I know that men are won over less by the written than by the spoken word,that every great movement on this earth owes its growth to great orators and not to great writers”. Adolph Hitler

Despite the handicaps of the written word, I’ll have to do the best I can in writing. I am not here to start a great movement. I am here to put an end to its madness.

The man whom the Church credits with writing the first five books of the Bible is, of course, Moses. In particular, he is credited with writing the two accounts of Creation and the Fall of Man, the basis of sin.

Like Christianity and Islam, Judaism is proclaimed to be a revealed religion. That is, their proponents claim that God revealed the words of Scripture through, what I would call, supernatural mental telepathy.

That’s an absurd claim; but it gets worse as we delve into the character of the man called Moses. Monotheistic religions are dependant upon the credibility of Moses, so it is his credibility or lack of it, which we will examine here.

Modern scholarly opinion has determined that Moses could not written the five books of Moses; they were written and compiled centuries after his alleged time, after the Jewish exile in 586 BCE (a topic for some other time). For argument’s sake, we’ll accept him as the godfather of contemporary religion.

Not only has the Church been lying about Moses authorship since its inception. If Judaism, Christianity and Islam are to qualify as a revealed religion in truth, then it has to be upon the word of Moses. And when we examine his character, we find that he has the morals of a psychopath.

Think about it. Three major religions, still fighting among each to this day, based on, what they believe are the writings of one man, who turns out to be a psychopathic murderer. By natural inclination, Moses would also have to be a pathological liar.

Moses and Hitler, if they had lived at the same time, would have been natural enemies. However, their natural antagonism is not because one was evil and the other was good. Nay! It would have been a contest of evil against evil.

To hear the Jews tell their version of the Holocaust, Hitler exterminated six million Jews as if that was the extent of his treachery. But according to the R. J. Rummel in “Death by Government, Hitler presided over the murder of fifteen million non-Jews.

Regardless of the massive democide by the Soviets or communist Chinese, the only government mass murder that the world remembers and our school books describe is the mass murder that the world remembers and our school books describe is the Nazi genocide of the Jews in which “six million” were slaughtered. But even this count ignores the vast number of other people the Nazis exterminated. Overall, by genocide, the killing of hostages, reprisal raids, forced labor, “euthanasia,” starvation, exposure, medical experiments, terror bombing, and in the concentration and death camps, the Nazis murdered from about 15,000,000 to over 31,600,000 people, most likely closer to 21 million men, women, handicapped, aged, sick, prisoners of war, forced laborers, camp inmates, critics, homosexuals, Jews, Slavs, Serbs, Czechs, Italians, Poles, Frenchmen, Ukrainians, and so on. Among them were 1 million children under eighteen years of age.

In terms of raw numbers, Moses couldn’t compare to Hitler, but he had the same mindset to order the murder of anybody he didn’t like or whoever opposed him. If the Bible is to be believed, Moses led two and a half million Hebrews from Egypt. This number comes from Exodus 12:37 which counts 600, 000 men. To give an idea of how grossly exaggerated this number is, historians estimate it was the size of the Roman Empire army at the height of its power.

³⁷And the people of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children (Exodus 12:37)

By extrapolating to a common population distribution, an equal amount would have been women, 30% children, and 20% too old or incapacitated to walk long distances. Adding it up, it means that over two million Hebrews escaped from Egypt. The estimated population of Egypt at that time was about a million.

In the forty year trek through the desert, only two adult men survived the Exodus, Joshua and Caleb, and children under twenty years old. The unfortunate had to die by the wayside.

As the Bible tells it, it wasn’t due to attrition, the Israelites were sentenced to fend for themselves in the desert as a divine act of punishment.

²⁶And the LORD said to Moses and to Aaron,
²⁷“How long shall this wicked congregation murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the people of Israel, which they murmur against me.
²⁸Say to them, As I live, says the LORD, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you:
²⁹your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness; and of all your number, numbered from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against me,
³⁰not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.
³¹But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land which you have despised.
³²But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.
³³And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years, and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness.
³⁴According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for every day a year, you shall bear your iniquity, forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.’
³⁵I, the LORD, have spoken; surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation that are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.” (Num. 14:26-35)

While Jews still celebrate Moses for liberating them from slavery, they are not bothered by his wake of death and destruction. For it wasn’t just the Hebrews who suffered under Moses; we can count the innocent Egyptian people and the outlying tribes who Moses came in contact with.

