Ep 121: Sister Wives

00:00- I would say that God was the master of mixed messaging.

00:05I'm gonna kill you if you don't let her go.

00:07I didn't do anything.

00:08I know 'cause I stopped you.

00:10- Yeah, bit of a narcissist.

00:12- Just keep stopping me then.

00:13I don't know, what are you doing?

00:15(upbeat music)

00:17- Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

00:21- And I'm Dan Beecher.

00:23- If you're listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast

00:26where we increase public access

00:28to the academic study of the Bible and religion,

00:30and we combat the spread of misinformation

00:33about the same, how are things today, Dan?

00:35- Things are good, things are good.

00:36It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

00:39And we are going to be looking at some very weird stuff

00:43in the Bible, and I'm excited about it.

00:46In the first half, we're gonna be talking about it's a,

00:50what it, no, we're taking issue in the first one.

00:55The taking issue is specifically about lying about

01:00who's about your wife being your sister?

01:03Question mark, I don't know, it's a weird one.

01:06- Seems to be a habit on the part of some folks.

01:09- Yeah, there's a whole family,

01:10it's a family tradition by the time we get through things.

01:12And then in the second half of the show,

01:14we're going with what is that?

01:16And we're talking about something

01:18that your text to me autocorrected a seraphim,

01:23but it's not that, it's terrafim.

01:25- Yes, isn't that a light chicken gravy that you--

01:28- That's a call back to three amigos, by the way.

01:28- Oh, it's delicious.

01:31So, but moving on, yeah, terrafim.

01:34- I'm excited about that.

01:35So let's start this off with taking issue.

01:40(upbeat music)

01:43All right, and as we said before,

01:44we're taking issue with lying and saying

01:47that your wife is your sister.

01:49- Yes.

01:50- It happens multiple times and it's very confusing to me.

01:55So, let's start in Genesis 12.

02:00And this is Abram or Abram and Sariah.

02:05We're not yet Abraham and Sarah yet.

02:09- Yeah, Sarai.

02:10So there's a famine in the land as is the won't

02:15of that particular land.

02:17So they head down-- - It's famine prone.

02:19- Yes, they head down to Egypt,

02:22to gare, to sojourn, to reside there.

02:27The famine was very severe in the land

02:29when they're about to get to Egypt

02:31and Abram pulls over and he's like, "Look, sweetie."

02:35And the NRSVUE has him say, "I know well

02:39that you are a woman, beautiful in appearance."

02:42- Yeah.

02:42- And when the Egyptians see you, they will say,

02:44"This is his wife, then they will kill me,

02:47but they will let you live."

02:49- Say you are my sister so that it may go well with me

02:53because of you and that my life may be spared on your account.

02:57We don't get anything by way of response from Sarai.

03:02She's not really an independent agent in this narrative,

03:07but that's exactly what happens.

03:09- Which is weird because this has big implications for her.

03:14Like it's not like this is just,

03:15"Hey, tell a quick white lie and we'll all be good."

03:18- Yeah, this becomes very meaningful in her life.

03:22- Yeah, yeah, you would think she would have been like,

03:24"Well, wait a minute, doesn't that mean

03:27they're gonna all be pursuing me?"

03:30- Can this be a discussion?

03:32Because I feel like you're just dictating something

03:34that maybe I need to be a part of.

03:37- And what a weird thing, is there any explanation

03:42or any reason, do we have a reason to believe

03:45that people would be fine with him having a hot sister,

03:50but like murder him if he has a hot wife.

03:54Like what's going on here?

03:56- Well, I think it's something that a lot of men,

04:01particularly members of the male loneliness epidemic

04:04these days, if a lot of them fantasize about being able

04:07to get with some celebrity or another,

04:10and then if they find out she's married,

04:12all of a sudden they're like disappointed,

04:14as if this actually ruined some plans they had

04:17for the future, and certainly they develop resentment

04:21for the spouse of this person that they really

04:25had the hots for, and so you can imagine that

04:28anciently if a guy comes into town with a hot wife

04:32that there would be people who would be like,

04:34"Wow, she's really hot, let's just get rid of her husband."

04:38- It might be worth killing him, so we can have her,

04:42whereas if there's brother and sister, they're like,

04:45"Oh, he's not a threat," and they don't have to kill him.

04:49- But it turns out that it's not just that

04:52because the pharaoh apparently finds out about this new,

04:57exceedingly beautiful woman, like you must have been,

05:01like if this went all the way to the pharaoh,

05:06that is a crazy beautiful woman.

05:09- Yeah. - And pharaoh decides,

05:12"Oh, I need her, I will take her as my wife,"

05:17and Abraham seems to go along with it, question mark.

05:22- Yeah, I don't know what's, like polygamy is normative

05:30in this time period, but for two different men

05:34to be sharing the same wife is problematic.

05:39Abraham seems to be like, "Well, let's just see

05:42where this goes."

05:43- Look, I'm not going to say these wrong now.

05:47I've already been saying, "You're my sister, this is--"

05:50- Yeah, like if they were going to kill me before,

05:53they're going to kill me like twice as much now.

05:55- They kill me extra now.

05:56- Yeah.

05:58So the pharaoh says, and the pharaoh is very nice to Abram.

06:03For her sake, he dealt well with Abram,

06:05and he had sheep, oxen, male, donkeys, male,

06:07and female slaves, female donkeys, and camels.

06:12- That's literally what I read that.

06:14I did a bleh bleh bleh, wait, we're not done with donkeys.

06:17It was just so weird.

06:18Why are we separating male and female donkeys

06:21with male and like male donkeys, male and female slaves,

06:26and then also female donkeys?

06:28- Yeah, just wanted to, we needed to circle back to this

06:30'cause I almost forgot about the female donkeys.

06:32- It's not great writing. - We got those two, yeah.

06:35- But I mean, one sympathize is at that point,

06:38you had to write everything a long hand,

06:39and frankly, if you've skipped a thing,

06:41you're not going to go back and edit.

06:44It's not, you don't have Microsoft Word at your disposal.

06:47- Yeah, I could see them being like damn track changes.

06:51I cannot figure this out.

06:53- Whereas find and replace on this papyrus,

06:55or whatever.

06:57- And then verse 17 says the Lord afflicted pharaoh

07:01in his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife,

07:04which is odd because presumably God knows

07:07that Abraham is lying to them.

07:10So pharaoh doesn't know what's going on.

07:13And pharaoh calls Abram and said,

07:15what is this you have done to me?

07:17Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?

07:19And we've got no explanation of how he discovered this.

07:23It's just that suddenly the dice started rolling against pharaoh

07:28and he's like, wait a minute, this is his wife.

07:33And then goes and instead of actually just,

07:37yeah, sword in the chest, he's like,

07:41what are you doing to me, man?

