Free The Story of God by Chris Matheson

People had the temerity to question whether he was the only one who could talk to God! (Num. 12:2) “Anyone can claim to be talking to God,” they would say. “We can all talk to God, not just you, Moses.” Which was utterly absurd! God had chosen Moses to talk to; when other people talked to him, he ignored them. He had no interest in talking to anyone else! “I’m going to kill them all,” God decided.
    Once again, Moses talked him down: “What will people think of you? What will the
Egyptians
think of you?” he asked—which was, you know, always an effective question. (“Why do I care so damned much what Pharaoh thinks of me?” crossed God’s mind for a moment.) Fine, God wouldn’t kill everybody, but
something
had to be done. Rebellion against Moses simply could not be allowed! Even Moses was starting to feel the pressure. “Why have you laid all this on me?” he asked God(Num. 11:11), who briefly considered flying down and beating him to death for that. “I need to straighten things out,” God thought to himself, then nodded decisively. “I will appear before all the tribal elders and speak to them.”
    â€œHow should I appear before them?” God asked himself. “Given that some are doubting me, shouldn’t I show up as a man, as I have several times before (Ex. 33:11), and prove myself to them?” He stroked his chin, then shook his head firmly. Too obvious. He would appear to the elders as a cloud. That was better, much more convincing. Should he then
talk
to the elders as the cloud? No, he had a far better idea than that. He would, as the cloud, excite the elders so much that they would speak in a kind of excited gibberish! (Num. 11:25)
    If God’s people were reasonable at all (which they were
not,
needless to say) this would have convinced them of the truth of what Moses was saying. But of course, as God knew beforehand, it would not convince them. Before long, they would be complaining again: “We want to go back to Egypt, we don’t like it here,
waaaah.”
(Num. 14:2–4) God decided to punish them preemptively for this whining. “I will give them a huge windfall of meat,” he thought. “But guess what? The meat will be poisoned, haha!” So God blew a bunch of quail into camp. His people feasted on them and a lot of them died. (Num. 11:31–33)
    â€œI cloud-inspired old men to speak gibberish and
still
they doubted me, so I had no choice but to kill a bunch of them, including some who were not even opposed to Moses and so what?” God told his angels, feeling completely justified in his behavior. The angels agreed with him absolutely.
    God decided to punish his people further by sending them into battle against the Amalekites. Now make no mistake: God
hated
the Amalekites, despised them really. (Ex. 17:14–16) He wanted them wiped out; even the memory of them he wanted wiped out, and he had vowed to
do it
too! But before he did that, he would use them to punish his own people. (Num. 15:43–45) “My subtlety sometimes amazes even me,” God thought to himself.
    But
that
didn’t work either. The discontent about Moses’ authority continued, even increased. There were four ringleaders now—Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and Om—spearheading a group of several hundred people. God was furious. He really
was
going to kill all of them. And this time, there was nothing that Moses could say to stop him. The only question was how to kill them. Should he burn them up? Drown them? Have them eaten by wild animals? Force them to eat
each other?
    No. God had a better idea, a spectacular idea, a “home run,” he would later call it. “I will cause the earth to open up beneath their feet and
swallow them,”
he cried happily. And not just the four ringleaders either—God was going to kill their entire families too, little children and all. (Num.