Drunk With Blood (17 page)

1 Samuel 7.10-11

Estimated Number Killed: 1,000

Philistines

After God killed more than 50,000 for looking into the ark (
60
), the ark was moved to Kirjathjearim and the people of Israel “lamented after the Lord”—which means, I guess, that they wanted the damned thing back.

And it came to pass, while the ark abode in Kirjathjearim, that the time was long; for it was twenty years: and all the house of Israel lamented after the LORD. 1 Samuel 7.2

So Samuel told them what to do. Get rid of all their other gods and worship Yahweh alone. So the Israelites rounded up all their gods and threw them away. Then Samuel told all the people of Israel to gather at Mizpeh and he would say a little prayer for them.

Samuel said, Gather all Israel to Mizpeh, and I will pray for you unto the LORD. 7.5

So everyone in Israel came to Mizpeh, poured water out for the Lord, fasted, and said they’d sinned.

And they gathered together to Mizpeh, and drew water, and poured it out before the LORD, and fasted on that day, and said there, We have sinned against the LORD. 7.6

When the Philistines heard about all this, they prepared to attack Israel.

When the Philistines heard that the children of Israel were gathered together to Mizpeh, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. 7.7a

The Israelites were afraid of the Philistines, so they asked Samuel to ask God to save them.

When the children of Israel heard it, they were afraid of the Philistines. 7.7b

So Samuel killed a baby lamb and burned its dead body for God.

Samuel took a sucking lamb, and offered it for a burnt offering wholly unto the LORD. 7.9a

Then Samuel cried out to God and God heard him.

And Samuel cried unto the LORD for Israel; and the LORD heard him. 7.9b

While Samuel was busy roasting the lamb for God, the Philistines attacked. And God “thundered with a great thunder” and “discomfited them.” Then the Israelites chased them down and killed them.

As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel: but the LORD thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines, and discomfited them; and they were smitten before Israel. And the men of Israel went out of Mizpeh, and pursued the Philistines, and smote them. 7.10-11

After the slaughter, Samuel put up a monument that said, “So far the Lord has helped us.”

Then Samuel took a stone … saying, Hitherto hath the LORD helped us. 7.12

Once again the Bible doesn’t say how many Philistines were killed. So I’ll just call it 1000.

1 Samuel 11.11

Estimated Number Killed: 1,000

Ammonites

Remember the Holy Civil War a few killings back? (
56
) This is a lot like it.

It starts with the people from Jabeshgilead making a proposition to the Ammonites.

Then Nahash the Ammonite came up, and encamped against Jabeshgilead: and all the men of Jabesh said unto Nahash, Make a covenant with us, and we will serve thee. 1 Samuel 11.1

Does Jabeshgilead sound familiar to you? Well, if you read about 
God's 57th killing
, it should. (In that story, the Israelites killed everyone in the city of Jabeshgilead except for the virgin women, whom they gave to the surviving Benjamites for wives.)

So everyone in Jabeshgilead was killed a few years before the events in 1 Samuel 11 supposedly took place. Yet here in verse 1 they are making a treaty with the Ammonites. Do dead people make treaties? I guess they do in the Bible.

Anyway, here’s the deal that Nahash offered the (dead?) people from Jabeshgilead:

Nahash the Ammonite answered them, On this condition will I make a covenant with you, that I may thrust out all your right eyes, and lay it for a reproach upon all Israel. 11.2

Now you might think that this would be a no brainer to the people of Jabeshgilead. But since they were already dead, maybe they didn’t have any eyes to poke out. In any case, the people of Jabshgilead asked for a week to see if they could get an army together to fight the Ammonites. If they couldn’t, they’d let the Ammonites poke out one of their eyes.

The elders of Jabesh said unto him, Give us seven days’ respite, that we may send messengers unto all the coasts of Israel: and then, if there be no man to save us, we will come out to thee. 11.3

The Ammonites said, “Sure, go ahead and get an army together. We’ll give you a week.” So the leaders of Jabeshgilead sent messengers to Saul, who had recently become the first king of Israel (1 Sam 10.20-24).

