After the death of Joshua, Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.
Now a man named Micah from the hill country of Ephraim said to his mother, "The eleven hundred shekels of silver that were taken from you, and about which I heard you utter a curse, I have that silver with me; I took it."
Then his mother said, "You are exalted by Yahweh, my son!"
When he returned the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, she said, "I had wholly reserved the silver to Yahweh from my hand for my son, to make a graven image and a molten image. Now I will give it back to you."
And after he returned the silver to his mother, she took two hundred shekels of silver and gave them to a silversmith, who used them to make a graven image and a molten image. And they were put in Micah's house.
Now this man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and some household idols, and he installed one of his sons as his priest.
A young Levite from Bethlehem in Judah, who had been living within the clan of Judah, left that town in search of some other place to stay. On his way he came to Micah's house in the hill country of Ephraim.
Micah asked him, "Where are you from?"
"I am a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah," he said, "and I'm looking for a place to stay."
Then Micah said to him, "Live with me and be my father and priest, and I'll give you ten shekels of silver a year, and your clothes and your food."
So the Levite agreed, and was content to live with him, and the young man became like one of his sons to him.
Then Micah initiated the hand of the Levite, and the young man became his priest and lived in his house.
And Micah said, "Now I know that Yahweh will be good to me, since I have a Levite as my priest." Micah was not only a thief who stole from his own mother; his investment skills were quite abysmal, and he knew nothing about Yahweh.
Israel still had no king, and in those days the tribe of the Danites were seeking additional land to settle, because they were not happy with their inheritance among the tribes of Israel, being a relatively small inheritance with a border on the Mediterranean.
So the Danites sent five of their leading men from Zorah and Eshtaol to spy out the land and explore it. These men represented all the Danites. They told them, "Go, explore the land."
So they entered the hill country of Ephraim and came to the house of Micah, where they spent the night. When they were near Micah's house, they recognized the voice of the young Levite, and they turned in there and asked him, "Who brought you here? What are you doing in this place? And what do you have here?"
He told them what Micah had done for him, and said, "He has hired me and I am his priest."
Then they said to him, "Please inquire of Elohim to learn whether our journey will be prosperous."
The priest answered them, "Go in peace. The presence of Yahweh is with you on your journey."
So the five men left and came to Laish, where they saw that the people were living carefree, like the Zidonians, quiet and secure. There was no magistrate in the land who might put them to shame in anything. And they lived a long way from the Zidonians and had no ties with anybody.
When they returned to Zorah and Eshtaol, their brothers asked them, "What did you do?"
They answered, "Arise, so that we can attack them, for we have seen the land, and it is very good. So are you going to do nothing? Don't hesitate to go there and take possession of the land. When you get there, you will find an unsuspecting people and a spacious land that Elohim has given into your hands, a land that lacks nothing whatsoever."
Then six hundred men of the Danites, armed for battle, set out from Zorah and Eshtaol. On their way they pitched camp near Kirjath Jearim in Judah. And they called that place Camp of Dan.
From there they went on to the hill country of Ephraim, and came to the house of Micah. Then the five men who had spied out the land of Laish said to their fellow Danites, "Do you know that one of these houses has an ephod, some household idols, a graven image and a molten image? Now you know what you have to do."
So they turned in there and went to the house of the young Levite at Micah's place and greeted him. The six hundred Danites, armed for battle, stood at the entrance of the gate. The five men who had spied out the land went inside and took the idol, the ephod and the household gods while the priest and the six hundred armed men stood at the entrance of the gate.
When the five men went into Micah's house and took the idols, the ephod, the sculptured image and the molten image, the priest said to them, "What are you doing?"
They answered, "Be quiet! Don't say a word. Come with us, and be our father and priest. Isn't it better that you serve a tribe and clan in Israel as priest rather than just one man's household?"
The priest was very pleased. He took the ephod, the household idols and the sculptured image, and took his place among the people.
Putting their little children, their livestock and their possessions in front of them, they turned away and left. When they had gone some distance from Micah's house, the men who lived near Micah were called together and overtook the Danites.