07:43Why did you say she is my sister

07:45so that I took her from my wife?

07:47Now then here is your wife, take her and be gone.

07:50So he just descends--

07:53- I think you're right that killing Abraham

07:56would have been the easier path on all of this.

08:00I mean, Abraham's the liar, Pharaoh didn't do anything wrong,

08:04but God seems to be punishing pharaoh for a sin.

08:09He didn't even know, like this is a very eatable moment.

08:11Like you're committing a sin,

08:13you don't even know you're committing

08:15and yet you're gonna be the one that's punished.

08:17I think that's a sketchy take.

08:22- Yeah, almost Kafka ask.

08:25It's like, I didn't ask to wake up in these circumstances.

08:28What is going on here?

08:30And maybe Pharaoh is like,

08:33well, God is like breathing down my neck,

08:36so maybe I'm just gonna be a little hands off with this dude.

08:39I'm not going to run him through,

08:42as probably was his won't in that time period

08:46for folks who deceived him and caused trouble.

08:50But Pharaoh gives his men orders concerning him

08:53and they set him on the way with his wife

08:56and all that he had.

08:57So Abram got kicked out of Egypt for--

09:01- Apparently this is a scam that actually works great

09:05for them because they walk away with all those sheep

09:07and oxen and male and female donkeys and slaves.

09:11They roll, they really made out like bandits on this front.

09:16- And they come up and they come into the land of Canaan

09:22and this is what leads us into somebody kidnapped a lot

09:26and he's got to go to war with these five kings

09:29and then we get the Melchizedek episode

09:32and it keeps repeating that Abraham is a wealthy dude

09:36and it does seem like Abram's enriched somewhat

09:41by his time in Egypt.

09:44And you can imagine Abram being like,

09:47should I just keep all of this stuff?

09:49We'll go, we'll go, we'll go.

09:51And--

09:52- Yeah, you don't ask.

09:54You just say, okay, we're going

09:56to take all, you just tell your slaves

09:58to gather up all of your donkeys and--

10:00- Yeah, I need this, I'm taking this.

10:03- That's all I need, that's all I need.

10:06- And apparently the scam works, so now it is interesting,

10:12like you just made me think that maybe,

10:15I feel like there's a lot of etiologies

10:18in contained in these stories,

10:20a lot of explanations of, so now what you just said

10:24made me think that maybe this story

10:27is the etiology for why Abraham is suddenly wealthy,

10:32why the story has now become that he is a rich person

10:36and it's just, the trip to Egypt

10:40was the origin story of his wealth.

10:43- It could be, 'cause we've got,

10:46in Genesis, toward the end of Genesis 11, verse 31,

10:49Tara took a son, Abram and his grandson Lot,

10:52son of Huron and his daughter-in-law, Sarai,

10:54his son, Abram's wife, and they went out

10:56from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan

11:00and they settled there.

11:02And then we have the Lord visiting Abram,

11:05saying, "Leave your father's house,

11:07I'll make of you a great nation."

11:10It doesn't mention Abram's wealth,

11:12it mentions that he was 75 years old

11:15when he departed from Huron.

11:16So presumably, he's got Social Security

11:19that's covering at least, you know, his necessaries.

11:24And it says, "Abraham took his wife, Sarai,

11:28and his brother, son, Lot, and all the possessions

11:30that they had gathered and the persons

11:33whom they had acquired in Huron,"

11:35and that's a reference to enslaved folks.

11:37And they set forth to go to the land of Canaan, blah, blah.

11:41And so it sounds like they already had possessions.

11:45It doesn't say that, you know, they were just

11:50bricked up with money, but it does suggest

11:54that they had acquisitions.

11:58But then, yeah, they go down to Egypt to reside there

12:00as a sojourner, a gayer, as it were.

12:05And yeah, now I'm gonna look again at the passage

12:07that says, "He caused it to be well with Abram

12:11in man's servants, and there were to him flocks."

12:15So it sounds like these are things

12:17that the Pharaoh is giving to Abram

12:21as a part of his treating him well because of his sister.

12:25It's not just that it's like, Pharaoh was nice to him.

12:28Oh, by the way, Abraham also had lots of male donkeys,

12:32male and female slaves, as well as female donkeys.

12:36So it sounds like that is trying to account

12:40for his acquisition of wealth, at least to some degree.

12:43It's not like they were impoverished beforehand

12:46and they left rich, but this is kind of similar

12:49to what happens with Jacob later on as well.

12:51Yeah.

12:52But you mentioned, by the way,

12:53I'm just gonna briefly touch on the fact

12:55that you mentioned the back in chapter 11,

12:58Tara took his son, Abram, and is God's son Lot

13:02and Lot's son of Haran and his daughter in La Surai.

13:07And that's all it calls her.

13:09And I bring that up, I don't know why I'm bringing up

13:12that it only calls her his daughter in law,

13:15but maybe chapter 20 will expose something about that

13:20'cause I think that that's an interesting point

13:23because chapter 20, Abraham, he's now Abraham,

13:28takes his wife and they go again, they go away.

13:35Well, and here's something interesting

13:38before we get to that, there's this classic thing

13:42where in this ancient literature,

13:45people's names keep getting changed kind of arbitrarily.

13:48Yeah.

13:49And there are a lot of scholars who think

13:52that these are editorial seams,

13:55that these are different versions of these stories

13:57where the character's name was different

13:59in the other version of the story.

14:01And so maybe these are just different traditions

14:04that are being brought together.

14:06And at some point they were like, he's Abraham over here,

14:09he's Abraham over there and they're like,

14:11well, come up with a reason for his name.

14:13God changed his name to Abraham, there we go, we're good.

14:17So yeah, these are ways that they might be stitching

14:20these different traditions together.

14:23And it is the consensus view that the stories of Abraham,

14:26the stories of Isaac, the stories of Jacob,

14:28all circulated independently of each other

14:31before being stitched together into the single lineage

14:34and they initially were not so related to each other.

14:38That makes a lot of sense to me.

14:40And what also makes sense is that like the same story

14:43could just take on some different things

14:47and then be listed as two different stories.

14:50And why am I bringing that up?

14:51Because of chapter 20 where Abraham and Sarah,

14:56not Abram and Sarai are now, instead of going to Egypt,

15:02they are going to the region of Negeb,

15:07between Kadesh and Shor, just in case you wanted to know,

15:14sort of specifically where Gaurar is.

15:17But this is, so Gaurar is what?

15:20Gaurar is a, where is that, what is that?

15:25- Well, actually, I think of Gaurar as being,

15:30oh, it's in the, so the Negeb is a southern desert.

15:34- Okay.