When Saul heard about it, “the Spirit of the Lord came upon him,” and Saul did what any spirit-filled person would do: he killed some oxen, chopped their bodies up into 12 pieces, and sent the pieces to the 12 tribes of Israel.

The Spirit of God came upon Saul ... And he took a yoke of oxen, and hewed them in pieces, and sent them throughout all the coasts of Israel by the hands of messengers. 11.6-7a

And it worked, too. Messages like that always work in the Bible.

The fear of the LORD fell on the people, and they came out with one consent. 11.7b

Within a week the ox body parts were sent around to all the tribes of Israel and all the people of Israel responded “as one,” forming an army of 330,000.

When he numbered them in Bezek, the children of Israel were three hundred thousand, and the men of Judah thirty thousand. 11.8

It’s amazing what twelve rotting pieces of meat can do!

Then Saul told the people of Jabeshgilead:

To morrow, by that time the sun be hot, ye shall have help. And the messengers came and shewed it to the men of Jabesh; and they were glad. 11.9

So the messengers went back and told the good news to leaders of Jabeshgilead, and they told Nahash that tomorrow they’d let them poke out their eyes.

The men of Jabesh said, To morrow we will come out unto you, and ye shall do with us all that seemeth good unto you. 11.10

The next day Saul and his army killed Ammonites until the heat of the day. When they were done they had killed all the Ammonites.

Saul ... slew the Ammonites until the heat of the day: and it came to pass, that they which remained were scattered, so that two of them were not left together. 11.11

After the slaughter Saul said,

To day the LORD hath wrought salvation in Israel. 11.13

So God deserves at least some of the credit.

The Bible doesn’t say how many Ammonites were killed; I’ll call it a standard massacre and say 1000.

1 Samuel 14.12-14

Number Killed: 20

Philistines

Well, it was a bit disappointing to me, but I guess it was OK for a very first slaughter.

Here’s how it happened.

One day Jonathan and his armor bearer decided to go find some uncircumcised guys to kill. Who knows? Maybe God would help them.

Jonathan said to the young man that bare his armour, Come, and let us go over unto the garrison of these uncircumcised: it may be that the LORD will work for us. 1 Samuel 14.6

Jonathan’s amorous armor bearer said to him, “Do whatever is in your heart. Whatever is in your heart is in my heart, too.” (They had a very close, intimate relationship.)

His armourbearer said unto him, Do all that is in thine heart: turn thee; behold, I am with thee according to thy heart. 14.7

So Jonathan told him his plan. They will go over to the Philistines and if they say, “Wait there and we’ll come over to you,” then Jonathan and his armor bearer will stay put. But if the Philistines say, “Come up to us, and we will show you something,” then they will attack, knowing that God will help them kill them.

Then said Jonathan, Behold, we will pass over unto these men, and we will discover ourselves unto them. If they say thus unto us, Tarry until we come to you; then we will stand still in our place, and will not go up unto them. But if they say thus, Come up unto us; then we will go up: for the LORD hath delivered them into our hand: and this shall be a sign unto us. 14.8-10

So they did that. And when the Philistines saw them, they said, “Look the Hebrews have crawled out of the holes they were hiding in.”

Both of them discovered themselves unto the garrison of the Philistines: and the Philistines said, Behold, the Hebrews come forth out of the holes where they had hid themselves. 14.11

And then the Philistines said the magic words of doom, “Come on up and we’ll show you a thing or two.”

The men of the garrison answered Jonathan and his armourbearer, and said, Come up to us, and we will shew you a thing. 14.12a

When Jonathan heard that, he told his armor bearer that God would help them kill the Philistines.

Jonathan said unto his armourbearer, Come up after me: for the LORD hath delivered them into the hand of Israel. 14.12b

So Jonathan and his armor bearer crawled out of their hole and began to kill Philistines.

Jonathan climbed up upon his hands and upon his feet, and his armourbearer after him: and they fell before Jonathan; and his armourbearer slew after him. 14.13

They killed about 20 of them, all in an area of half an acre or so, which is not too bad for a very first slaughter.

