For MOST of you this chapter should NOT be read. We will of
course read all this horrible accounts as we read through the
Bible from Genesis to Revelation. Often reading thus, we will
just let these things pass over us, not giving too much thought
on the matter per se. When put all together in ONE chapter as the
following is, most of us will not be able to stomach it. Being a
minister of Jesus Christ I have to print the facts of the Bible,
liking it or not. It was VERY difficult for me to scan and read
through to organize. I had read this chapter of Mr.Aaron's book
many years back, I was emotionally sick and upset then, time has
not made it any easier.
There are things in the Bible I do NOT understand, I am shocked
and I have said a number of times, "Father, I just do not
understand this ... all this horribleness, I am shocked at some
of the things I read, and some come from your people and your
servants. Father I do indeed look through a glass darkly. I know
I shall know one day, even as I'm known. I am disgussed, help me
to keep my faith in You strong and sure."
Friends, I know God is real and does exist, we see His creation
all around us to prove He exists. We must keep looking to the
positive, even when the negative is hard to understand and even
makes you mentally and emotionally sick at heart.
For MOST of you, unless you are called to the ministry of Jesus
Christ, you will not want to read this VERY LONG chapter, the
title is shockingly true.
Mr.Aaron's book continues with:
RAPE, MUTILATION, AND PERVERSION
Even today it would make a bizarre newspaper headline.
PREACHER'S WIFE RAPED!
The story would grow even more bizarre as the details
unfold. It was a gang rape. The gang was composed of numerous sex
perverts. The preacher gave them permission to rape her. The rape
resulted in her death. The preacher cut her body into twelve
pieces and mailed them to various parts of the country!
Actually the man was a Levite - thus some type of religious
worker - and the woman was a secondary wife, a concubine. But
otherwise, all the details are there - in the Bible.
To begin with, we read that this man's "concubine played the
whore against him, and went away from him unto her father's
house" (Judges 19:2). The Vulgate simply says she left him; the
Septuagint that she was angry with him; the Targum that she
despised him; Josephus that she was alienated from him. Whatever
the case may have been, the woman had gone to her father's house.
Four months later the Levite went to get her.
As they returned, while spending the night with an old man
at Gibeah, a group of homosexuals surrounded the house demanding
that they "know," that is, have sex, with the Levite:
Now as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men
of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round
about, and beat at the door, and spake to the master of the
house, the old man, saying, Bring forth the man that came
into thine house, that we may know him (Judges 19:22).
In the same words that Lot had used in a similar situation
many years before, the old man answered: "Nay, my brethren, nay,
I pray you, do not so wickedly." But what he did instead was
utterly wicked: he offered his own daughter and the man's
concubine to this gang!
Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine;
them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with
them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so
vile a thing (Judges 19:14).
Our words fail to properly express the crudeness of the
reasoning here. Imagine turning two innocent women out to a gang
of sex perverts, telling this gang to "humble" them, to do with
them "what seemeth good unto you"!
So the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto
them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until
the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her
go. Then came the woman in the dawning of the day, and. fell
down at the door of the man's house where her lord [her
husband] was, till it was light. And her lord rose up in the
morning, and opened the doors of the house ... and, behold,
the woman his concubine was fallen down at the door of the
house, and her hands were upon the threshold. And he said
unto her, Up, let us be going. But none answered (Judges
19:25-28).
Oh the heartlessness, the inconsistency of it all! After
being raped all night, the woman fled, no doubt naked, bruised,
and battered, with stains of blood and semen around her bodily
openings. (The details here are so "abominable," as Adam Clarke
expressed it, he felt obligated to shroud his comments in Latin
at this point in his commentary.) The woman made it only to the
threshold of the door. When her "lord" got up the next morning
and found her there, he demanded: "Up, let us be going." But she
was dead. It is horribly sad.
Then, as if this poor woman had not been abused enough, the
Levite - to whom tradition has assigned the name Bethac performed
a gruesome mutilation:
And when he was come into his house, he took a knife, and
laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, together with
her bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the
coasts of Israel (Judges 19:29).
Sending these parts to the various tribes of Israel stirred
up war against the tribe of Benjamin within whose territory the
gang rape had occurred. The Levite's explanation was that "the
men of Gibeah rose against me, and beset the house round about
... and thought to have slain me: and my concubine have they
forced, that she is dead" (Judges 20:5,6). Notice how the Levite
twisted the facts. He said these men planned to kill him; the
text says they wanted to "know" him. He says they forced his
concubine, but conveniently does not mention he was the one who
turned her out to the mob!
