Judges

The Book of Judges has to be the most blood-soaked chronicle of mass-murder in all the OT books.

It starts with the sack of Jerusalem:

And the men of Judah fought against Jerusalem, and took it, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and set the city on fire. (1:8)

Its not clear why the Hebrews should be smiting Jerusalem. What did it do wrong? Anyhow the remaining local residents then become slaves:

“When Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but did not utterly drive them out…the Canaanites dwelt among them, and became subject to forced labor … the inhabitants of Beth-she'mesh and of Beth-anath became subject to forced labor for them.”

Other nations seek to develop friendly trade relations – but God’s chosen People worked exclusively via war, treachery, enslavement, debt-enslavement and plunder, vividly told in the Book of Judges. In vain do we seek through all the OT books, for any honourable means of earning a living or acquiring wealth.

Betrayal of Trust

A no doubt edifying murder story concerns the king called Eglon, of the Moabites. A Benjamite ‘deliverer’ Ehud is raised up by the Lord (Chapter 3)

 And Ehud made for himself a sword with two edges, a cubit in length; and he girded it on his right thigh under his clothes. And he presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab. Now Eglon was a very fat man. And when Ehud had finished presenting the tribute, he sent away the people that carried the tribute. But he himself turned back at the sculptured stones near Gilgal, and said, "I have a secret message for you, O king." And he commanded, "Silence." And all his attendants went out from his presence. And Ehud came to him, as he was sitting alone in his cool roof chamber. And Ehud said, "I have a message from God for you." And he arose from his seat. And Ehud reached with his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly; and the hilt also went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not draw the sword out of his belly. (3:20-23)

Presumably the moral of this story, is Don’t trust a Hebrew. Ehud used the trust of the king to kill him what he was defenceless.

Hebrew Hospitality

Another gruesome regicide is described with relish in the next chapter. A king called Sisera is fleeing after just having lost a war, and arrives at the tent of a woman called Jael, who invites him in with soothing words–

 And Jael came out to meet Sisera, and said to him, "Turn aside, my lord, turn aside to me; have no fear." So he turned aside to her into the tent, and she covered him with a rug. And he said to her, "Pray, give me a little water to drink; for I am thirsty." So she opened a skin of milk and gave him a drink and covered him. And he said to her, "Stand at the door of the tent, and if any man comes and asks you, `Is any one here?' say, No." But Jael the wife of Heber took a tent peg, and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple, till it went down into the ground, as he was lying fast asleep from weariness. So he died. (4:18-22)

The king pays with his life for the mistake of trusting a Hebrew. Jael, because she had no qualms about violating principles of hospitality in killing a defenceless man in her tent while asleep, is praised as a heroine for her treachery:

"Most blessed of women be Ja'el,
the wife of Heber the Ken'ite,
of tent-dwelling women most blessed.
He asked water and she gave him milk,
she brought him curds in a lordly bowl.
She put her hand to the tent peg
and her right hand to the workmen's mallet;
she struck Sis'era a blow,
she crushed his head,
she shattered and pierced his temple. (5:24-6)

A most blessed woman. Seymour Light turned another page, of these infernal chronicles.

Daddy comes Home

A moving tale of child-sacrifice by Jepthath tells how he burnt his adoring young virgin daughter as sacrifice to Yahweh: “And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD, and said, "If thou wilt give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes forth from the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the LORD's, and I will offer him up for a burnt offering." (11:30)

Yahweh accepts the deal, and helps Jepthah to ‘smite’ ‘twenty cities’ with ‘a very great slaughter’ (11:33)

Great.

On returning home, the first thing he sees is, predictably enough, his young daughter coming out to welcome him home.

So therefore she has to be burnt.

She is burnt.

The moral here is, Be careful welcoming your daddy home, if he’s a Hebrew.

Wiping out thy Neigbour's City

Chapter 18 sounds like modern Israeli foreign policy: ‘The Danites came to La’ish, to a people quiet and unsuspecting, and smote them with the edge of the sword, and burned the city with fire (Ch18, 27), re-naming the remains of the city ‘Dan’, and lived there. The story is told in a very normal manner.