That first slaughter, which Jonathan and his armourbearer made, was about twenty men, within as it were an half acre of land, which a yoke of oxen might plow. 14.14

The thing that bothers me about this story is the “first slaughter” part. Because if this was Jonathan’s very first slaughter, what was he doing in the last chapter?

Jonathan smote the garrison of the Philistines that was in Geba. 13.3

1 Samuel 14.15-20

Estimated Number Killed: 1,000

Philistines

After helping Jonathan with his first slaughter (which wasn’t really his first, but Oh well), God took over the killing himself. He didn’t have much choice if he wanted to get the killing done, because there were only two swords in all Israel at the time, Jonathan’s and Saul’s. And it’s hard to kill Philistines with only sticks and stones.

So it came to pass in the day of battle, that there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people that were with Saul and Jonathan: but with Saul and with Jonathan his son was there found. 1 Samuel 13.22

But God had a plan. He’d force the Philistines to kill each other (and throw in an earthquake for dramatic effect).

And there was trembling ... and the earth quaked: so it was a very great trembling … And the multitude melted away, and they went on beating down one another... Every man’s sword was against his fellow, and there was a very great discomfiture. 14:15-20

After the Philistines killed each other, the Israelites must have gathered up their swords and spears, because by the end of the same chapter Saul is fighting everybody at once, “vexing” them all.

So Saul ... fought against all his enemies on every side, against Moab, and against the children of Ammon, and against Edom, and against the kings of Zobah, and against the Philistines: and whithersoever he turned himself, he vexed them. And he gathered an host, and smote the Amalekites, and delivered Israel out of the hands of them that spoiled them. 14.47-48

(I guessed that God forced 1000 Philistines to kill each other. But since the Bible doesn’t say that God was involved in the second killing, I didn’t include it on the official list.)

1 Samuel 15.2-9

Estimated Number Killed: 10,000

Amalekites

Nothing much needs to be said about this one.

You only need to read the first three verses from 1 Samuel 15 to know for sure that the God of the Bible is evil. (Thank goodness he doesn’t exist!)

Still, it is good idea to look at the story in context.

(Bible believers often tell us to look at the context. But context nearly always makes Bible stories worse, not better. This story is no exception.)

Samuel also said unto Saul ... Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. 1 Samuel 15.1-3

Notice that Samuel speaks here for God. Why would anyone believe that then or now? Was it because it sounded like something God would say?

And if the genocide was so important to God, why didn’t he tell Saul directly?

But let’s assume that the Bible is right and Samuel quoted God correctly. If so, then (unlike many of God’s killings) we know why God wanted Saul to kill all the Amalekites—because God remembered what their ancestors did hundreds of years before they were born (they defended themselves when the Israelites tried to kill them and take their land).

And Saul pretty much did as God commanded. He sent 210,000 soldiers to kill everyone and everything among the Amalekites: men, women, children, babies, animals—except for the king, Agag, and some of the more valuable sheep, oxen, and lambs.

Saul gathered the people together … two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah. … And Saul smote the Amalekites ... And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly. 15.4-9

Saul killed the old men, the pregnant women, the children and babies. But he spared the king and some animals. And God would never forgive him for it.

Samuel cried his little eyes out all night and God repented of making Saul king.

Then came the word of the LORD unto Samuel, saying, It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the LORD all night. 15.10-11

It’s good to know that God repented. When you order someone to commit genocide for stuff that happened centuries ago, you should be a bit sorry about it.

But that wasn’t what God was sorry about. God wanted all of the Amalekites killed. In some sick way it made God happy every time an old Amalekite woman or a little baby was killed.

No, God repented of making Saul king because he didn’t kill everyone, and God wanted everyone killed.

And if you believe in the Bible, you wanted them killed, too.

[If this Bible story is true (which it isn’t, of course), how many Amalekites were killed at God’s command? I originally gave it the usual 1000 for a standard massacre, but Saul sent 210,000 soldiers to do the killing. He wouldn’t send that many soldiers to kill only 1000 civilians, would he? So I increased it to 10,000.]