While war and terrorism in the land of milk and honey rages on today, we find at its roots, territorial claims between the Palestinians and the Jews and Christians. The Bible is clear that the Palestinians occupied what is now the nation of Israel, long before the Jews took it by war.

The Hebrews under Moses and throughout the Old Testament where as nationalistic, racist and bigoted as anything we have seen in modern history.

⁷Then the LORD said, “I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings,
⁸and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. (Ex. 3:7-8)

Before I start tearing up Moses, I want to be on record as sympathetic to the chronic persecution Jews have suffered over the centuries. Where I am annoyed is the habit, Jews have, of parlaying their victim image for political gain.

We hear too much about how the Nazi’s killed six million Jews, and too little about the fifteen million other Europeans who were likewise systematically exterminated.

For over two thousand years now, Jews, Christians and Muslims have been fighting and killing each other to prove whose side God is on. Whatever happens in the Middle East, it is clear to me that a military solution never was and still is, impossible. War and strife has no chance of ending until religious zealotry withers from human consciousness.

MOSES’ FIRST MURDER—EXODUS 2:11-15

Moses got his first taste of blood when he was living with Pharaoh. When he grew up, he once saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave. Seeing no one nearby, he killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand. The next day, he came across two other Hebrews who knew what he did. When word of his misdeed got to Pharaoh, Moses had to flee to save his life.

¹¹One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people.
¹²He looked this way and that, and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. (Ex. 2:11-12)

Near the end of Moses’ career, he took rage at the Midianites for having sex with his men (see “Midianite Holocaust”). It’s worth noting that the Midianites were hospitable to Moses after he fled Egypt. Moses even married a pagan Midianite woman, Zipporah, and had children by her.

¹⁵When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh, and stayed in the land of Midian; and he sat down by a well.
¹⁶Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters; and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock.
¹⁷The shepherds came and drove them away; but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock.
¹⁸When they came to their father Reuel, he said, “How is it that you have come so soon today?”
¹⁹They said, “An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and even drew water for us and watered the flock.”
²⁰He said to his daughters, “And where is he? Why have you left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread.”
²¹And Moses was content to dwell with the man, and he gave Moses his daugher Zipporah.
²²She bore a son, and he called his name Gershom; for he said, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.” (Ex. 2:15-22)

GOD PICKS A MURDERER—EXODUS 3

According to Moses, when he was in the land of Midian, he saw a burning bush that would not consume itself. It was God, who told him he would be the one to lead the Hebrews out of slavery and into the promised land. Despite the promise, we know that only two of the original Hebrews made it to the Promised Land.

Notice too that the land was not vacant. It was once barren, now occupied by other tribes who turned it into a land flowing with milk and honey.

⁷Then the LORD said, “I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings,
⁸and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. (Ex. 3:7-8)

PASSOVER—EXODUS 5:1-12:51

We first turn to the Passover and the ten plagues Moses inflicted on the Egyptians. Let’s revue them in brief.
1. The Nile water turned to blood and all the fish died.
2. Frogs swarmed all over the land.
3. Gnats swarmed the land en masse.
4. Flies swarmed en masse, attacking human and animals alike.
5. Moses had all the livestock killed.
6. He inflicted festering boils on the Egyptians.
7. Thunder, hail and fire fell upon the earth, striking down every plant, animal and human not sheltered.
8. Locusts darkened the air and ate everything in sight.
9. The sun disappeared for three days.
10. And finally, on the tenth plague, Moses had God kill the firstborn of Pharaoh, and every Egyptian slave and livestock. (The livestock were previously killed in the fifth plague.)

⁴And Moses said, “Thus says the LORD: About midnight I will go forth in the midst of Egypt;
⁵and all the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh who sits upon his throne, even to the first-born of the maidservant who is behind the mill; and all the first-born of the cattle. (Ex. 5:4-5)

For this, Jews celebrate their Passover, the celebration of their freedom from bondage. What’s wrong with this picture? By all accounts, the story is a myth. Still, modern Jews seem to be able to disassociate themselves from this despicable horror.

