, because it is the first separation of church and state. Religious authority goes to the priest Eleazar, secular authority to the warrior Joshua. Neither is supreme, and they are independent of each other. This is remarkably canny of Moses and the Lord. Speaking for God and ruling the Israelites was often too much for Moses. Whenever he went off up Mount Sinai in the service of the spiritual, his unruly people would rebel and make trouble. And when he focused too much on the daily needs of the Israelites—as when he supplied them with water by striking the rock—he would neglect God’s instructions. Splitting the authority allows the undistracted Joshua to carry out the gritty, down-to-earth work of conquering the Promised Land. Meanwhile, Eleazar can make sure to mind the Lord’s p’s and q’s.

  So Numbers 27 is a liberal’s paradise: the first lawsuit, the first women’s rights, the separation of church and state. Throw in a few pro-choice sentences, and ACLU members would be brandishing copies of the book of Numbers instead of the Constitution.

  chapter 31

  The most hideous war crime in a Bible filled with them. As with the story of Dinah, sexual misbehavior spurs the ugliest vengeance. At the start of Numbers 31, God tells Moses he must complete one more

  task before he dies: taking vengeance against the Midianites for the mixed coupling back in Numbers 25. Moses dispatches his army, which quickly kills the five Midianite kings and slaughters the Midianite men. The Israelites capture the Midianite women and children and march them back to camp. Moses is furious that his generals spared the Midianite women. Moses orders his troops to execute all the Midianite boys and all the Midianite females except for the virgins. This is a sick, grotesquely disproportionate atrocity, collective punishment of a most repellent sort—and all to take revenge for one bad date between an Israelite and a Midianite girl. Numbers, living up to its name, informs us that 32,000 virgin females survive the mass execution (and are then enslaved, incidentally). By my rough estimate, this means the Israelites killed more than 60,000 captive, defenseless women and boys.

  Let’s pause for a second to consider Moses’s rage at the Midianites. For most of the last three books, Moses has been begging God to show mercy. But God is on the sidelines during the slaughter of the Midianites: it is Moses himself who demands the killing. Where does his new anger come from? Perhaps it’s the fury of a frustrated old man who’s been barred from his Promised Land. Or perhaps it’s the homicidal megalomania that descends on so many dictators who hold power too long.

  Moses himself seems to acknowledge that this massacre of innocents goes too far. He orders his death squads to stay outside the camp after they finish their butchery. They need a week away from the tabernacle to purify themselves. The Bible never mentions such a quarantine for Israelite soldiers after other battles. But, as Moses recognizes, these killings are not war; they are murder, and they defile his people.

  chapter 33

  Numbers 33 lists every place the Israelites have camped during their forty years in the wilderness. It’s dull as dishwater to read, but it serves a fascinating purpose. At the end of the list, God issues orders

  to the Israelites: cross into Canaan, smash the idols, dispossess all the inhabitants, and take the land for yourselves. Had the chapter skipped the travelogue and begun with God’s fearsome instructions, it would seem brutal. The forty-year-itinerary—the weary, heartbreaking journey—reminds the Israelites of their suffering and justifies conquest. Why is it all right to sack and destroy another civilization? Because of what the Israelites endured, that’s why. The forty-year accounting says: you’ve earned it.

  chapter 36

  The last chapter in Numbers, and my favorite character, Noa, appears for an encore. Some of Noa’s tribal elders are worried that if she and her sisters marry outside their tribe of Manasseh, their land will pass out of the tribe’s control. This wouldn’t be fair, the elders tell Moses. He agrees—land may not pass from one tribe to another. So Moses orders Noa and her sisters to marry men from their own tribe. I don’t know what my tribe is (Washingtonians? journalists?), but to my own Noa I make this promise: you can marry whomever you want, sweetie.