15:35- And Gaurar looks like it is ancient city in the Negeb,

15:40yeah, associated with Abraham and Isaac,

15:44so it's a little northwest of Beersheva,

15:49which is Beersheba, and--

15:52- But it's not Egypt, we're nowhere near Egypt.

15:55- No, no, no, we're not in Egypt.

15:56You've got the Sinai Peninsula in between Egypt

15:59and this region, it's, yeah, I have to have like,

16:04at least driven by that, if not through it,

16:06the last time I was in Israel and Palestine,

16:09but it looks like it's identified as a Philistine town.

16:13- Okay.

16:14- So yeah, but, and that's gonna come up

16:17in the third iteration of this story.

16:19- Yes, indeed.

16:20- But you know, we might have, we might have a story

16:22where Abram and Sarai go to Egypt,

16:25and they have another story where Abraham and Sarah

16:28go to Garar, and they're like, keep 'em both,

16:31we'll just, we'll make it work.

16:32- Just keep it all in.

16:33- Yeah.

16:35- So what we have is Abraham and Sarah go to Garar,

16:40Abraham said of his wife, Sarah, she is my sister.

16:44- And to King Abimalek, yeah.

16:47- Which is, which would be, my father is King.

16:51- Oh, okay, King, my father is King.

16:54- Yeah.

16:54- He basically is, it basically follows the same structure.

16:59- Yes.

17:02- Only here, it's explained how he finds out.

17:06- Right.

17:07- That's because God comes to Abimalek in a dream.

17:10I also wanna point out something interesting here.

17:13It's only, it's going to be God, not Adonai,

17:16not the Lord who's the deity throughout this entire chapter

17:21until the very last verse, and I think that's interesting.

17:25We'll get back to that.

17:26But God came to Abimalek in a dream by night

17:29and said to him, you are about to die

17:31because of the woman you have taken,

17:33where she is a married woman.

17:35Dun, dun, dun.

17:36- Yeah.

17:37- And then Abimalek is like, I didn't touch her.

17:41- Yeah, that's another distinction from chapter 12

17:44because there is no sense, there's no mention of Pharaoh

17:49not touching her.

17:51It does seem very much like Pharaoh did whatever he did.

17:56It took her in a wifely fashion.

18:01- Yeah, and my wife and I watched the episode

18:06of "Firefly" last night, where Kayley is like,

18:11watch, tell me I'm pretty, and she goes,

18:15if I were on wet, I would take you in a manly fashion

18:18'cause I'm pretty, 'cause you're pretty.

18:21- So yeah, you, and we have this weird statement.

18:26Abimalek says, Lord, will you destroy an innocent people?

18:29So we got taught, he's talking back to God

18:34and the innocent people is odd

18:37because he seems to think God is going

18:39to destroy his whole nation.

18:41- Yeah, or at very least many sort of proximate humans.

18:46- Yeah, yeah, you're gonna have a lot

18:50of collateral damage here if you try to waste me.

18:54Did he not himself say to me, she is my sister

18:58and she herself said, he is my brother.

19:00I did this in the integrity of my heart

19:02and the innocence of my hands.

19:05And then God is like, yes, I know you did this

19:08in the integrity of your heart.

19:10Furthermore, 'twas I who kept you from sinning against me

19:13therefore I did not let you touch her.

19:17So God is like, I'm gonna kill you.

19:20And he's like, I didn't do anything wrong.

19:21And he's like, exactly.

19:22I know.

19:23- I was the one who made sure you didn't do anything wrong.

19:26God. - You're welcome.

19:27- Yes, there's, I think we've got a bit

19:30of a complex going on here.

19:32- Well, there are mixed messages.

19:35I would say that God was the master of mixed messaging.

19:38I'm gonna kill you if you don't let her go.

19:41I didn't do anything, I know, 'cause I stopped you.

19:44- Yeah, a bit of a thesis. - Just keep stopping me then.

19:47I know, what are you doing?

19:48(upbeat music)

19:51- And then God says, now then return the man's wife

19:56for he is a prophet and he will pray for you

19:58and you shall live.

20:00But if you do not restore her,

20:01know that you shall surely die.

20:02You and all that are yours.

20:04So maybe that's the threat to the rest of the nation.

20:08So a little like Rose early in the morning

20:12and called all his servants

20:13and told them all these things

20:14and the men were very much afraid.

20:17Then Abimalek, so you've got, what do we got here?

20:21It starts in verse three.

20:25God came to Abimalek in verse three, verse eight.

20:28So we got a good six verses explaining

20:30how Abimalek finds out.

20:32In chapter 12, it just skips from,

20:35he took, you know, he wanted her as a wife

20:38and then he, God is trying to kill him and then he knows.

20:43Then Abimalek called Abraham and said to him,

20:46what have you done to us?

20:47How have I sinned against you?

20:48You have brought such great guilt on me and my kingdom.

20:51You've done things to me that ought not to be done.

20:54And he says, what were you thinking?

20:57Why did you, that you did this?

20:59We won an explanation.

21:01Again, it would be easier to just take the sword

21:03and run him through.

21:04But here Abimalek is like, I just got to know, man.

21:09- Well, there was a dream.

21:11I mean, at least in this case,

21:13we have the explanation of God saying to Abimalek,

21:18you got to treat him right,

21:19you got to, you know, do nice things or whatever.

21:22'Cause there's no explanation for Pharaoh being nice.

21:25- Yeah, yeah.

21:26But here it sounds like Abimalek's like, all right,

21:29you got to, I'm supposed to be nice to you

21:31'cause God said so.

21:32And Abraham's excuse is, I did it 'cause I thought,

21:36surely there is no fear of God in this place

21:38and they will kill me because of my wife.

21:41And when God caused me to wander from (mumbles)

21:44besides she is indeed my sister,

21:46the daughter of my father,

21:48but not the daughter of my mother and she became my wife.

21:51So, you got to have sister situation.

21:55- This is why I highlighted the fact that chapter 11

21:59actually says daughter-in-law and not daughter of the,

22:04because, woof, you know, this to me reads as an etiology

22:11for why, or an explanation as to why he's not lying,

22:16you know, to make him not a liar,

22:19to make Abraham not a liar,

22:22but I feel like we made it worse, not better.

22:26You know what I mean?

22:27- I think that was at least by today's standards.

22:30I don't know what like half sister business would have been,

22:35how that would have been received in ancient times,

22:37but yikes.

22:40(laughs)

22:41- Yeah, it does, you do wonder what his browser history

22:46looks like, but, but it,

22:49recently there was a desire,

22:51there was a sense in which you wanted to keep things

22:53in the family, just not too close in the family.

22:57So because what that meant was that, you know,

23:02that the property was staying within the family,

23:05that it was not gonna be appropriated by people

23:08from other families.

