Deuteronomy 18

Deuteronomy 18

Remember the Levites? No? Well, they carried the Tabernacle through the desert. It was a pretty sweet gig. And their reward? They have no inheritance from Israel--the country, not the person. The Levites can't own land, so they can't pass it down generation to generation. Because they can't own land, they can't raise livestock or grow their own crops. As a result, all of Israel must donate to the Levites' well-being.

Like I said before: the Levites are welfare queens.

Moses wants to ensure that when the Israelites finally take possession of the Promised Land that they don't "learn to do after the abominations of those nations." Way to be a dick to the people you're about to conquer and dispossess of their land, Moses. Maybe next time be kinder to the people you’re about to throw off their ancestral homeland.

                                  

Here's the short list of forbidden practices:

·  Sacrificing your children in a fire

·  Acts of divination

·  Being an "observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch" ( basically dealing in the occult)

·  Or "a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer" (the last one means someone who consults with the dead. I’m looking at you, twelve apostles)

So basically Dungeons & Dragons is out.

God, through Moses, promises to send a prophet to the Israelites, one who will come from their ranks and through whom God will speak. God instructs the Israelites to listen to this prophet, because what good is a prophet who no one listens too? But God warns against false prophets, ones who will claim to speak for God but are just out to make a quick buck for their megachurch.

The Israelites, understandably, want to know how they can discern the true prophet from the false. As usual, God has an answer for that.

"When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord," Moses says, "if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him."

So basically, the only way to tell if a prophet is false is if the predictions he makes fail to come true. Which means the Israelites might follow a false prophet for years and years only to discover the truth well after it can do them any good. What could possibly go wrong with that plan?

Deuteronomy 15, 16, 17

Deuteronomy 15
All debts are cancelled after seven years. For Israeltes, that is You can hold the debts of strangers for as long as you want.

And here's something you don't hear conservative Christian politicians quoting a lot: God's commandment toward the poor:

If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in thy land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother: But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanteth

Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought; and he cry unto the Lord against thee, and it be sin unto thee.

Thou shalt surely give him, and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him: because that for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto.

For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land.

 That was nice, wasn't it? It almost makes me want to be religious so I don't have to follow it.

But it's a brief respite, because Moses turns now to slavery.

If you bought an Israelite as a slave then you must free him or her on the seventh year. When you send them on their way you need to provide them with tons of animals, grain, and wine, which presumably makes up for slavery. Forty acres and a mule, am I right?

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the slave you're about to set free decides he loves you and would rather stay. Let’s pretend it happens all the time. What do you do then? Why what any rational person would do: pierce his earlobe with an awl, nailing him directly to a door. What? You can think of something better?

Deuteronomy 16
Pretty straightforward book:

Observe Passover. You know what that means.

Observe the Feast of Weeks. If you were the kind of person who celebrated it you'd know what it was.

Observe the Feast of Tabernacles. It probably has something to do with camping.

Appoint fair judges.

Don't worship graven images.

Done!

Deuteronomy 17
When you sacrifice animals to God, ensure said animals are blemish free. I recommend Proactiv.

If you notice any man or woman acting without regard to God's commandments you should stone them to death. On second thought, maybe it's a good thing that no one pays perfect attention to the bible after all.

Disagreements too difficult for the parties to settle between themselves should be brought before the judges or priests. Be careful though: if you don't follow their advice exactly you will be put to death.

When it comes time to elect a king make sure it's the one that God has chosen. Which flies in the face of the whole "election" thing, but what can you do? And he--of course it's a man--should not keep an unusual number of horses, return the Istraelites to Egypt, have many wifes, accumulate gold or silver, or think himself better than his subjects.

Something tells me the king list is going to be kind of short.

Deuteronomy 14

As if we haven’t heard this enough, Moses reiterates the dos and don’ts of Jewish cuisine, plus a few random no-nos. I’d think that people living in deserts wouldn’t have the luxury of being so picky, but to each his own, especially when God’s pointing his big angry finger at you.

Let's hit the bullets:

·  When someone dies, don't cut yourselves or shave the front of your head. That means Peter Gabriel is in a lot of trouble

·  Eat only oxen, sheep, goat, hart (which are a kind of deer), roebuck (which are male deer), wild goats, pygarg (which may be antelopes), wiled oxen, and chamois (which are large mountain goats; no word on whether or not it's kosher to use a ShamWow)

·  Handy rule: you can eat any animal that has a cloven hoof and chews a cud; both traits are necessary. That means no camel (chews cud but has an undivided hoof) or pig (divided hoof but doesn't chew cud). Maybe someday geneticists will create a pamel, a gigantic pig with bacon humps, spindly legs, and the head of a camel. It just seems a shame that there are so many people in the world who cannot eat bacon

·  Don't touch the carcass of an unclean animal. Now that I think about it, just leave carcasses alone. That's just gross

·  Anything in the water with scales and fins you can eat; anything else from the water is unclean, which means mermaids are fair game

·   Birds in general are cool

·  Except for eagles, ossifrages (bearded vultures), ospreys, gledes (birds of prey, especially kites), kites (see gledes), other vultures, ravens, owls, night hawks, cuckoos, other hawks, a couple of other owls, swans, pelicans, another eagle, cormorants, storks, herons, lapwings, and bats

·  God's not really into taxonomy

·  Don't eat insects. Do you even have to be told that?

·  Don't eat anything that you found already dead

·  Yes, road kill counts, Kentucky

·  You can give away found dead meat to strangers though. Who cares what they eat? They're going to hell already because they don't believe in Jesus

·  Don't cook a kid goat in its mother's milk. You don't have to tell me twice. Milk-boiled meat sounds nasty

I just had a great idea: a restaurant that not only doesn’t keep kosher but one that deliberately doesn't keep kosher. The menu would offer only those items specifically mentioned in the bible as being unclean. I even have a name: Uncloven Hoof. Sounds like a hate crime waiting to happen.

One last thing: tithe. That's offering ten percent of your crops and animals to the Lord. Every year take your tithe to a place of God's choosing, let's say Boca Raton, and eat it all in front of the Lord. If you tithe is so large you can't transport it all, sell it for silver, travel to the eating place, and then buy some food with the money when get you get there. McDonald’s counts.

Because the Levites are forbidden to own land, every three years all the tithes should be donated to them instead of eaten by the members of the individual tribes, which makes the Levites the original welfare queens.