What is equally wrong is that Pharaoh, the slave master, was attacked through the people he subjugated. The Egyptian people did not enslave the Hebrews; it was Pharaoh and his army-the very ones who survived to chase after the Hebrews. What Jews are implicitly celebrating today, is the moral equivalent of a Holocaust their God imposed on innocent Egyptians.

From here on in, the freedom which Jews so proudly celebrate, turns into a nightmare, when the Hebrews find themselves at the mercy of a despot far more ruthless than Pharaoh.

THE GOLDEN CALF-—EXODUS 32

When Moses came down from the mountain with two tablets of the Ten Commandments (remember thou shalt not kill) and saw the Israelites dancing around a pagan idol of a golden calf, he was furious. Keep in mind, when the hapless Hebrews worshipped this pagan idol, it was before Moses showed them the Ten Commandments. In fact, he destroyed these sacred tablets in anger with no repercussions from God.

He had the calf melted and ground into powder and made the people drink a concoction mixed with the gold powder.

¹⁹And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tables out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.
²⁰And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it with fire, and ground it to powder, and scattered it upon the water, and made the people of Israel drink it.
(Ex. 32:19-20)

Next, he ordered his Levite priests, as the price of ordaining themselves to serve God, had to kill their brothers, friends and neighbors. Three thousand died that day.

²⁷And he said to them, “Thus says the LORD GOD of Israel, ‘Put every man his sword on his side, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.'”
²⁸And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses; and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men. (Ex. 32:27-28)

If that wasn’t enough, Moses says God sent a plague upon the people to punish them again for their involvement with the calf. A calf, by the way which was made by Aaron at the behest of the people-Aaron wasn’t touched. No count is given as to how many more died.

³⁵And the LORD sent a plague upon the people, because they made the calf which Aaron made. (Ex. 32:36)

AARON LOSES TWO SONS-—LEVITICUS 10

Hitler knew the value of ceremonies and rituals. Moses was equally fanatical about ritual practices. Aaron, the high priest and brother of Moses, had two sons, Nadab and Abihu, ordained into the priesthood.

One day they burned incense, perhaps for the smell, but not for ceremonial purpose. According to Moses, God come out of the ark and killed them by fire, but most likely, Moses had them burned alive.

¹Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer, and put fire in it, and laid incense on it, and offered unholy fire before the LORD, such as he had not commanded them.
²And fire came forth from the presence of the LORD and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.
³Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the LORD has said, ‘I will show myself holy among those who are near me, and before all the people I will be glorified.'” And Aaron held his peace. (Lev. 10:1-3)

Thereafter Moses appointed Aaron’s two nephews, Eleazer and Ithamar to carry the charred carcasses to a place outside the camp. When he appointed them to replace Nadab and Abihu, he warned them to practice their ceremonial duties with the utmost care, lest they burn too. Priesthood was a dangerous profession under Moses.

⁶And Moses said to Aaron and to Eleazar and Ithamar, his sons, “Do not let the hair of your heads hang loose, and do not rend your clothes, lest you die, and lest wrath come upon all the congregation; but your brethren, the whole house of Israel, may bewail the burning which the LORD has kindled.
⁷And do not go out from the door of the tent of meeting, lest you die; for the anointing oil of the LORD is upon you.” And they did according to the word of Moses. (Lev. 10:6-7)

CHILD SACRIFICE

If we think Moses was above the pagan practice of child sacrifice. Not so! Child sacrifice took place under Moses’ domination. To commemorate the killing of firstborn during the Passover, Moses ordered that firstborn Hebrews and livestock shall be sacrificed too. I don’t think many Jews are aware of this dismal practice. In Exodus, all first born are sacrificed. The verses below speak for themselves.

¹The LORD said to Moses,
²“Consecrate to me all the first-born; whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and of beast, is mine.” (Ex. 32:1-2)

¹⁵For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the LORD slew all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both the first-born of man and the first-born of cattle. Therefore I sacrifice to the LORD all the males that first open the womb; but all the first-born of my sons I redeem.’ (Ex. 32:15)

By the time of Numbers, it appears that only first born Levites and livestock are sacrificed. Keep in mind that when you consecrate a living being to God, that’s a euphemism for sacrifice. It doesn’t mean ordain into the priesthood. Beasts were not ordained.