23:09And so there was a proximity,

23:12there was a genealogical proximity that was ideal,

23:16but the, you know, we share the same dad,

23:21that feels a little too close.

23:23- That's a little rough.

23:24- Yeah, that's a little rough, and also like,

23:27why didn't we hear the same thing back in chapter 12?

23:31It seems, that seems like a pertinent piece of information.

23:36- Yeah, and this might be,

23:38and the chapter 12 might be the earlier version of this story,

23:40'cause it moves in fits and starts, it's quicker,

23:44you don't have all the detail and the explanation,

23:47and that's how tech, stories tend to grow,

23:49they tend to accrete to them more explanations.

23:52And then Abimelek took sheep and oxen and male

23:55and female slaves and gave them to Abraham

23:57and restored his wife, Sarah to him.

23:59And Abimelek says, "My land is before you,

24:01settle where it pleases you."

24:03Which is, Abraham's making out like a bandit.

24:06- Yeah, this is what I'm saying.

24:07Like he just keeps collecting.

24:09Like this is a scam, he needs to run every kingdom

24:11in the surrounding area.

24:14- We're gonna have Abraham's 12, where they go in.

24:21- Every time they organize a new scam

24:25to fool the leader into, further enriching them.

24:29- By almost marrying or marrying his wife.

24:32And then, "Ha, she's not my sister."

24:35- And you think God would get a little tired of this.

24:38- Right.

24:39- Like we've done this many times already, Abraham,

24:41I'm not doing your dirty work for you anymore.

24:43- So even if she's actually my sister's thing,

24:51works for, makes him not a liar.

24:55Which, come on guys.

24:57Then we can jump to--

25:00- Well, hang on, I wanna finish this chapter.

25:02I don't wanna jump, move on just yet.

25:04- Okay, okay.

25:05- And then Abimelek says to Sarah,

25:07look, I've given your brother a thousand pieces of silver.

25:09It is your exoneration before all who are with you.

25:12You are completely vindicated.

25:15And then we have this weird thing, the second to last verse.

25:19The penultimate verse, if you're nasty.

25:22Then Abraham prayed to God and God healed Abimelek.

25:26And also healed his wife and female slaves

25:29so that they bore children.

25:31- Oh yeah, that was a weird one.

25:33- Now, if we've been reading along,

25:35nobody has said anything about any of this.

25:40This is something that's coming along here at the end.

25:43And Abraham prays to God again,

25:47and God healed Abimelek.

25:49And this is a detail that seems out of nowhere.

25:51And then we get to the last verse,

25:53which is the only verse in the entire chapter

25:55where the divine name occurs.

25:58And here's the interesting thing

26:00about the book of Genesis.

26:02You have the divine name all over the place.

26:05You do not have a single person who is named,

26:09who has the theophoric elements, Yodhay, Vavhay

26:14or any variation of it in their name.

26:17- Okay.

26:18- Nobody has a name that has a,

26:22the tetragrammaton in it.

26:23That is the most common theophoric element

26:26in names in every other part of the Hebrew Bible.

26:30Entirely absent from the entire book of Genesis,

26:32which leads some people to conclude,

26:34these stories don't seem to come from a time

26:38and a place where anyone knew who Adonai was.

26:41- Okay.

26:41- Everybody seems to just be El, Elohim, Eloah, Elion,

26:47or something else.

26:48And so this is why in here,

26:51we've got no knowledge of Adonai until the very end,

26:53for Adonai had closed fast all the wombs

26:57of the house of Abimalek because of Sarah Abraham's wife.

27:00So we've tacked on to the end of this story

27:03a resolution to this odd verse where it's like,

27:09so Abraham prayed to God to fix this other thing

27:12that we didn't talk about.

27:14And then like you can imagine on the manuscripts

27:17in the margins somebody was like,

27:19"Because God had closed the wombs only it uses

27:24this other name for God."

27:25So I think this is just an interesting,

27:28another example bubbling to the surface

27:31of clearly some editorial themes.

27:34- In verse 17, what is the word that is used for God?

27:39- Elohim.

27:40- Elohim.

27:41And then in verse 18, it's the tetragrammaton.

27:44- It's the tetragrammaton, yeah.

27:45So it's Elohim throughout all of chapter 20,

27:49starting in verse three when God came to Abimalek.

27:54Yeah, so I think this is a secondary addition to the text

27:59from a later author who's writing in a period

28:01when now suddenly we know who Adonai is.

28:04So, but I digress.

28:07- Makes sense to me.

28:09- We get the birth of Isaac and then he moves on.

28:12Now we move on, and by the way, I do want to mention

28:14that Sarah must have been incredibly hot

28:18because by the time we get to chapter 20, she is old.

28:21She is.

28:22- Well, yeah, Abraham's already 75 when he sets out.

28:26So yeah, I don't know what.

28:29- So I mean--

28:31- We know a little bit more about Abraham's browser.

28:33- I'm just saying she kept her hotness deep into her age.

28:39- And it makes you wonder how old the Pharaoh

28:43and Abimalek were as well.

28:44- Right?

28:45- Played by Helen Marin, here we go.

28:47All right. - They were.

28:48- So now we jump to Genesis 26 and it's a whole new story.

28:55Nothing like anything we've read before

28:59'cause it's Isaac now.

29:01- Yeah, funny enough though, funny enough,

29:04the very first verse says there was a famine in the land.

29:07- Not the famine from the first time with Abraham.

29:10- Definitely. - This is a different famine.

29:12- They don't think this is the same.

29:15This is a totally different famine.

29:17- Yeah. - And now Isaac.

29:19- We're gonna now let us proceed

29:20to tell the exact same story.

29:22- Right.

29:23Isaac went to Gerar to king Abimalek of the Philistines.

29:28- So and now we have another different detail.

29:32Suddenly Abimalek is king of the Philistines.

29:34- Right, right, because we've added even more details

29:38to the story.

29:39- And by the way, this is supposed to be what?

29:43Like 1900 BCE, something like that,

29:47depending on where you date Abraham.

29:51The Philistines don't exist yet.

29:54The Philistines don't arrive until after the invasion

29:58of the Sea Peoples where we have these folks

30:01from different parts of the central Mediterranean

30:04who are basically migrating to the coastline here.

30:09That is where the Philistines probably ethnically come from

30:13if we take the existence of Mycenaean pottery

30:16popping up in the 12th century BCE

30:18as an indication of the cultural origins of the Philistines.

30:21So the Philistines do not exist.

30:24When Isaac is alive. - Isaac is alive.

30:25- You show your dirty mouth.

30:26They exist 'cause they're right here.

30:28- So Gerar was known as a Philistine territory

30:33at certain parts of Israelite history.

