Back in the Israelite camp, the Israelites start having sex with the local Midianite women, who lead them to the worship of Baal. God gets mad and tells Moses to arrest and kill the ringleaders of this.
While all this is happening, man takes a Midianite woman to his tent. Aaron's grandson sees this, takes a spear and kills them. This averts God's anger. It is then stated that there was a plague that was killing Israelites, 24,000 in particular. The plague is discussed in terms of stopping, but we don't know when or why it started. Given the context, it may have started at the same time that God directed Moses to kill the ring leaders.
So, is it fair that so many people die each time the Israelites do something bad? That's an interesting question. In some ways, the Israelite community is like the walking dead, in the sense they have to wander around for 40 years until the generation dies off. But they are winning battles and are not enslaved.
I also wonder if the reason why God gets so offended by "why did we ever leave Egypt" means that while enslaved, they worshipped the local Egyptian gods. Therefore, the complain would have the implicit message, why did we leave the Egyptian gods for this God? That's my theory. I think while enslaved they managed to keep some of their Jewish identity, but as for this detail, I don't remember.
No comments:
Post a Comment