¹¹And the LORD said to Moses,
¹²“Behold, I have taken the Levites from among the people of Israel instead of every first-born that opens the womb among the people of Israel. The Levites shall be mine,
¹³for all the first-born are mine; on the day that I slew all the first-born in the land of Egypt, I consecrated for my own all the first-born in Israel, both of man and of beast; they shall be mine: I am the LORD.” (Num. 3:11-13)

THE QUAIL INCIDENT — NUMBERS 11

Complaining to the unsympathetic Moses always got the people killed. Once, they recalled how well they ate in Egypt and how tired they were of manna. So Moses promised more meat for a month than they could possibly consume.

A wind brought enough quail to pile three feet high for as far as they could walk in one day. So the people worked for two days gathering quail. But as soon as they started eating, God struck them down with plague.

³²And the people rose all that day, and all night, and all the next day, and gathered the quails; he who gathered least gathered ten homers; and they spread them out for themselves all around the camp.
³³While the meat was yet between their teeth, before it was consumed, the anger of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD smote the people with a very great plague. (Num. 11:32-33)

REBELLION AT KADESH-—NUMBERS 13-14

In Numbers 13, when the Hebrews reached the southern tip of Canaan, Moses sent a small party of spies to assess the terrain and its inhabitants. What they found out was that the land of Milk and Honey Moses had promised was indeed bountiful, but it was also inhabited by giants and powerful kingdoms.

It was not until that point when the poor Hebrews learned that Moses’ ambitions extended beyond freeing them from slavery. What he really had in mind was war and conquest. When the people expressed their fear and wanted to go back to Egypt, Moses would have none of that talk.

¹Then all the congregation raised a loud cry; and the people wept that night.
²And all the people of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron; the whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness!
³Why does the LORD bring us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey; would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?”
⁴And they said to one another, “Let us choose a captain, and go back to Egypt.” (Num. 14:1-4)

On a number of occasions like this one, God wanted kill them all with pestilence and disinherit them.

¹²I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.” (Num. 14:12)

But Moses was wiser. He pleaded to God that it would be bad for his, God’s, reputation.

¹⁵Now if thou dost kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard thy fame will say,
¹⁶‘Because the LORD was not able to bring this people into the land which he swore to give to them, therefore he has slain them in the wilderness.’ (Num. 14:15-16)

The solution was to punish them by making them wander in the desert for forty years until they died off and a new generation would take their place.

²⁸Say to them, ‘As I live, says the LORD, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you:
²⁹your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness; and of all your number, numbered from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against me,
³⁰not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.
³¹But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land which you have despised.
³²But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.
³³And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years, and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness.
³⁴According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for every day a year, you shall bear your iniquity, forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.’
³⁵I, the LORD, have spoken; surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation that are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.” (Num. 14:28-35)

Except for Joshua and Caleb who supported Moses. The spies who brought back the news that scared the people, were to die by plague.

³⁶And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, and who returned and made all the congregation to murmur against him by bringing up an evil report against the land,
³⁷the men who brought up an evil report of the land, died by plague before the LORD.
³⁸But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive, of those men who went to spy out the land. (Num. 14:36-38)

Now it can be known. The Hebrews were not “lost” in the desert. They were kept there as a form of punishment for not wanting to wage war against the Canaanites. Moses would have to wait until a new generation was mature enough to fight for the land God promised them.

THE COMMANDMENT PENALTY-—NUMBERS 15

It’s a common notion, today, to think of the Ten Commandments as a standard of virtue. What is not said of the Ten Commandments, is its insistence on absolute obedience and what the penalties were for disobedience. Actually, there was only one penalty under Mosaic rule: death. For those who disobeyed, they were cast off in the desert to die by themselves.

³⁰But the person who does anything with a high hand, whether he is native or a sojourner, reviles the LORD, and that person shall be cut off from among his people.
³¹Because he has despised the word of the LORD, and has broken his commandment, that person shall be utterly cut off; his iniquity shall be upon him.” (Num. 15:30-31)

One a certain occasion, a man was found picking up sticks on the Sabbath. Moses had him stoned to death.