30:36And so when they're sharing this story,

30:39they're like, Isaac came to Gerar.

30:40Oh, where the Philistines are?

30:41Yeah, yeah, where the Philistines are.

30:44- Which is interesting because presumably

30:46when we know about Philistines,

30:48they have a different God than these people.

30:53It was too early to call them Israelites.

30:56Then these Abrahamites or whatever.

31:02So like, but in this case, no, Abimalek,

31:06the God that talks to him is presumably the same God

31:11that we're just using one God for everybody.

31:14- Yeah, yeah.

31:15It's kind of like how when Jonah goes to Nineveh

31:18and preaches and they're like,

31:20gotta pray to God as like, wait,

31:22but you have a different God.

31:24So, but Abimalek would be a Hebrew name,

31:28which would not be a Philistine name.

31:32And you know, Hebrew doesn't exist in this time period either.

31:35- So, so there are a couple of chronological wrinkles.

31:39- Just a few, sorry or not.

31:41- I like that in chapter 26,

31:44the Lord appeared to Isaac and said,

31:47first of all, the Lord appeared to Isaac.

31:49That's so confusing.

31:51Anyway, and said, do not go down to Egypt.

31:56Just making it clear.

31:57This did not take place in Egypt.

31:59- Settle in the land that I will, she'll show you.

32:02It does feel like he's just running the family scam now.

32:05- Well, and the narrator is working very hard

32:09to convince you that this is not the same story.

32:12- Right.

32:13- 'Cause it's like different famine, different famine.

32:15And they didn't go to Egypt.

32:16God said, I don't go to Egypt.

32:18You gotta go here instead.

32:20But they're residing in the land as an alien.

32:23I will be with you.

32:23I will bless you.

32:25For to you and to your descendants,

32:26I will give all these lands.

32:27And I will build the oath that I swore to your father,

32:29Abraham, so it's getting pretty wordy here.

32:32- Yeah, and didn't Abraham,

32:34we just had, back in chapter 20,

32:36we just had Abraham settling on a nice pot of land

32:39in that land already.

32:41So apparently Abraham left,

32:44and now Isaac's gotta go and get it again.

32:47But Isaac has a wife now named Rebecca.

32:51- And you imagine she's gotta be super hot too,

32:53just because, you know, that righteousness

32:57means you got a hot wife in the Hebrew Bible.

33:01- Because Isaac immediately jumps to the same,

33:05the same stick.

33:06She's my sister, so don't kill me.

33:11'Cause she's my sister, so that's cool.

33:15- And he doesn't, they don't seem to plan this beforehand.

33:19'Cause verse seven says when the man of the place

33:22asked him about his wife, he said she is my sister,

33:25for he was afraid to say my wife,

33:26thinking, or else the men of the place might kill me

33:30for the sake of Rebecca, because she is attractive

33:32in appearance.

33:34So, if this is-- - If you have a good looking wife,

33:36you just can't travel.

33:37- Yeah, it's a blessing and a curse.

33:40'Cause you just always under threat of death.

33:44And when Isaac had been there a long time,

33:47King Abimalek of the Philistines looked out a window

33:49and saw him, and here's where it gets,

33:52here's where it gets a little weird.

33:56'Cause we've got this verb, it's a participle.

34:00(speaking in foreign language)

34:01from the verbal root sakhak, which might mean to laugh,

34:05and this is where it's sakhak, Isaac, the name comes from.

34:10But we also have, and is this a PL?

34:15Yes, it's a PL participle.

34:17We also have this sense to joke, to dally with or to fondle.

34:23So, we've got the translation in the NRSVUE.

34:28It says, "King Abimalek of the Philistines looked out a window

34:31and saw him fondling his wife, Rebecca."

34:34- Yeah.

34:35- So, that's exactly what he said.

34:38Yeah, and so here he does not,

34:43and I think this is an even later version,

34:45because in the other two, the King's immediately is like,

34:48wife her, and here Abimalek is just like,

34:53"Man, what?"

34:54So Abimalek called for Isaac and said,

34:56"So, she is your wife.

34:58Why then did you say she is my sister?"

35:00And Isaac was like this.

35:02- Apparently, not recognizing that this is the same stick

35:04he dealt with just a few years ago with Isaac's dad.

35:08- Yeah, he's got a very short-term memory.

35:11But, or why didn't he think you?

35:16These are some weirdos who are coming from, well.

35:20- Yeah, why didn't he jump to that instead of like,

35:22"Oh, this guy is fondling his sister."

35:24That's wrong.

35:25- Yeah, that's not his sister, that's his wife.

35:28I mean, at least with Abraham, he's like,

35:31"She's kind of my sister."

35:32So, a lot of unanswered questions

35:37regarding the progression of this narrative.

35:39But, and there's no mention of Abimalek being cursed

35:44of any wombs being shut in his land.

35:48There's no mention of a dream.

35:50- Well, there's no mention of Abimalek taking her

35:53as his wife this time.

35:55- So, he's learned that lesson.

35:57- No, nobody has done anything wrong

36:02and so there has been no problems

36:06have arisen as a result.

36:08But, Abimalek says, "What is this you have done to us?

36:11"One of the people might easily have lain with your wife

36:13"and you would have brought guilt upon us."

36:15So, the guilt is actually just a hypothetical

36:18that's set off into the future because nobody,

36:21I guess maybe they're a little more prudish

36:24and they're like, we can't tell the story

36:26where somebody actually comes at Rebecca lustfully

36:31or even proposes to her or anything like that.

36:34So, Abimalek warned all the people saying,

36:36"Whoever touches this man or his wife shall be put to death."

36:39Which is kind of odd.

36:41I mean, 'cause previously, he was like,

36:44"Ooh, if God weren't breathing down my neck,

36:48"I would just hurt you."

36:50And here, there's no threats,

36:54but he's like, "Nobody lay a finger on Abraham."

36:59So, Abraham falls under a weird kind of protective order

37:03because he has screwed over

37:06or at least potentially screwed over Abimalek and his people.

37:10And then we have the mention that Isaac sowed seed

37:14in that land and in the same year reaped a hundred fold.

37:18And that's how he becomes rich.

37:20Because Abimalek, Isaac doesn't manage to get

37:24a cartload of donkeys and female donkeys

37:27and slaves and female slaves and whatever.

37:30Anyway, so he has to get rich off of reaping a hundred fold,

37:35which is a good reaping.

37:38- As a consequence of lying.

37:42- Yeah.

37:42- So, yeah, the lesson here is if you wanna get rich,

37:47lie and manipulate and scheme.

37:49- Yeah, I have definitely seen a few Christians

37:54take that lesson to heart.

37:57- Oh, yeah, yeah.