(This is one of those passages in the Bible I am lost to explain,
I just cannot understand this horrible fact, I look through a
glass darkly at this, and I've said so to the heavenly Father. I
have to be content for now in knowing one day I will be able to
understand and know why all this happened the way it did - Keith
Hunt)
The practice of "cutting asunder," mentioned in Matthew
24.11; has been known among various people in history. The writer
of Hebrews mentions how some persecuted people were sawed in two
(Hebrews 11:37), a practice here graphically illustrated by a
sixteenth century artist. Such was the fate that tradition has
assigned to the prophet Isaiah.
"Sawn asunder," sixteenth century drawing of torture death.
(None of the drawings in Aaron's book are reproduced - the
context of words is enough - Keith Hunt)
Following the slaughter of the Amalekites, Saul "took Agag
the king of the Amalekites alive" (1 Samuel 15:8). But Samuel,
one of the most famous of the Biblical prophets, ordered: "Bring
ye hither to me Agag the king of the Amalekites. And Agag came
unto him delicately .... And Samuel hewed Agog in pieces" (verses
32,33). Some translations use the words "hacked" or "chopped" him
to pieces.
A curious story is given by Philo. "God said unto Samuel ...
suffer Agag and his wife to come together this night, and
tomorrow thou shalt slay him; but his wife preserve till she
bring forth a male child, and then she also shall die, and he
that is born of her shall be an offense unto Saul" (Philo 58:3).
Years later, when Saul failed in his suicide attempt and
asked a young man to kill him, it was this son that had been
born! "Before thou kill me, tell me, Who art thou? And he said
unto him: I am Edab, the son of Agag.... And Saul said: Behold,
now the words of Samuel are come upon me even as he said: He that
shall be born of Agag shall be an offense unto thee" (Philo
65:3,4). Such legends, in spite of their antiquity, have all the
earmarks of fiction and fact mixed together.
Ezekiel mentioned the custom of unfaithful women being
THRUST through (Ezekiel 16:40)--literally "cut to pieces"
(Strong's Concordance, 1333). Some were punished by having their
noses and ears cut off (Ezekiel 23:25), or their breasts. In a
strange twist, the unfaithful wife of Yahweh is pictured as
cutting off her own breasts! In the analogy, her sister gives her
a large cup which she drinks, filling her with sorrow and
drunkenness, producing a condition so base she would "break the
sherds thereof, and pluck off her own breasts"! (Ezekiel 23:34).
Other mutilations mentioned in the Bible include cutting off
thumbs or big toes (Judges 1:6), cutting off hands and feet (2
Samuel 4:12), cutting out eyes (2 Kings 25:7), cutting open
pregnant women (2 Kings 8:12), and cutting off the very skin from
the body. Though the reference in Micah 3:3, "...and their skin
from off them," may be understood figuratively, we know that some
tribes, among them the Assyrians, did practice this. Herodotus
mentions the Persians and Sythians using skins so obtained. Human
skins average about 20 square feet in size.
Cutting off heads is mentioned numerous times in the Bible
(2 Samuel 20:22; Revelation 20:4). In the Apocrypha there is the
story of how Judith cut off the head of Holofernes, an enemy of
the Jews. Dressing in a way that would "beguile the eyes of all
men," she made a play for him. When he supposed they were about
to make love in his tent, he "took great delight in her, and
drank exceeding much wine." But, being overcome with the wine, he
fell asleep. "And Judith, standing by his bed ... took down his
scimitar ... and smote twice upon his neck with all her might,
and took away his head from him." Praising the Lord, she returned
to her friends, "took forth the head out of the bag, and showed
it"! (Judith 13:1-16).
When David killed Goliath, he "cut off his head ... and
brought it to Jerusalem" (I Samuel 17:51, 54). Such was not only
a trophy, but also served as proof that the enemy had been
killed. One of David's successors, king Jehu, had the heads of
seventy sons of a rival king sent to him in baskets (2 Kings
10:6,7). A woman arranged to have Sheba's head thrown over a wall
to Joab as proof of his death (2 Samuel 20:22).
Following a massacre, it was not uncommon for warriors to
bring back heads or some other bodily part to prove how many
enemies were killed. Sometimes the bodily part would be a scalp,
hand, foot, or ear. But when Saul offered his daughter to David
in exchange for killing one hundred Philistines, the bodily part
he required was none of these. The part Saul required was the
penis!