As they shouted after them, the Danites turned and said to Micah, "What's the matter with you that you called out your men to fight?"
He replied, "You took the idols I made, and my priest, and went away. What do I have left? How can you ask, 'What's the matter with you?' "
The Danites answered, "Don't argue with us, or some of the men may get angry and attack you, and you and your family may lose your lives."
So the Danites went their way, and Micah, seeing that they were too strong for him, turned around and went back home.
Then they took what Micah had made, and his priest, and went on to Laish, against a people at peace and secure. They struck them with the edge of the sword, and burned their city with fire.
There was no one to rescue them because they lived a long way from Zidon and had no dealings with anyone else. The city was in a valley by Beth Rehob. The Danites built a city and settled there. They named it Dan after their ancestor Dan, who was born to Israel. But the city used to be called Laish.
There the Danites set up for themselves the engraved image, and Jonathan, son of Gershom, the son of Moses, and his sons were priests for the tribe of Dan, until the time when the land was captured. They continued to use the graven image Micah had made, all the time the house of Elohim was in Shiloh.
Still in the days when Israel had no king, there was a Levite who lived in a remote area in the hill country of Ephraim, who took a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah. But she was unfaithful to him. She left him and went back to her parents' home in Bethlehem, Judah. After she had been there four months, her husband went to her to persuade her to return. He had with him his servant and two donkeys. She took him into her parents' home, and when her father saw him, he gladly welcomed him. His father-in-law, the girl's father, pressed him to stay; so he remained with him three days, eating and drinking, and sleeping there.
On the fourth day they got up early and he prepared to leave, but the girl's father said to his son-in-law, "Refresh yourself with something to eat; then you can go." So the two of them sat down to eat and drink together.
Afterward the girl's father said, "Please stay tonight and enjoy yourself." And when the man got up to go, his father-in-law persuaded him, so he stayed there that night.
On the morning of the fifth day, when he rose to go, the girl's father said, "Refresh yourself. Wait till afternoon!" So the two of them ate together. Then when the man, with his concubine and his servant, got up to leave, his father-in-law, the woman's father, said, "Now look, it's almost evening. Spend the night here; the day is nearly over. Stay and enjoy yourself. Early tomorrow morning you can get up and be on your way home."
But, unwilling to stay another night, the man left and went toward Jebus, which is Jerusalem, with his two saddled donkeys. His concubine was also with him.
When they were near Jebus and the day was almost gone, the servant said to his master, "Come, let's stop at this city of the Jebusites and spend the night."
His master replied, "No. We won't go into any city of a foreigner who are not Israelites. We will go on to Gibeah." He added, "Come, let's try to reach Gibeah or Ramah and spend the night in one of those places."
And they went on, and the sun set as they neared Gibeah in Benjamin. There they stopped to spend the night. They went and sat in the city square, for nobody took them into his house for the night.
That evening an old man from the hill country of Ephraim came in from his work in the fields. He was living in Gibeah, where the inhabitants of the place were Benjamites. When he looked and saw the traveler in the city square, the old man asked, "Where are you going? Where did you come from?"
He answered, "We are on our way from Bethlehem in Judah to a remote area in the hill country of Ephraim where I live. I have been to Bethlehem in Judah and now I am going to the house of Yahweh, and nobody has taken me in for the night. We have both straw and fodder for our donkeys and bread and wine for ourselves your servants, me, the handmaid and the young man with us. We don't need anything."
"You are welcome at my house," the old man said. "Let me supply whatever you need. Only don't spend the night in the street."
So he took him into his house and fed his donkeys. They washed their feet, and had something to eat and drink.
While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, "Bring out the man who came to your house so we can know him, like knowing a woman."
The owner of the house went outside and said to them, "No, my brothers, don't be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don't commit this disgusting sin. Look, here is his concubine, and my daughter, a virgin. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But as for this man, don't do such an outrageous thing."
But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they knew her and raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight.
When her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, "Get up; let's go." But there was no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey and set out for home.
When he reached home, he took a knife and cut up his concubine, limb by limb, into twelve pieces, to her bones, and sent her into all the areas of Israel. Such was the moral degeneracy of these Yahweh death cultists, and it would only deteriorate over the following millennia.