37:58That's the prosperity gospel.

37:59- Yeah, exactly.

38:00All right, well, there's that story.

38:03That's, I don't know, I don't know what to do with that.

38:08- Yeah, we obviously have, this was evidently

38:11some kind of popular story in the ancient world.

38:14Gather around the campfire children

38:16and let me tell you the tale of when we got rich

38:19by lying to a king and it gets repeated three different times

38:24twice with the same characters

38:25and then once with their children.

38:27And so I think it's clear that this is something

38:30that was in circulation with different tellings

38:34of very similar stories and rather than an editor

38:37be like, you can't tell the same story three times.

38:39They just were like, we're keeping it all.

38:42- This is why we have editors people.

38:44So we don't have them back then.

38:48All right, well, we need to jump ahead.

38:50We need to, we're running long.

38:51So we're going to leave that as the muddy, weird series

38:56of stories that they are and move on to what is that?

39:01(upbeat music)

39:03And this week's, what is that?

39:08Comes to us from a few different stories.

39:12The one that you pointed out to me first

39:14was first Samuel 19 and it's a story of David

39:19and how David escapes from Saul

39:24who, Saul runs hot and cold on David, like violently.

39:29Yeah, he's like, I got whiplash reading the stories

39:33of Saul, like loving David and then hating David

39:35and then loving David and then hating David.

39:37So I'm somebody who probably wanted him

39:41to be diagnosed with bipolar.

39:43- Right, yeah, and this was something

39:46that is a bizarre feature of these stories, but.

39:49- But that's not what we're talking about today.

39:51- No.

39:53- What we're talking about today is a word

39:55that your autocorrect had you send me a wrong text about it,

40:00which was your autocorrect thought

40:03you were trying to say seraphim.

40:05- Yes, yes, I get the autocorrect.

40:07I don't know how many times people are like,

40:10what do you mean, what the duck when they get texts from me?

40:14- The autocorrect is mostly a curse,

40:17very rarely a blessing, but yeah, here it changed.

40:20I don't know how many times I've turned into paper

40:23when I was an undergrad when people were like,

40:25you have periscope here.

40:27I think you probably wrote pericopy,

40:29which is just a fancy way to say a story,

40:31but then autocorrect changed it.

40:33So it was teraphim or teraphim,

40:37which is a fancy word that is sometimes translated,

40:42sometimes people transliterate it,

40:44you'll find teraphim in the text.

40:48Usually they will translate it like idle or something like that

40:51or maybe household idle or image or something like that.

40:56It is basically a divine image,

40:59which, and we're not sure exactly where the word comes from.

41:03Some people think it's derives from the root rafah,

41:08which means to heal.

41:11And so it would be a divine image

41:14that was used to facilitate healing or something like that.

41:17So if somebody was sick, you would set these up.

41:19And these would have been probably anthropomorphic-ish.

41:24So they would have looked kind of human,

41:26statuettes that looked kind of human,

41:28and you would set them up to facilitate the transmission

41:32of some kind of divine agency or power

41:35that would wah, wah, wah, wah, and heal the individual.

41:39- And we have this kind of thing today.

41:44We have, a lot of Catholics have candles

41:49that have the image of a saint on them or something like that.

41:53So I mean, yeah, a little humanoid is sort of dull

41:58or statuary or something makes sense.

42:05They appear in several stories, the David story in,

42:10why don't we just quickly cover

42:12the first Samuel David story?

42:14- Yeah.

42:15- 'Cause it's an interesting trick.

42:18- And it kind of indicates

42:20that this might have been a pretty big one.

42:22- Yeah, that's the other thing is that like,

42:25the different stories have very clearly different sized

42:29terrifim.

42:30- Yeah, we're gonna get to one where they're very clearly

42:32small, but this one, Michal is the wife of David

42:37and Saul's henchmen are after David and he's gotta escape.

42:43And so first Samuel 1913 and Michal took a terrifim

42:49and idle and laid it on the bed.

42:53She put a net of goat's hair on its head

42:55and covered it with the clothes.

42:57So we've got a Ferris Bueller's Day Off situation

43:00right here with a terrifim that is close to life size

43:05and gets a wig thrown on it

43:07and they throw the clothes over it and everything.

43:10And the messengers came in and the idle or terrifim

43:14was in the bed with the covering of goat's hair on its head

43:17and Michal is like, she's sleeping and they were sick.

43:21- I like, yeah, and verse 14 says,

43:25and she did play the sounds of snoring on her stereo.

43:31And so this is a way to at least stall the folks

43:36coming after David, giving him a little window

43:39that he can escape through.

43:41So, and this raises an interesting question.

43:45Why does the ostensibly pious and righteous king

43:49of Israel, David, whose heart was after the Lord,

43:54why does he have an idle in his room?

43:59'Cause it doesn't say like Michal ran off to the,

44:02you know, to Skid Row to go purchase one of these things.

44:06It just says, she put an idle in the bed.

44:10- It's the idle, matter of fact, it says the idle

44:10And scholars think-

44:14or an idle, it does, it makes it very much seem like

44:17this is just the normal thing that you have about the house.

44:21- Yeah.

44:22- Everybody's got, you know, a terrifim or two.

44:25- Yeah.

44:26- You'd be dumb enough too.

44:27- Well, and this is something that is interesting

44:29when we look at like Exodus 21 and Exodus 22,

44:32you have these rituals that people go through.

44:36One of them is if a debt slave decides

44:40they want to stay with their master for life,

44:43then it takes, you go to the doorframe

44:46and they like bore a hole in the ear of the person

44:49within all and the doorframe is significant.

44:53This is, you know, the liminal space.

44:56This is the entry and exit.

44:57This is the boundary.

44:59So it has significance.

45:00And then you also have if like somebody loans something

45:05to somebody else and then it is either stolen from them

45:08or they report that they don't know where it went.

45:12You don't have any evidence.

45:13What do you do?

45:14You bring the person to Ha'elohim, the gods

45:17and they have to swear and oath

45:19that they did not steal the thing.

45:21And this has been a source of angst

45:25for an awful lot of Bible readers.

45:26What does this mean?

45:28And it says whomever the gods convict is the guilty party.

45:33And people are like, what does this mean?

45:36Bring them to the gods.

45:37What is this all about?

45:38And this is where you get the idea that,

45:40oh, gods must mean judges.

45:42And no, that's not what's going on here.

45:43It's that there were divine images that represented gods

45:48that would have been accessible either in someone's house

45:52or in like the city gate

45:55or there would have been some kind of cultic setup

45:59somewhere that you could go.

46:00So anytime you needed to swear and oath

46:03or perform in a ritual or an ordeal or something,

46:06you just went to Ha'elohim, the gods.