David was to bring back one hundred Philistine "foreskins"
(1 Samuel 18:25). Bergmann, Gesemus, and other scholars have
pointed out that the word translated "foreskins" includes the
entire male member: "basr ha-ghurleh" meaning prepuced penis,
"basr" being euphemistic for the male organ itself and "ghurleh"
being the "sheath" thereof.
"Phallotomy" - cutting off the penises of victims - had long been
considered proof of bravery. Egyptian soldiers exhibited
thousands of penises before Ramses III following the battle of
Khesef-Tamahu. Among the people of Mowat a victor in battle would
wear about him the penis of his conquered enemy; it was
considered good luck to do so. The women of Cush cut off the
penises of wounded or slain men and stuffed them in the mouths of
their enemies. The nomad Danakil who roamed the eastern desert of
Ethiopia were fanatical collectors of phallic trophies. The
Hittites and Arabs did the same. An old Bedouin custom required a
warrior to present his bride or her father with the severed
penises of tribal foes.
It is not a pretty picture. David gets some men together and
heads out toward a Philistine settlement. Coming through the
hills, up ahead they see a group of Philistines - apparently
unable to defend themselves - for none of David's men are killed.
As they move in, a couple men grab a Philistine while David
shoves his sword into his stomach. The man cries for mercy; none
is given. David rips the man's clothes open and grabs his penis,
pulls on it, and cuts it off for his collection. He will need at
least one hundred of these to buy his woman.
Saul had asked for one hundred "foreskins," but we read that
David "slew of the Philistines two hundred men; and David brought
their foreskins, and they gave them in full tale to the
king" (1 Samuel 18:27). In the excitement did David kill twice as
many as required? Possibly; but usually the number two hundred is
considered a copyist error. Tke other verses that mention the
number all say one hundred (1 Samuel 18:25; 2 3:14).
Whether one hundred or two hundred, these severed penises
were presented to Saul "in full tale," that is, the full count or
tally. One can imagine the scene as Saul and others with glee
counted - 1,2,3,4, and on up to the full count.
Years later, when king Saul was wounded in battle, he asked
his armor bearer to kill him "lest these uncircumcised come and
abuse me " (1 Chronicles 10:4). He may have feared genital
amputation (in retaliation for what he had ordered David to do to
Philistines), or homosexual rape, the word translated "abuse"
being capable of meaning to thrust in.
It was, apparently, sexual abuse that was also feared by
king Zedekiah when he told Jeremiah: "I am afraid of the Jews
that are fallen to the Chaldeans, lest they deliver me into their
hand, and they mock me" (Jeremiah 38:19). The word that is here.
translated "mock" is the same word that is translated "abuse" in
the case of Saul.
(Once more I'm at a full loss to understand these events in
David's life, some of the events are pretty sick to put it
bluntly. This event and others in the life of David, God
obviously allowed, but when all is said and done, David was NOT
allowed to build the Temple for God. The Lord told David he could
not build it, for "You are a BLOODY man....." The eternal God was
obviously NOT pleased at all with some of the things David did.
What we have just read was no doubt one of those bloody killings
that caused the Lord to tell David he was a "bloody man" and
could not build the Temple for God - Keith Hunt).
One time when David's men were suspected of being spies,
"Hanun took David's servants, and shaved them, and cut off their
garments in the midst hard by their buttocks, and sent them away"
(1 Chronicles 19:4). The Hebrew wording "he took them" could mean
no more than this. But the term could mean they were victims of
homosexual rape. "Yiqqah" (took) stems from "laqih," to take
(sexually), to inseminate, related to "liqah," seminal fluid.
This may explain why these men experienced such "shame" at
having their beards shaved off. It may have been symbolical: they
were used in place of women, and so the shaving made them more
closely resemble women! Cutting off their garments at the
"buttocks" might also symbolize the disgrace they were subjected
to by anal rape.
In a parable of Jesus, the owner of a winery had gone into a
far country and left the business in the hands of others. When he
sent a servant to collect the profits, "at him they cast stones,
and wounded him in the head, and sent him away hamefully handled"
(Mark 12:1-4). It is very possible that "shamefully handled"
involved sexual molestation - indecent acts to disgrace and
humiliate.
A form of sexual abuse that was common in the ancient world,
and especially degrading, was that of soldiers raping captive
women following battles. In some cases these were the wives and
daughters of the men they had just killed! Several Biblical
passages refer to this practice:
They ravished [raped] the women in Zion, and the maids in
the cities of Judah (Lamentations 5:11).
