Monday 27 January 2014

Zechariah: the Wailing Curses

The God from Hell finally vowed to obliterate all life on Earth:
I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth, says the LORD. I will sweep away humans and animals; I will sweep away the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. I will make the wicked stumble. I will cut off humanity from the face of the earth, says the LORD. (Zephaniah, 1:2-3)
Ah, how He yearned for that bloodbath!
 in the fire of his passion the whole earth shall be consumed; for a full, a terrible end he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth… because they have sinned against the LORD, their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung. (Zeph 17,18)
His chosen followers will drink the blood!
The LORD of hosts will protect them,
and they shall devour and tread down the slingers;
and they shall drink their blood like wine,
and be full like a bowl,
drenched like the corners of the altar. (Zecharaiah, 9:15)
Blood-drenched altars! Yes Yahweh, O God from Hell!
(Note, vampires will also enjoy reading the blood-drinking climax envisaged in the Ezekiel text)
As a vampire-predator He loved visions of little children being dashed to bits:
 “her little ones were dashed in pieces at the head of every street”; (Nahum, 3:10)
 – this time it’s the children of Nineveh, before that it was Babylon: "Their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes" (Isaiah, 13:16). Charming, reminded Seymour Light of the entertaining story of basketfuls of children’s heads (Kings 2 10:7) on display at the entrance of another city.

His culminating vision has Jerusalem plundering the wealth of the nations around it:
And the wealth of all the nations round about shall be collected, gold, silver, and garments in great abundance. (Zech 14:14)
At no point whatsoever do Yahweh’s messages give any legitimate means whereby His Chosen People might acquire wealth - viz. honest labour. His predator-message is repeated:
 and I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the LORD of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the LORD of hosts. (Haggai, 2:7)
Mine, mine! It reminded Seymour Light of Smaug the dragon in the Tolkein story, sitting atop a pile of gold. 

God wants to set up Israel as a predator-nation to soak up the wealth of other nations, so He (i.e. His priests, who are presumably writing this text) can get it. In return, the God from Hell will give to the neighbouring nations, - thus relieved of their gold and silver - the plague:
And a plague like this plague shall fall on the horses, the mules, the camels, the asses, and whatever beasts may be in those camps. (Zech 14:15)
He speaks tenderly of His own Chosen People: ‘for he who touches you touches the apple of His eye’, Zech 2:8 - but doesn’t give a toss about anyone else. His people would understand:
 Thus says the LORD of hosts: In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, `Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.'"  (Zech 8:23)
Verily, I need to wipe my arse on this stuff, mused Seymour Light.

But eventually, it came to pass that the God from Hell felt nausea even towards His chosen people, and broke His vows to them - with His usual foul curses:
I will not be your shepherd. What is to die, let it die; what is to be destroyed, let it be destroyed; and let those that are left devour the flesh of one another. And I took my staff Grace, and I broke it, annulling the covenant which I had made with all the peoples. [They] knew that it was the word of the LORD…Then I broke my second staff Union, annulling the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.  Zech 11:9-14)
Instead, He yearns for a prophet of Nietzchean toughness:
For lo, I am raising up in the land a shepherd who does not care for the perishing, or seek the wandering, or heal the maimed, or nourish the sound, but devours the flesh of the fat ones, tearing off even their hoofs. (11:16)
 ***************
A Sex-Pervert God
While ranting against the ancient city of Ninevah, with its goddess religion, of Ishtar/Ashtoreth, 
Behold, I am against you, says the LORD of hosts, and will lift up your skirts over your face; and I will let nations look on your nakedness and kingdoms on your shame. I will throw filth at you... (Nahum 3:5)
This is a favourite act of his, mused Seymour light. For example - 
This is your lot, the portion I have measured out to you, says the LORD, because you have forgotten me and trusted in lies. I myself will lift up your skirts over your face, and your shame will be seen. I have seen your abominations, etc. (Jeremiah, 13:26-7)
- this time its Jerusalem he is ranting against. What that dirty pervert always wants - 
For you shall no more be called tender and delicate. Take the millstones and grind meal, put off your veil, strip off your robe, uncover your legs, pass through the rivers. Your nakedness shall be uncovered, and your shame shall be seen. I will take vengeance,  (Isaiah 46:1-4)
(and this time it's Babylon) 