  FIVE

  The Book of Deuteronomy

  The Bible’s Fifth Beatle

  In which Moses harangues the Israelites, issues some new laws, and dies.

  have no idea what I’m going fi nd in Deuteronomy. Before I started reading the Bible, I had at least a vague sense of the first four books. I knew that Genesis was Adam, Abraham, etc. Exodus was ten plagues, Ten Commandments, and so forth. Leviticus was laws. Numbers, I figured, was about numbers. But Deuteronomy is obscure—the Millard Fillmore of the Bible, the Torah’s fifth Beatle. As far as I can remember, I’ve never read a word of Deuteronomy, never heard anyone recite Deuteronomy at the synagogue, never seen Deuteronomy: The Movie, never been to a Deuteronomy-themed costume party.

  chapter 1

  It turns out Deuteronomy consists of several rambling, Fidel Castro– length speeches by the dying Moses to his people. Think of it as the Moses farewell tour. Here in the opening chapter, the prophet recaps

  the wilderness years—name-checking various stops on the schlep, recalling a few of the bigger laws, and rebuking the Israelites for the myriad complaints and betrayals that got them banned from the Promised Land for four decades.

  I’m most struck by one of Moses’s asides. While describing how he chose tribal chiefs, he mentions the Lord’s promise (originally in Genesis, but repeated several times) to make the Israelites as “numerous as the stars in the sky. May the Lord, the God of your fathers, increase your numbers a thousandfold.”

  Mission not accomplished. Today the worldwide Jewish population stands at about 13 million. According to the censuses in Numbers, there were approximately 600,000 adult male Israelites, so the total Israelite population would have been about 2 million. In other words, Jewish population has multiplied only sevenfold—not a thousandfold—in the last 3,500 years. Total global population, by contrast, has increased 150-fold during the same time. Even assuming that the Torah exaggerated the number of Israelites by a factor of ten, the Jewish population has still increased only seventyfold—less than half as much as the world’s population.

  By some mea sures, of course, the Israelites have been a smashing success: how many worshippers of Baal remain today, or Amorites or Hittites or Canaanites? The Israelites survived, and that’s more than their enemies did. It’s also true that, if we mea sure by power, accomplishments, and wealth, Jews are phenomenally successful. Their global influence has certainly grown a thousandfold. But that’s not what the Torah was counting. By the biblical standard, we’re failing. Jews are a demographic down arrow, an ever smaller part of the global community. (Current Jewish population growth is close to zero.) Have we failed God, or has He failed us? Or, to ask the question differently: given that it began before Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism (and at the same time as Hinduism), why is Jud
aism such a tiny stream?

  When I mention this demographic failure to some Christians, they insist that they should be included in the count of the Israelites, since they consider themselves heirs to God’s covenant. If they are, the goal of increasing a thousandfold has been achieved.

  chapters 2–3

  Back in Numbers, the spies embellished their scouting report from Canaan with stories of terrifying giants. Now Moses observes that the lands of the Ammonites and Moabites used to be ruled by giants and gloats over the Israelites’ conquest of King Og of Bashan, the last surviving giant. Og’s iron bed, Moses reports, is thirteen feet long. Why were the Israelites so anxious about giants? Had they discovered huge fossils that they couldn’t explain?

  chapter 4

  Considering that Jews took monotheism to the top of the charts, the Bible has so far been surprisingly weak on the concept. But now we get the full-throated endorsement of one and only one god that we’ve been waiting for. At the start of Deuteronomy 4, Moses suggests the existence of rival gods, asking his people if any other tribe “has a god so close at hand as is the Lord our God” or if other tribes have ever “heard the voice of a god speaking out of a fire, as you have, and survived.” Both questions tacitly accept polytheism while nudging the Israelites toward thinking that their God is special. But as the chapter progresses, the other gods shrivel. Moses mocks idolatry, sneering that the idolaters’ handmade gods “cannot see or hear or eat or smell.” By the chapter’s conclusion, Moses has ascended to full-on monotheism: “It has been clearly demonstrated to you that the Lord alone is God, there is none beside Him. . . . The Lord alone is God in heaven above and on earth below, there is no other.” That’s pretty clear.