Their children shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes;
their houses shall be spoiled [burglarized] and their wives
ravished [raped] (Isaiah 13:16).
The city shall be taken, and the houses rifled [searched and
burglarized], and the women ravished [raped] (Zechariah
14:2).
It was not uncommon for conquering warriors to be given
women as part of their pay. In the book of Judges, Sisera's
mother, worried because he had not returned from battle, hoped
the delay was only because of the time required to divide up the
prey and girls among the soldiers!
The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried
through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming?
Why tarry the wheels of his chariots? Her wise ladies
answered her.... Have they not sped? Have they not divided
the prey; to every man a damsel or two?" (Judges 5:28-30).
In the battle against the Midianites, Moses instructions
were to kill everyone except "the women children, that have not;
known a man by lying with him." It must have been quite a scene
as the soldiers "examined" these girls to see if they were
virgins or not. Imagine the horror they must have felt being
stripped and inspected by men who had just killed their mothers,
fathers, and brothers! If a woman was not a virgin, she was
killed on the spot. Those who were virgins, Moses told the
soldiers to "keep alive for yourselves" (Numbers 31:18).
(Again, I am shocked and disturbed, and do not understand this
event, coming from the life of Moses. The world back then was in
many ways a horrible world. There are today also some horrible
things still being committed by human beings upon other human
beings. It is just very hard to understand horrible events under
leaders like Moses. I shall probably have to wait till the
resurrection to know as I am known - I look through a glass
darkly - Keith Hunt)
If an Israelite soldier wanted to marry a woman from among
war captives, the law of Moses made provision for this:
When thou guest forth to war ... and thou hast taken them
captive, and seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and
hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy
wife; then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she
shall ... bewail her father and her mother a full month: and
after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband
(Deuteronomy 21:10-13).
Though this law seems quite primitive, it was a step up from
the indiscriminate rape that commonly occurred. And though the
wisdom of choosing a wife simply on the basis of her physical
appearance or sex appeal is questionable, yet with this law the
soldier was to actually marry the girl. Also, the waiting period
(for mourning) would have removed some of the harshness of the
arrangement.
She was to "shave her head" and thirty days later - with her
hair now looking like a butch haircut - the man was to "go in
unto her." If she did not "delight" him sexually, he could let
her go: "And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then
thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell
her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her"
(Deuteronomy 21:14).
The purpose of this law was to prohibit men from selling
these captive wives to the slave traders that followed victorious
troops.
Slavery! The very word is repugnant. The practice of slavery
has a horrid history of people being abused in many ways,
including sexual abuse. American slavery was no exception, as the
book and movie "Roots" pointed out. Some slave masters forced
negro women into having children, fathered by a large, strong
negro slave, only to ultimately take them away to be sold as
slaves.
Under the law of Moses, a male slave was required to serve
for seven years. If during that time a slave owner provided him
with a wife, and children were born to that union, at the end of
the seven years the man was given a choice: he could either agree
to serve as a slave "forever," or he could leave. But in leaving,
he must leave behind his wife and children: "the wife and her
children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself
"(Exodus 21:4).
According to "Sex Laws and Customs in Judaism":
A good deal of immorality among Jews, as among other racial
groups of antiquity, had its roots in slavery .... The
female slave was a sex tool beneath the level of moral
considerations. She was an economic good, useful, in
addition to her menial labor, for breeding more slaves ....
The master himself and his sons ... took turns with her for
the increase of the family wealth as well as for
satisfaction of their extra-marital sex desires. Guests and
neighbors too were invited to that luxury. In the place of
lending and exchanging wives, practiced by other oriental
peoples, the Hebrews complied with those standards of
hospitality by the use of their female slaves .... Such is
the nature of slavery."
When the Israelites themselves were slaves in Egypt, there
can be little doubt their women were repeatedly abused sexually.
The Bible tells about Moses killing an Egyptian man (Acts 7:24),
but does not explain the reason why he did this. According to the
book of Jasher - and in this instance there is no reason to doubt
its history - the man that Moses killed had raped the wife of an
Israelite slave:
This Egyptian came to my house in the night, bound me, and
came to my wife in my presence, and now he seeks to take my
life away. And when Moses heard this wicked thing, his anger
was kindled against the Egyptian, and he turned this way and
the other, and when he saw there was no man there he smote
the Egyptian and hid him in the sand (Jasher 71:2,3).
