Deuteronomy - Moses Talks Through his Arse

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Well, let me just say that I'm very excited to be finishing up the Pentateuch. As I started reading the first two chapters of Deuteronomy I noticed that this book seems to be written more as a letter to the Israelite people, from Moses, and basically just recounting what they did.

In Chapters 1 and 2, it almost seems like there's a lot of repetition going on. In Chapter 1, Moses talks about killing the Amorites and their king, a group of giants called the Anakims, and about the faithless cowardice of the Israelite people.

I find the talk of giants to be interesting. There were quite a few tribes apparently. There was of course the Nephilim, whom we learned of previously. But there was also the Anakim, the Emim, the Avims, and the Caphtorims - all of which lived in different areas.

For some reason, Moses talks about the strange arbitrary choice to let the Moabites and Ammonites live in peace, but kill off people like the Amorites, which we learned of in Numbers. He even "hardened the heart" of the King of Sihon, just so the king would come out and fight the Israelites and give the Israelites a good reason to kill of his people. That's crazy talk!

To quote the author of Deuteronomy, "And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain."

In Deuteronomy, Chapter 3, Moses and his band of Israelites take on yet ANOTHER giant! This time, he's the king of the Bashanites; a man named Og.

While his name sounds like he's nothing more than a primitive caveman, and his nation sounds like a violent gang (the Bashingites?), Og is apparently the last of the race of giants. I think that's the Israelite priests' gimmick; portray Moses as the Giant Slayer.

Sure enough, we get another wonderful pearl of wisdom in Chapter 3: "And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children, of every city. And we utterly destroyed them ... utterly destroying the men, women, and children, of every city. But all the cattle, and the spoil of the cities, we took for a prey to ourselves."

Now, since Og was a giant, he was obviously no pushover. According to the narrator, Og was 9 cubits high! That's like 13 feet high! Shaq ain't got nothin' on him. Og's bed alone was 13.5 feet long and six feet wide!

Moses later comforts Joshua with a little pep talk. He essentially says, "You saw how we breezed through those two kingdoms so easily. You serve an awesome God. What OTHER god is there that could kill so many people?!?"

Next time, God promises to utterly destroy anyone who creates ANY graven image!

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