Anyhoo. There are three exceedingly funny stories in Judges. I always love reading this Book.
One is actually one of my favourite stories in the Bible. It involves a man named Micah. Micah was just this one random dude from the Ephraim tribe. One day, this random Levite (of the priestly clan, if you know your Israel tribes) knocked on his door. And Micah was like: you want to be my priest? And the Levite said: ya, sure. So Micah made some carved idols and paid the Levite to be his priest.
Come this one day and some Danites came to this town and met Micah’s priest who told them a good fortune. So they said: you want to come with us with your cast idol, serve an entire clan instead of just one man? And the Levite, this Benedict Arnold of a priest, said: ya, sure. So he left with them.
Later Micah caught up with them and was like: Hey, you took my god and my priest, what is up with that?! And the Danites, very blood-thirsty and just a gang of 600 bullies, were just like: Don’t make us hurt you. So they just took Micah’s god and his priest and set up a new town.
I don’t know the point of this story. It’s just really funny to me.
The second funny story is a little racist. And again, it involves Ephramites. Apparently Ephramites can’t pronounce Sh. So the Gileadites would ask them, “Say Shibboleth”. And if the person says Sibboleth, they just killed them. It was highly interesting to me in college when I was obsessing over linguistics.
I just find it funny it has mention in this very solemn Book.
The third one is just a random throw-away line. Judges 3:17 reads: He presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab, who was a very fat man.
Just like that. It’s like the neighbourhood aunties and unclejis just looking at you and going: you are fat. Or a very honest kid who you ask to describe someone and they just go: the fat one. I mean this dude, who was a king, was ruling over Israel at some point, because they were evil and God was punishing them. Which is basically the entire recurring theme of the Book. And all that the Book has to say about his was that he was “a very fat man”.
You have to wonder just how fat he was. And thankfully, the Bible provides that answer in the next next para. Somewhat. Ehud, a Benjamite man, whose only other description is that he was “a left-handed man”, plunged his one and half foot long sword into Eglon’s belly. And the Bible just says: “the fat closed in over it”. Always with the fat when it comes to Eglon.
Very gory, very macabre. But also, so random it’s funny.
Now, go and read your Judges.
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