Even when the Israelites fled from Egypt, the pursuing
Egyptians sought to catch them, take a spoil, and rape them: "I
will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be
satisfied upon them" (Exodus 15:9).
Years before, when Joseph was a slave in Egypt, the
following incident occurred: "And it came to pass ... that his
master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said, Lie with
me. But he refused ... and she caught him by his garment, saying,
Lie with me: and he left his garment in her hand, and got him
out" (Genesis 39:7-12). Later, using his garment as "evidence,"
she accused Joseph of rape!
According to legend, the woman, whose name was Zuleekha, had
been a virtuous woman prior to this incident, but because Joseph
was so beautiful, she lost all control. She repeatedly exposed
her legs and breasts to him, hoping he would make love to her.
Though he does not look especially "beautiful" in the seventeenth
century painting by Rembrandt, the Bible itself says Joseph was
"a goodly person, and well favored" (Genesis 39:6)- a Hebrew
expression meaning he was exceptionally handsome and well
developed. Persian poets, and also the Koran, say his beauty was
perfect. He was described as "a fruitful bough by a well; whose
branches run over the wall" (Genesis 49:22). Strangely, the word
our translators give here as "branches," is the word commonly
translated "daughters"! (Strong's Concordance, 1121). Some
understand this to mean there were Egyptian women, so struck with
Joseph's beauty, they climbed the walls to see him as he passed
by (cf. Jasher 49:26).
The Apocrypha tells how two Jewish elders tried to seduce a
woman named Susanna. "And the two elders beheld her going in
every day, and walking; and they were inflamed with love for
her." One hot day, while taking a bath within an enclosed garden,
the elders hid behind some bushes and "watched her" as she
"washed herself." Finally, they "ran unto her, saying, Behold,
the garden doors are shut, that no man can see us, and we are in
love with thee; therefore consent unto us, and lie with us."
When she refused, they fabricated a story. They said they saw her
commit adultery and demanded the death penalty. But when she was
about to be put to death, Daniel questioned each elder
separately. When their stories did not agree, their whole scheme
was exposed and THEY were put to death (Susanna 1-64).
The rabbis suppose the two elders that tried to seduce
Susanna were Ahab and Zedekiah who "committed villany in Israel,
and have committed adultery ... and have spoken lying words"
(Jeremiah 29:21-23).
In the story of Esther, king Ahasuerus accused Haman of
trying to rape the queen: "Will he force the queen also before me
in the house?" (Esther 7:8). The Living Bible phrases it: "Will
he even rape the queen right here in the palace before my very
eyes?" Haman's end came when he was placed on a sharp pointed
stake set in the ground, pulled down by the legs until the stake
that went in at the anus passed up through his body and came out
by the side of his neck - an excruciating form of torture death.
While David was king of Israel, there was a case of rape
involving two of his own children. David's son Amnon pretended to
be ill and asked that his sister Tamar come to his house to cook
for him. Once there, he grabbed her and said: "Come lie with me,
my sister." She replied: "Nay, my brother, do not force me ...
whither shall I cause my shame to go?" She told Amnon to speak
unto their father the king, "for he will not withold me from
thee." Unless she spoke these words as an excuse in her
desperation, Tamar was saying that David would approve an
incestuous marriage! But nothing she could say would turn away
the heated lust of Amnon. So, "being stronger than she, forced
her, and lay with her" (2 Samuel 13:6-14).
Another son of David, Absalom, raped ten of David's
concubines! At this time David had fled from his throne into
exile, taking his wives and servants, and leaving behind ten
concubines to keep the house (2 Samuel 15:16). As the rebel
forces moved in to take over, led by Absalom, they spread "a tent
upon the top of the house; and Absalom went in unto his father's
concubines in the sight of all Israel"! (2 Samuel 16:22). These
sexual acts were not committed "secretly," but before "all" in
broad daylight "before the sun" (2 Samuel 12:11,12). Since it was
the custom in those days for a new king to inherit the
possessions of the former king, including his harem (2 Samuel
12:8; 1 Kings 2:19-22), Absalom's sexual intercourse with these
women symbolized his claim to the kingdom.
Interestingly, the rooftop on which Absalom put on his sex
show was, apparently, the same roof from which David had watched
Bathsheba taking a bath (2 Samuel 11:2)! It is also interesting
to note that the man who advised Absalom to "go in unto thy
father's concubines" was Ahithophel - Bathsheba's grandfather! (2
Samuel 11:3; 23:34). Retaliation against David would have been
natural for him - David had defiled his son's daughter and
murdered her husband!