46:09And then that was where you did it.

46:10So maybe these were the gods that were in the palace

46:15to facilitate anything that you would do

46:22that needed divine guidance or oversight or something like that.

46:27- Well, let's continue along that track

46:29and just talk about the story in Genesis 31

46:33of Jacob and Rachel escaping from Laban.

46:38- Yeah, so the Jacob has had to serve Laban

46:42for 14 years now, where he was like,

46:45give me Rachel, I'll serve you seven years

46:48and then on the wedding night, Laban's like, ha, leah.

46:51- Soak? - Yeah.

46:53And then Jacob's like, what the hey, dude?

46:57And Laban says, okay, tell you what,

47:00I'll give you the actual Rachel.

47:02I have the real actual Rachel here

47:05if you just serve me another seven years.

47:07And rather than be like, that's not how this works old man,

47:11Jacob's like, cool, seven years old.

47:14- All right, seven more years, I'll do it.

47:15- And then he basically lies to Laban

47:19and takes advantage of him and is able to get very rich.

47:23Like all of the patriarchal narratives

47:25are about how the patriarchs got phenomenally rich

47:28by deceiving people and they're leaving.

47:33And it says, Laban had gone to shear his sheep.

47:35This is Genesis 31, 19.

47:37And Rachel stole her father's pterophim.

47:42So Rachel, and it doesn't explain why,

47:46but Rachel just seems to be like, you know,

47:49I grew up with these, I'm the only one who plays with these,

47:52I'm taking them with me.

47:54- These are my favorite gods.

47:56- Yeah. - I'm taking them.

47:58- And they write off and Laban comes chasing

48:01after them, like, you took my gods.

48:05And in verse 34 says, now Rachel had taken the pterophim,

48:07the household gods and put them in the camel's saddle

48:11and sat on them.

48:12Laban felt all about in the tent, but did not find them.

48:16And she tells her father, hey, don't get angry with me.

48:20'Cause I'm not getting up because the way of women

48:22is upon me. - Yeah, I'm still sitting

48:24on my camel, don't bother that, I'm on my period.

48:28Don't worry about it, I'm on my period, so go away.

48:33- Yeah, I'm just sitting right here,

48:35don't want to cause any problems.

48:38So he searched, but did not find the household gods.

48:40And then you have the story where Jacob is like,

48:44I swear old man, I didn't take your gods

48:45and they do a little ritual and they swear by their gods

48:49and everybody leaves happy.

48:52- And presumably Rachel's just sitting on a camel

48:54the entire time, throughout the entire ordeal.

48:57- Yeah, she's just chilling on the camel.

49:00- Sitting on top of these pterophim,

49:02which, yeah, the size and shape seems by this story

49:07to be understood as rather small.

49:11Not the kind of pterophim you would put in somebody's bed

49:13to make it seem like an adult man was sleeping there,

49:17but the kind that you would be able to--

49:19- Yeah, David and McCalls was clearly like a full,

49:22like human-sized--

49:24- Yeah, this is the Costco version of the pterophim.

49:28While Rachel is, that's the dollar store version.

49:34- Yeah.

49:35- But there are multiple of them.

49:36- Yeah, they got the little guys.

49:37- They got a whole bunch of them.

49:39- Yeah.

49:40And then we have a really cool story about pterophim.

49:43I think it's a really cool story.

49:45In Judges 17 and 18, where we got a dude named Micah,

49:50and the chapter is just kind of like,

49:54so there was this dude named Micah,

49:57and he is represented as a devotee of Adonai,

50:02and the story is kind of weird.

50:06It starts off, he said to his mother,

50:07the 1100 pieces of silver that were taken from you

50:10about which you uttered a curse,

50:11and even spoke it in my hearing,

50:13that silver is in my possession.

50:15I took it, but now I will return it to you.

50:18And his mother said, "May my son be blessed by Adonai."

50:22So odd dynamic they have here,

50:25but he returns the 1100 pieces of silver to his mother,

50:29and his mother said, "I consecrate the silver

50:31"to Adonai from my hand for my son,

50:33"to make an idol of cast metal."

50:37And here it is pesel, which generally means a divine image.

50:42Ooh, Masahah, which would mean a molten image.

50:48And there is a conjunction there,

50:51so it sounds like she's saying a divine image

50:53and a molten image.

50:56So scholars are actually split on whether this is two images

50:59that are being made, or one that is just being further described.

51:03But she makes this divine image,

51:08and it was in the house of Micah,

51:11and Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod,

51:14and terrified, and installed one of his sons

51:17who became his priest.

51:19So this is kind of, this is the folk religion

51:22of the judges period, where this is going on

51:25without direct supervision from authorized priests,

51:28where you got a guy who is like,

51:29"This is my shrine, and here..."

51:32- And my son is like priest. - And my kid is now a priest.

51:34- Yeah, and the ephod would be a divinatory tool.

51:39This would be a way to contact God and all that kind of stuff.

51:42And the terrafim would be, they would be there

51:46to facilitate whatever kind of interactions that you need.

51:49- Can I point out that we have now had several stories

51:53that seem to be in direct conflict with top 10 commandments?

52:00Like top 10 commandments. - Very false witness.

52:03And then like a graven image.

52:06- Yeah, top two commandments, yeah.

52:09- Literally, like we've got an idol,

52:13a graven image thing happening here,

52:16and it doesn't seem to be a problem.

52:19- Well, and all of, well, the Genesis stories are pre-law

52:24of Moses. - Sure.

52:26- This one is not, and scholars would suggest

52:29that this is, you know, the stories in judges are bizarre.

52:33They're not exactly examples

52:35of how the Mosaic Law is a success.

52:39- Right.

52:40- We talked about Jephthah and human sacrifice,

52:43and here we've got private cult installations

52:47and people installing their sons as priests and everything.

52:52And this, in the middle of Judges 17,

52:56there was a young man of Bethlehem of Judah,

52:58the clan of Judah, he was a Levite residing there.

53:02So this is a legitimate candidate for the priesthood.

53:06And he is wandering around

53:09'cause he wants to find another place to live.

53:11And, you know, Zillow is still a few thousand years away

53:14from being invented, but it was still inaccurate

53:18in all of its estimates anyway, even back then.

53:21And he stumbles across Micah,

53:24and Micah's like, "Hey, where are you from?"

53:27And he's like, "Oh, I'm a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah.

53:29"I'm gonna, I'm looking for a place to live."

53:31And Micah's like, "Stay with me,

53:34"and be to me a father and a priest."

53:38And I will give you 10 pieces of silver a year

53:41and a set of clothes and you're living.

53:44So he's like, "Room and board,

53:45"just be my priest since you're legit."

53:48- My son is not doing a good job.