³²While the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the sabbath day.
³³And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron, and to all the congregation.
³⁴They put him in custody, because it had not been made plain what should be done to him.
³⁵And the LORD said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.”
³⁶And all the congregation brought him outside the camp, and stoned him to death with stones, as the LORD commanded Moses. (Num. 15:35-36)

KORAH’S REBELLION — NUMBERS 16

Without fail, anyone who challenged Moses’ authority faced certain death. A Levite named Korah, two Reubanites named Dathan and Abiram, and an assembly of 250 other prominent tribal leaders, confronted Moses about the question of leadership.

¹⁶“You have gone too far! For all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them; why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?” (Num. 16:3)

Moses told the people to meet in front of the tent of meeting the next day. There, Moses warned the congregation to stand away from these men and anything that belongs to them.

The people moved away. Then the earth opened up and swallowed the three along with everything and everybody related to them. In Moses’ language, it means that he had them and their families buried alive.

³⁰But if the LORD creates something new, and the ground opens its mouth, and swallows them up, with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol, then you shall know that these men have despised the LORD.”
³¹And as he finished speaking all these words, the ground under them split asunder;
³²and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the men that belonged to Korah and all their goods.
³³So they and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol; and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly. (Num. 16:30-33)

As for the other 250, we can surmise from the way it reads that Moses had them burned alive.

³⁵And fire came forth from the LORD, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men offering the incense. (Num. 16:36)

THE TRANSJORDON CONQUEST — NUMBERS 20-21

Rather then go through Canaan, the Hebrews circled east then north around Canaan. We should realize that in those days, a contingent of this size was very intimidating. It would be potentially suicidal for any king along their route to believe that their intentions were peaceful.

When they wanted to pass through Edom, the king there threatened to send his army if they trespassed. So they had to go around Edom. The Edomites were spared because they had stronger forces.

²⁰But he said, “You shall not pass through.” And Edom came out against them with many men, and with a strong force.
²¹Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his territory; so Israel turned away from him. (Num. 20:20-21)

The Hebrews were forbidden to set foot in Canaan, but apparently Hormah, in Canaan, was along Moses’ path. At first the king of Arad was successful in warding off the marauders, but eventually the Hebrews won the day. The Amorites were also destroyed in their wake.

¹When the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who dwelt in the Negeb, heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim, he fought against Israel, and took some of them captive.
²And Israel vowed a vow to the LORD, and said, “If thou wilt indeed give this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities.”
³And the LORD hearkened to the voice of Israel, and gave over the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their cities; so the name of the place was called Hormah. When they came to the Amorite territory, the entire kingdom was destroyed. Traveling north, they came to Bashon. Again, no survivors were left. (Num. 21:1-3)

The Hebrews traveled north along the eastern boundary of Canaan in the land of the Amorites. Though they promised not to damage anything or take any water, who could believe them. When the Amorites went out to fight them off, the Hebrews prevailed. They killed, pillaged and burned the surrounding towns until there was nothing left.

²¹Then Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, saying,
²²“Let me pass through your land; we will not turn aside into field or vineyard; we will not drink the water of a well; we will go by the King’s Highway, until we have passed through your territory.”
²³But Sihon would not allow Israel to pass through his territory. He gathered all his men together, and went out against Israel to the wilderness, and came to Jahaz, and fought against Israel.
²⁴And Israel slew him with the edge of the sword, and took possession of his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, as far as to the Ammonites; for Jazer was the boundary of the Ammonites.
²⁵And Israel took all these cities, and Israel settled in all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon, and in all its villages.
²⁶For Heshbon was the city of Sihon the king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab and taken all his land out of his hand, as far as the Arnon. (Num. 21:21-26)

³¹Thus Israel dwelt in the land of the Amorites. (Num. 21:31)

One more massacre was to take place before the Hebrews had enough land east of the Jordan from which to launch their invasion of Canaan. When King Og of Bashan saw them coming, he came out to defend himself, but he wasn’t powerful enough. No one from Bashan survived.