Ultimately the rebel forces were put down and David returned
to Jerusalem. Though it would appear the ten concubines were
victims of Absalom's advances, David never forgave them. He had
them locked up for the rest of their lives! "And David ... took
the ten women his concubines, whom he had left to keep the house,
and put them inward, and fed them, but went not in unto them. So
they were shut up unto the day of their death, living in
widowhood" (2 Samuel 20:3). Since these were probably young
women, most of their lives were spent locked up - year after year
after year. How sad and degrading.
(Again, hard to understand some events in some of the lives of
God's children of the past, even the "man after my own heart" as
God said about David, had a dark side to himself - Keith Hunt)
Contrary to what many of us were led to believe from
childhood, David was not a kind and forgiving man. Following the
battle at Rabbah (during which he committed adultery with
Bathsheba), he did not hesitate to use torture on war captives:
He brought forth the people that were therein, and put them
under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under axes of
iron, and made them pass through the brickkiln...he cut them
with saws, and with harrows of iron, and with axes (2 Samuel
12:31; 1 Chronicles 20:3).
"Bringing the wheel over" enemies (Proverbs 20:26), crushing
people with spikes and sledges (Amos 1:3-5), trampling naked
people among thorns (Judges 8:4, Moffatt), and sawing people in
two (Hebrews 11:37), were ancient torture methods. "While it is
painful to admit that David may have been guilty of such
severity," says Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, "the literal
interpretation is the most plausible and accords with the usages
of the times."
And, unfortunately, these torture methods were not used by
David merely at one time or place: "...thus did he unto all the
cities of the children of Ammon" (2 Samuel 12:31). The historian
Josephus makes the same point: "He tormented them, and then
destroyed them; and when he had taken other cities of the
Ammonites by force, he treated them after the same manner."
At another time, David had seven men hanged - as human
sacrifices. Though the background details are not clear,
apparently Saul had killed some Gibeonites many years before.
David believed that Israel was suffering from famine as a result.
"What shall I do for you?" he asked the Gibeonites, "and
wherewith shall I make atonement?" They demanded that "seven men
of [Saul's] sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up
unto the Lord in Gibeah." And David said: "I will give them"! (2
Samuel 21:6).
Soon David rounded up seven sons (sons and gandsons) of
Saul--"the two sons of Rizpah...whom she bare unto Saul, Armoni
and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of ... the daughter of Saul,
whom she brought up for Adriel...and he delivered them into the
hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before
the Lord: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death
... in the beginning of barley harvest" (2 Samuel 21:8,9).
What happened is heart rending. Rispah, the mother of two of
the men, and a relative of the others, "took sackcloth, and
spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest,
until water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither
the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of
the field by night" (2 Samuel 21:9,10). Here she faithfully
stayed for more than five months - until the autumn rains - to
keep birds and wild beasts from eating the bodies of her sons.
Adam Clarke, well known for his defense of the Bible as the
very word of God, found this passage so repulsive, he felt it
might have originated with the Gibeonites or was inserted here
from some less authentic document! He further states:
Who can read the account of Rizpah's maternal affection
for her sons that were now hanged, without feeling his mind
deeply impressed with sorrow? Did God require this sacrifice
of Saul's sons, probably all innocent of the alleged crime
of their father? Was there no other method of averting the
Divine displeasure? Was the requisition of the Gibeonites to
have Saul's sons sacrificed to God, to be considered an
oricle of God? Certainly not; God will not have man's blood
for sacrifice, no more than he will have swine's blood"!
(Yes, David was indeed a "bloody man" - and was not fit or worthy
to build the Temple of God, that he so desired to build - Keith
Hunt)
Before his death, Saul had said to David: "And now, behold,
I know well that thou shalt surely be king .... Swear therefore
unto me by the Lord, that thou will not cut off my seed after
me." Did David make him this promise? Yes. "And David sware unto
Saul" (1 Samuel 24.20-22). Obviously he did not keep his word.
Among those that David took to be sacrificed were "the five sons
of Michal the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel"
(2 Samuel 21:8). We know that Adriel's wife was Merab, the
daughter of Saul (1 Samuel 18:19). Why, then, the mention of
Michal? One theory is that Merab died and Michal, her sister,
raised the children. But the Hebrew word that is translated
"brought up" means to "bare" and is so translated another place
in this same verse. We know that Michal bare no children (2
Samuel 6:23), and since it was Merab who was married to Adriel -
not Michal - most scholars believe "Merab" was the original
reading in this verse. So is it in the Moffatt and Berkeley
versions, and some manuscripts.