The pretty daughters of Zion also get to be abused:
Because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with outstretched necks, glancing wantonly with their eyes, mincing along as they go, tinkling with their feet; the Lord will smite with a scab the heads of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD will lay bare their secret parts. (Isaiah 3:16-17)
Then there were the two 'lovers' of Yahweh,  who bore him children ((Ezeikiel 23:4). You  might think he would feel some gratitude for this - but O no, not Yahweh. The two girls Oholah and Oholibah both suffer horrible fates from Yahweh's rage, being stripped, having their nakedness exposed, (23:10,29) with a truly infernal vision of their hair plucked out and breasts torn. 

We get more infernal ethics when King David exposes himself in front of the Arc of the Covenant: 
As the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window, and saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD   (Samuel 2 6:16)
She later rebuked him:
Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said, "How the king of Israel honored himself today, uncovering himself today before the eyes of his servants' maids, as one of the vulgar fellows shamelessly uncovers himself!" (6:20)
But king David does not see anything wrong, saying: 'I will make merry before the LORD.' Michal is barren for the rest of her life, i.e. Yahweh did not approve of her complaint. Thus there was nothing wrong with King David publicly shaking his testicles around in front of the Holy of Holies, the Ark of the Covenant.

To Richard Dawkins' itemising of Yahweh's attributes, Seymour Light felt that one more should be added, that of sex-pervert.


*******************

The Conscience of Seymour Light assaulted him, saying: Sir! You cannot just toss away the Old Testament, as you seem to wish. Zechariah has the prophecy which Jesus used as the key to His declaring Himself the Messiah of Israel:
 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Lo, your king comes to you;
triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on an ass,
on a colt the foal of an ass. (9:9)
Adding, “and he shall command peace to the nations.” On Palm Sunday Jesus got onto an ass in order to fulfil those words. The crowd grew ecstatic because it knew that here at last was their prophesied Messiah - but they also knew He had signed His death-sentence by activating that prophecy, the Sanhedrin would claim He was disturbing the peace etc. ‘Hosanna the Son of David,’ the cry went forth. (Luke 19:40)
And some of the Pharisees in the multitude said to him, "Teacher, rebuke your disciples." He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out." 
That ecstatic moment came about because of the Zechariah vision.

There was a long silence, then Seymour Light replied: in the Old Testament, Satan appears as an amiable gent -
One day the Sons of God came to attend on Yahweh, and among them was Satan. The LORD said to Satan, "Where have you been?" “Round the earth, he answered, roaming around.’ (Job 1:6-8)
He knows that he cannot compete with Yahweh’s savage cruelty, bloodlust, racism, etc, and doesn’t even try.

Then he added: I remain entirely baffled, how any civilization could have survived, having all this horrible crap in their ‘Holy Book’. It describes a race or nation at odds with every other country in the world, with an ever-raging, morose God of Destruction Who teaches its people how to deceive, kill, practice usury etc, in order to exploit these nations. I don't get how can Christendom hope to survive with all this horror in its holy book.
After another deep silence, Seymour Light found some lines of William Blake drifted into his mind, about the woman taken in adultery:  
Jesus was sitting in Moses’ chair. They brought the trembling woman there. Moses commands she be ston’d to death. What was the sound of Jesus’ breath? He laid His hand on Moses’ law; The ancient Heavens, in silent awe, Writ with curses from pole to pole, All away began to roll. On Sinai felt the Hand Divine Pulling back the bloody shrine; And she heard the breath of God... 





Another deep silence

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