³³Then they turned and went up by the way to Bashan; and Og the king of Bashan came out against them, he and all his people, to battle at Edre-i.
³⁴But the LORD said to Moses, “Do not fear him; for I have given him into your hand, and all his people, and his land; and you shall do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon.”
³⁵So they slew him, and his sons, and all his people, until there was not one survivor left to him; and they possessed his land. (Num. 21:33-35)

THE WOMEN OF MOAB — NUMBERS 25

To the Moabites, prostitution was considered an act of worship towards their God, Baal of Peor. When the Hebrew men began having sex with the Moabite women, Moses dealt with them in his usual harsh way. He had the Moabite chiefs hanged and the sex crazed Hebrew men killed.

¹While Israel dwelt in Shittim the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab.
²These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate, and bowed down to their gods.
³So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel;
⁴and the LORD said to Moses, “Take all the chiefs of the people, and hang them in the sun before the LORD, that the fierce anger of the LORD may turn away from Israel.”
⁵And Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Every one of you slay his men who have yoked themselves to Baal of Peor.” (Num. 25:1-5)

In front of Moses and the congregation, a Hebrew man walked by with a Midianite woman to his family. Phinehas, grandson of Aaron, followed the two of them with spear in hand. When they entered the tent of meeting, Phinehas speared them through their bellies.

This murderous act had the effect of stopping a plague that was raging at the time. God gets credit for showing his pleasure by stopping the plague at the count of 24,000 deaths.

⁶And behold, one of the people of Israel came and brought a Midianite woman to his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the people of Israel, while they were weeping at the door of the tent of meeting.
⁷When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose and left the congregation, and took a spear in his hand
⁸and went after the man of Israel into the inner room, and pierced both of them, the man of Israel and the woman, through her body. Thus the plague was stayed from the people of Israel.
⁹Nevertheless those that died by the plague were twenty-four thousand. (Num. 25:6-9)

From this incident, the whole Midianite tribe was doomed to die for offending Moses. We should wonder what a sick man this Moses was. For his own wife was a pagan Midianite; and it was the Midianites who sheltered Moses after he fled Egypt. Note: there is a gross biblical error here. It was the Moabite women his men were attract too, but somehow the Midianites got the blame for it.

¹⁶And the LORD said to Moses,
¹⁷“Harass the Midianites, and smite them;
¹⁸for they have harassed you with their wiles, with which they beguiled you in the matter of Peor, and in the matter of Cozbi, the daughter of the prince of Midian, their sister, who was slain on the day of the plague on account of Peor.” (Num. 25:16)

THE MIDIANITE MASSACRE-—NUMBERS 31

After the Passover, the Midianite massacre ranks as the second bloodiest of Moses’ legacy. The Midianites did not make any aggressive gestures towards Moses and the Israelites. Moses was angry because their woman were too friendly. He blamed the temple prostitutes because his men were having sex with them. (See “The Women of Moab,” above. Scripture confuses Moab with Midian) Whether it was Moab or Midian, it still comes out the same way.

¹The LORD said to Moses,
²“Avenge the people of Israel on the Midianites; afterward you shall be gathered to your people.”
³And Moses said to the people, “Arm men from among you for the war, that they may go against Midian, to execute the LORD’S vengeance on Midian.
⁴You shall send a thousand from each of the tribes of Israel to the war.”
⁵So there were provided, out of the thousands of Israel, a thousand from each tribe, twelve thousand armed for war (Num. 31:1-5)

So he sent 12,000 soldiers, telling them to kill everybody, burn everything and take whatever booty is useful. Instead, his commanders brought back the women and children, besides their spoils.

⁶And Moses sent them to the war, a thousand from each tribe, together with Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, with the vessels of the sanctuary and the trumpets for the alarm in his hand.
⁷They warred against Midian, as the LORD commanded Moses, and slew every male.
⁸They slew the kings of Midian with the rest of their slain, Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian; and they also slew Balaam the son of Beor with the sword.
⁹And the people of Israel took captive the women of Midian and their little ones; and they took as booty all their cattle, their flocks, and all their goods.
¹⁰All their cities in the places where they dwelt, and all their encampments, they burned with fire,
¹¹and took all the spoil and all the booty, both of man and of beast.
¹²Then they brought the captives and the booty and the spoil to Moses, and to Eleazar the priest, and to the congregation of the people of Israel, at the camp on the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho. (Num. 31:6-12)

Instead of being pleased, Moses was angry at them for letting the women live.

