Free The Story of God by Chris Matheson Page A

16:30–33) “I am sick and tired of this endless carping, I intend to put an end to it, once and for all,” he told his angels, who agreed that this was exactly the right thing to do. “After the earth swallows up those opposed to my boy Moses and deposits them in sheol—well,
that
should do it!” he announced. God wished that “hell” was ready for these troublemakers; eternal fire was what they deserved, and it was slightly frustrating that all they’d get was sort of grey endless nothingness. But no matter. The looks on their faces as they felt the ground beneath them open up would be priceless.
    Needless to say,
this
plan would not “work” either, God knew that—but that was fine. As for the rest of the rebels, God shot fire down from the sky and finished them off. (Num. 16:35) The rebellion was squashed. Things were back on track.
    Except that they weren’t.
    Even after God’s astonishing “Five point plan” to quell the rebellion: (1) Appear as a cloud and cause old men to speak gibberish; (2) Blow bad birdmeat into camp to poison people; (3) Use the Amalekites to kick his people’s asses; (4) Open the earth to swallow rebel leaders and their families; (5) Fireblast two hundred others—the griping
continued.
The people
still
complained about Moses’ leadership, still doubted him, still wanted to return to Egypt. (Num. 17:6) God was stunned. “What is it going to take to get their attention?” he marveled. He decided to send another plague, which killed 15,000 more people. (Num. 17:14)
    There were moments when God almost couldn’t
believe
what he was seeing. Even after the plague, after 15,000 deaths, people still—
STILL
—complained. (Num. 21:5) What was wrong with them? There were moments when the old dark questions crossed his mind again: “Did I really create all this? If so, why do I seem to have so little power to influence things? What’s wrong with me? Am I inept? Am I a fraud? Am I crazy?”
    God took a deep breath, calmed himself. None of those things were true. He was all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good. The problem, as he had already noted on several occasions, was with humans. They were bad, disobedient, and proud. They deserved
more
punishment, and he would give it to them. (Fuck it, he loved giving it to them.) “If the plague that killed 15,000 of them didn’t stop the complaining, then I will send poisonous snakes—possibly fire snakes—to bite them!” he thundered. (Num. 21:8)
    This time, however, as God watched his people moaning in agony about their snake bites, he took pity on them. “I have punished them enough for a while,” he told his angels. “I will be merciful now.” He instructed Moses to build a big copper snake which would cure the bites. (Num. 21:9) Was he being inconsistent, God wondered. After all, he had condemned “false idols” over and over again, it was basically his second commandment (Ex. 20:4), and now he was having his people more or less worship a big copper serpent. Was that odd at all? “I work in mysterious ways,” God told himself, enjoying, as usual, the way that sounded.
    God’s people did behave better for a while. They took the town of Bashan, ruled by King Og (the name made God laugh every time he heard it. “I am King Og!” he would snort tohimself), and per God’s instructions, killed everyone in it. God was amazed how little the deaths of nonbelievers mattered to him. Old women impaled? Babies dashed on rocks? Ho hum. (Num. 31:15–17; Isa. 9:17; Isa. 13:18) For a moment, God began to think that maybe—
maybe
—his people had
finally
learned their lesson.
    How wrong he was.
    Not long after taking Bashan, the men—his men—
God’s men
—started having sex with, to be blunt,
whores.
(Non-Israelite women, that is. God called any woman who wasn’t an Israelite a