53:51I need a much better priest.

53:52- So Micah installs the Levite

53:56and he becomes his priest.

53:58And then he says, "Now I know that Adonai will prosper me

54:01"because the Levite has become my priest."

54:04Earlier, he was kind of, you know, on the fence about me.

54:08- He's doing his best.

54:09He's got his, he's like, "I need a priest.

54:11"I don't know, you, come here, kid."

54:13- And then the tribe, there were some Danites

54:17that were also looking for a place to live.

54:19Evidently, this was a buyer's market.

54:23- And Danites are people who listen to the data over dog mushrooms.

54:27Is that correct, is that who a Danite is?

54:30- Yes, members of the tribe of Dan,

54:32not to be confused with the mercenary group

54:36of early Mormons who went by Danites.

54:39- That was a very different set of Danites.

54:41By the way, patrons of the show chime in

54:45as to whether you would like to be referred to

54:47as the tribe of Dan because that's a possibility.

54:50We can, I'm just throwing it out there.

54:51You can be a member of the tribe of Dan.

54:54We can start branding that way if we want to.

54:57We can do whatever we want.

54:58- Yeah.

55:00And then they, so the Danites send some people,

55:03five valiant men, to spy out a territory for them to live in.

55:08Again, Zillow, inaccurate, but not in existence.

55:12And they also show up at Micah's house

55:15'cause all roads lead to Micah's house, evidently.

55:20And it says while they were, this is Judges 18-3,

55:23while they were at Micah's house,

55:25they recognize the voice of the young Levite.

55:28So they went over in Aston, who brought you here?

55:31What are you doing in this place?

55:32What is your business here?

55:34And he's like, oh yeah, this dude's paying me to be a priest.

55:38And they say, inquire of God that we may know

55:41whether the mission we are undertaking will succeed.

55:43They're looking for territory for the Danites,

55:46the tribe of Dan to settle.

55:49The priest replied, go in peace.

55:51The mission you are on is under the eye of Adonai.

55:55Doesn't tell us he was like, excuse me a minute,

55:58and ran off and donned his Ephod

56:00or did whatever he needed to do before his grave and image

56:05or his terraphim or whatever, but--

56:07- Right.

56:08- Says, yes, God will prosper your mission.

56:11And then they come to Laish.

56:13They observe the people who are living there securely.

56:16After the manner of the Sedonians, quiet and unsuspecting,

56:19lactic nothing on earth and possessing wealth.

56:22Furthermore, they were far from the Sedonians

56:24and had no dealings with Aram.

56:26And so the Danites are like, nice looking place.

56:30And they said, let's go invade and conquer the mission.

56:34- Yink.

56:35- Yeah, let's get a five finger discount.

56:38And so they set out, they camp in Kiriath Jirim in Judah.

56:47From there they passed onto the hill country of Ephraim.

56:50And again, because all roads lead to Micah's house,

56:53they stop in.

56:55And they said, do you know that in these buildings

56:58there are an Ephod, terraphim, and an idol of cast metal?

57:02Now therefore consider what you will do.

57:04So they came to the house of the young Levite and Micah

57:08and they greet him and they basically said,

57:11we're taking your priest and all your stuff.

57:17And they're like, beat to us, a father and a priest.

57:21So evidently priests were just a hot commodity back then.

57:24- Yeah, you gotta get yourself a priest, man.

57:27It's the best, it's the new cabbage patch doll.

57:31- And you know you've got a good priest

57:33when a bunch of people can mercenaries basically show up

57:36at the door and be like, we're taking all your stuff.

57:40Do you wanna come with us?

57:41And the priest is like, yeah, cool, let's do it.

57:43- Sounds great.

57:44- This is a priest full of integrity.

57:47So he took the Ephod, the terraphim, and the idol,

57:50and went along with the people.

57:52And then when there's some distance away,

57:55the men who were in the houses near Micah's house

58:00were called out and they overtook the Danites.

58:03They shouted to the Danites who turned around and said

58:05to Micah, what does the matter that you come

58:06with such a company?

58:08So they're like, we stole your stuff, why are you here?

58:12He replied, you take my gods that I made

58:15and the priest and go away, and what have I left?

58:18How then can you ask me what is the matter?

58:20So just like the reader, Micah is confused.

58:23Why would you wonder what I'm doing here?

58:27And the Danites said to him,

58:28you would better not let your voice be heard among us

58:30or else hot tempered fellows will attack you

58:33and you will lose your life and the lives of your household.

58:36Then the Danites went their way when Micah saw

58:39that they were too strong for him.

58:40He turned and went back to his home.

58:43And the Danites go on and they settle in Laish

58:46and they rename it Dan and to this day,

58:49you can go visit, well, probably not this day,

58:52but up until recently you could go visit the territory

58:56of Dan up in the north, a very nice nature reserve

59:01that they have up there, lovely area.

59:03But an odd story about how they came upon this priest

59:08and they were like, priest come with us

59:09and the priest's like, okay.

59:10And Micah's like, how dare you?

59:11And they're like, you know, you better shut your mouth

59:14little man or you're gonna find yourself

59:15at the wrong end of a sword.

59:16And he's like, okay.

59:17And he turns down, yep.

59:19- Yeah, well, that's not a very nice tribe of Dan.

59:24- No, our tribe of Dan is much nicer than that.

59:27- We have T-shirts.

59:29- But the other thing is we should make tribe of Dan T-shirts.

59:34That would be actually kind of fun.

59:38- So one of the points, though, that I think is fascinating

59:43is that in all of this,

59:45the terrafim that we were talking about

59:50are never condemned by God or by the Bible or by anything.

59:54That just seems like it's a normal thing,

59:57like even a good thing.

59:59Like these Danites are like, yeah, I wanna get me some of that.

60:03- Yeah, yeah, who?

60:05Everybody needs a good priest.

60:07- Yeah, just a peculiarity of some of these early

60:10Hebrew Bible narratives that in elsewhere

60:13in the Hebrew Bible, they never kind of go back

60:15and be like, hey, this is why they were doing that thing

60:18back there, you just gotta try to negotiate with it yourself.

60:21But it seems very clear that for the patriarchs

60:24and others in the early history of Israel,

60:26there was really not a problem

60:27with having these divine images.

60:29- There you go, that's a fascinating fact

60:35of the ancient world and I love it.

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61:02and add free version of every episode.

61:05Also, potentially you can get the after party,

61:09which is a thing, which is bonus content,

61:11we do it every week.

61:13And yeah, we really appreciate our patrons deeply.

61:18If you wanna contact us, it's contact@dataoverdogmapod.com.

61:22Thanks so much to Roger Gaudy for editing the show

61:25and we'll talk to you again next week.

61:27- Bye everybody.

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