But either way, this brings us to something uncanny - and
commonly overlooked. Merab was the woman to whom David was once
engaged to many! Years before, "Saul said to David, Behold my
elder daughter Merab, her will I give thee to wife .... But it
came to pass at the time when Merab Saul's daughter should have
been given to David, that she was given to Adriel" (1 Samuel
18:17,19). Just think, if David had married her, the sons born to
her would have been his own sons! How heartless to take the sons
of this woman and have them offered as human sacrifices! On the
other hand, if the reading of the King James version is correct -
that Michal had brought up Merib's children - then David
sacrificed the sons that his very own wife had raised!
According to a Biblical writer, the reason Michal never had
any children of her own was because she criticized David - had
once accused him of being a pervert! The occasion was when the
sacred ark was brought to Jerusalem in procession and David
danced in front of it "with all his might." His movements must
have been quite wild and exuberant, as evidenced by five
different Hebrew words that are used. He danced (sahaq), rotated
(karar), jumped (pazaz), whirled around danced and skipped
(raqad).
"And as the ark of the Lord came into the city of David,
Michal Saul's daughter looked through a window, and saw king
David leaping and dancing before the Lord; and she despised him
in her heart" (2 Samuel 6:16).
"And Michal came out to meet David, and said, How glorious
was the king of Israel today, who uncovered himself today in the
eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows
shamelessly uncovereth himself!" (2 Samuel 6:20).
Whether David's little linen ephod, an apron type garment,
flopped up and down in the breeze or if it fell clear off in the
wild dancing, it seems evident his sexual parts were exposed. The
words "uncovered" and "shamelessly" are translated from a Hebrew
word meaning to denude (Strong's Concordance, 1540). It is the
word repeatedly used when people were stripped of all clothing
and carried away captives (2 Kings 16:9, etc.). It is the word
used of Noah when he was drank and uncovered within (Genesis 9:21
within his tent (Genesis 9:21).It is the word that appears over
and over in passages such as Leviticus 18:6-19 which speak of
uncovering nakedness in a sexual sense. To suggest, as some do,
that only David's royal robe fell off and he was still covered
with common clothing is only a cover up! The following
translations make it very clear what he was accused of:
The Living Bible: "He exposed himself to the girls along the
street like a common pervert!"
Moffatt: "...exposing himself before women ... as any loose
fellow would expose himself indecently!"
Goodspeed: "...as he stripped himself in the sight of the maid
savants ... as a common rake exposes himself!"
Modern Language: "...uncovering himself this day to be ogled by
the female servants...as some worthless fellow would strip
himself!"
Though becoming a male stripper was "vile," as David
admitted, he justified his actions because they were done before
the Lord. "And I will yet be more vile than thus, and will be
base in mine own sight: and of the maidservants which thou hast
spoken of, of them shall I be had in honor" (2 Samuel 6:21,22).
Bringing the ark to Jerusalem was a time of celebration with
dancing and drinking. "David ... dealt to every one of Israel,
both man and woman, to every one a loaf of bread, and a good
piece of flesh, and a flagon of wine" (I Chronicles 16:13.) A
"flagon" was about two quarts. By multiplying this times the
thousands of men and women in Israel, we get some idea of the
tremendous amount of wine David kept on hand. He not only had a
wine cellar, but cellars (plural) with wine in such supply that a
full-time employee was in charge: "...over the increase of the
vineyards for the wine cellars was Zabdi the Shiphmite" (1
Chronicles 27:27). David's son, Solomon, evidently carried on
this family tradition, for he was able to offer to Hiram "twenty
thousand baths of wine" (2 Chronicles 2:10), which figures out to
about 160,000 gallons of wine!
Many people only know of "Mogen David" as the brand name of
a certain wine. Actually the Mogen David (or Magen David) is the
six-pointed star formed by placing two triangles together, the
symbol of Judaism that appears on the Israeli flag. Though
commonly called the "Star of David," there is no reason to assume
it originated with David. Some believe this arrangement of
triangles in the form of a star was an ancient and idolatrous
symbol (Amos 5:26).
Prior to David's death, when he was old and cold, certain
advisors said to him:
Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin: and
let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him, and
let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get
HEAT. So they sought for a fair damsel [a beautiful young
girl] throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found Abishag
a Shunammite, and brought her to the king. And the damsel
was very fair [beautifull, and cherished the king, and
ministered to him: but the king knew her not (1 Kings
1:1-4).