¹⁴And Moses was angry with the officers of the army, the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, who had come from service in the war.
¹⁵Moses said to them, “Have you let all the women live?
¹⁶Behold, these caused the people of Israel, by the counsel of Balaam, to act treacherously against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and so the plague came among the congregation of the LORD.(Num. 31:14-16)

So he ordered his commanders to kill all the male children, and all the women who have slept with a man; they could keep The virgins for themselves. His men were to remain outside camp for seven days to purify themselves and their virgin captives.

¹⁷Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him.
¹⁸But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
¹⁹>Encamp outside the camp seven days; whoever of you has killed any person, and whoever has touched any slain, purify yourselves and your captives on the third day and on the seventh day.
²⁰You shall purify every garment, every article of skin, all work of goats’ hair, and every article of wood.” (Num. 31:17-20)

The Israelites collected a booty of, 808,000 livestock and 32,000 virgins.

³²Now the booty remaining of the spoil that the men of war took was: six hundred and seventy-five thousand sheep,
³³seventy-two thousand cattle,
³⁴sixty-one thousand asses,
³⁵and thirty-two thousand persons in all, women who had not known man by lying with him. (Num. 31:32-35)

Let us make a crude estimate that virgins constitute one fourth of the female population and ratio of males to females is 50-50. This would mean that the total population of Midianites was about 250,000. Numbers 31:49 reports no soldiers were reported missing. There must have been almost no resistance.

⁴⁸Then the officers who were over the thousands of the army, the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds, came near to Moses,
⁴⁹and said to Moses, “Your servants have counted the men of war who are under our command, and there is not a man missing from us. (Num. 31:48-49)

MIRIAM’S LEPROSY–NUMBERS 12

We have seen Moses’ villainy when the Israelite men had sex with foreign women. In total disregard for what he enforced, he gave in to his lust and married a Cushite woman. Cushites were not even Semitic; they were black Africans. When his sister, Mariam, and Aaron protested, God inflicted Mariam with leprosy. We can’t blame Moses for Mariam’s leprosy. But an issue can be made of Moses’ rank hypocrisy.

¹Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman;
²and they said, “Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” And the Lord heard it.
³Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all men that were on the face of the earth.
⁴And suddenly the Lord said to Moses and to Aaron and Miriam, “Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting.” And the three of them came out.
⁵And the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud, and stood at the door of the tent, and called Aaron and Miriam; and they both came forward.
⁶And he said, “Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream.
⁷Not so with my servant Moses; he is entrusted with all my house.
⁸With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in dark speech; and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?”
⁹And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them, and he departed;
¹⁰and when the cloud removed from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, as white as snow. And Aaron turned towards Miriam, and behold, she was leprous. (Num. 12:1-10)

THE END OF MOSES — DEUTERONOMY 34

Moses was supposed to have been 120 years old when he came to his end. “His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.” He had the strength to walk up to the top of Pisgah, opposite Jericho. His eyes were good enough to see for hundreds of miles; the land upon he would not enter.

There is no clue as to how he died. But we can be left with the impression that when a healthy man goes to a mountaintop to die, his demise was planned. No one knows where he was buried. And by a remarkable coincidence, no one knows where Hitler’s body is either.

For those who wonder why Moses had to die before the Hebrews were to enter the Promised Land, here is the story as told in Num. 20:7-12.

One day when the Hebrews were in dire need of water, God told Moses to tell the named rock to bring forth water.

⁷and the LORD said to Moses,
⁸“Take the rod, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water; so you shall bring water out of the rock for them; so you shall give drink to the congregation and their cattle.” (Num. 20:7-8)

Instead, Moses struck the rock with his rod twice to make water flow out.

¹¹And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his rod twice; and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their cattle. (Num. 20:11)

So God punished Moses for not believing in him. He was not to live long enough to enter the Promised Land. But he was allowed to see the land before he was stricken dead.

¹²And the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to sanctify me in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them. (Num. 20:12)