With this arrangement, the Shunammite girl was to crawl
naked into bed with David in order to transfer body heat (cf.
Ecclesiastes 4:11). She was to "cherish" him, meaning "to be
familiar with" (Strong's Concordance, 5532), or as the
Septuagint has it: "to excite him." But despite all her efforts,
we are told that David "knew her not"; that is, he did not have
sexual intercourse with her. He did not and probably could not.
Whether it was the girl who told others about his inability to
perform, or if it was David himself, is not revealed.
Some believe that by this time venereal disease had taken a
toll on David's body. This much is clear, he did have a have a
contagious desease that resulted from sinful living and
foolishness: "There is no soundness in my flesh.... because of
sin.... My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness
.... My loins [sexual organs] are filled with a loathsome disease
.... My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore" (Psalms
38:3-11).
Throughout his life, David sought variety in his sexual
experiences - taking wife after wife as well as concubines. For
such a man, convictions about intimacy could hardly have the same
level of seriousness and faithfulness as a man established in a
marriage to one woman. Some believe David may have even veered
off at one time into a homosexual relationship! Though based
primarily on indirect evidence, there are several arguments
presented for this position.
When David and Jonathan first met, there was an immediate
attraction. As a token of an agreement between them, Jonathan
stripped off all his clothes and gave them to David: "The soul of
Jonathan was knit with the soul of David ... Jonathan and David
made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. And
Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave
it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow,
and to his girdle" (1 Samuel 18:3,4).
Though Jonathan was usually loyal to his father Saul, yet in
a situation involving David, he was willing to lie to him. To
explain why he was not present at the new moon feast, David told
Jonathan to tell Saul: "David earnestly asked leave of me that he
might run to Bethlehem his city: for there is a yearly sacrifice
for all the family" (1 Samuel 20:5,6). This was, of course, a
fabrication.
Apparently Saul saw through the whole thing, arousing such
resentment that his words on this occasion rank among the worst
recorded in the Bible: "Thou son of the perverse rebellious
woman"--or as "The Living Bible" in modern language has it: "You
son of a bitch!' "do not I know that thou hast chosen the son of
Jesse to thine own confusion, and unto the confusion of thy
mother's nakedness?" (1 Samuel 20:30).
Both Jonathan and David realized at this point it was time
for David to move on. In a sorrowful patting, the two men "kissed
one another, and wept one with another, until David exceeded" (1
Samuel 20:41). Later, Jonathan managed to find David in hiding.
"Fear not: for the hand of Saul my father shall not find thee,"
Jonathan said, "and thou shall be king over Israel, and I shall
be next to thee" (1 Samuel 23:17). But Jonathan's prophecy, if we
can call it that, failed. David did become king of Israel, but
not with Jonathan at his side. Jonathan was killed on mount
Gilboa fighting Philistines.
When the news of Jonathan's death came, David was heart
broken. In lamentation he cried:
O Jonathan, thou was slain in thine high places. I am
distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast
thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the
love of women (2 Samuel 1:25,26).
Right or wrong, numerous writers have appealed to these very
strong words for the claim that David did indeed have a
homosexual relationship with Jonathan.
..................
To be continued with "The Price of a Dog"
(It is doubtful indeed from these verses that David had a
homosexual relationship with Jonathan. Some try to say so from
those verses, to give sanction that homosexuality is okay with
God. There just is no plain evidence that David and Jonathan had
a sexual relationship.
David was indeed at times far from being holy and righteous. Many
things under the Old Covenant with Israel were ALLOWED of God,
and David allowed them in his life, and received the physical
pentalies that can come with such living. David was indeed a
"bloody man" in many ways as we have seen, and because he was so,
in a brutal world that can hardly be imagined, he was NOT allowed
to build the Temple to God.
God has NEVER sanctioned RAPE, MULILATION, AND PERVERSION.
Because the heart of man was so carnal many times, if not most of
the time, under the Old Covenant, God had to allow certain
things, like easy divorce and polygamy. I've covered those topics
and more about the Old Covenant carnal practices allowed by God
on this Website.
Those recorded passages in the Bible that are hard, if not
impossible today to understand, as I've stated already, I look
through a glass darkly at, and will no doubt have to wait until
the resurrection and the return of Christ, to know as I'm known -
Keith Hunt)
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