Everyone who saw it was saying to one another, "Such a thing has never been seen nor done, not since the day the Israelites came up out of Egypt. Consider it, take advice, and speak."
Then all Israel from Dan to Beersheba and from the land of Gilead came together as one and assembled before Yahweh in Mizpah. And the leaders of all the people, of all the tribes of Israel, presented themselves in the assembly of Elohim's people, four hundred thousand footmen armed with swords.
The Benjamites heard that the Israelites had gone up to Mizpah. Then the Israelites said, "Tell us how this wickedness came about."
So the Levite, the husband of the murdered woman, said, "I and my concubine came to Gibeah in Benjamin to spend the night. During the night the chief men of Gibeah rose up against me, and surrounded the house at night, intending to kill me. They raped my concubine, and she died. And I took my concubine, cut her into pieces and sent one piece to each region of Israel's inheritance, because they committed this lewd and disgusting act in Israel. Now, all you Israelites, speak up and tell me what you have decided to do."
All the men rose up together as one, saying, "None of us will go home. No, not one of us will return to his house. But now this is what we'll do to Gibeah. We will go up against it in the order decided by casting lots. We'll take ten men out of every hundred from all the tribes of Israel, and a hundred of a thousand, and a thousand of ten thousand, to fetch provisions for the army. Then, when they arrive at Gibeah in Benjamin, they can repay all the vileness they have committed in Israel."
So all the Israelites got together and united as one against the city.
The tribes of Israel sent messengers throughout the tribe of Benjamin, saying, "What is this wickedness that was committed among you? Now turn those wicked men of Gibeah over to us, so that we may put them to death and purge the evil from Israel."
But the Benjamites would not listen to their fellow Israelites. From their towns they came together at Gibeah to fight against the Israelites. And the Benjamites mobilized 26,000 swordsmen from their towns, in addition to 700 able young men from those living in Gibeah. Among all these soldiers there were 700 select troops who were left-handed, each of whom could sling a stone at a hair and not miss.
Israel, apart from Benjamin, mustered 400,000 swordsmen, all of them fit for battle.
The Israelites went up to Bethel and went up to the House of Elohim, and inquired, "Which of us is to go up first to fight against the Benjamites?"
Yahweh replied, "Judah shall go first."
The next morning the Israelites got up and pitched camp near Gibeah. And the Israelites went out to fight the Benjamites and took up battle positions against them at Gibeah.
The Benjamites came out of Gibeah and cut down 22,000 Israelites on the battlefield that day. But the Israelites encouraged one another and again took up their positions where they had stationed themselves the first day.
The Israelites went up and wept before Yahweh until evening, and they inquired of Yahweh, saying, "Shall we go up again to fight against the Benjamites, our fellow Israelites?"
Yahweh answered, "Go up against them."
Then the Israelites drew near to Benjamin the second day. This time, when the Benjamites came out from Gibeah to oppose them, they cut down another 18,000 Israelites, all of them armed with swords.
Then all the Israelites, the whole army, went up to Bethel, and there they sat weeping before Yahweh. They fasted that day until evening and presented burnt offerings and fellowship offerings to Yahweh. And the Israelites inquired of Yahweh - for the Ark of the Covenant was there, with Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron, ministering before it. They asked, "Shall we go up again to fight against the Benjamites, our fellow Israelites, or not?"
Always happy to see mass death, murder and mayhem, Yahweh responded, "Go, for tomorrow I will give them into your hands."
Then Israel set an ambush around Gibeah. They went up against the Benjamites on the third day and took up positions against Gibeah as they had done before. The Benjamites came out to meet them and were drawn away from the city. They began to inflict casualties on the Israelites as before, so that about thirty men fell in the open field and on the roads, the one leading to Bethel and the other to Gibeah.
While the Benjamites were saying, "We are defeating them as before," the Israelites were saying, "Let's retreat and draw them away from the city to the roads." And all the men of Israel moved from their places and took up positions at Baal Tamar, and the Israelite men in ambush charged out of their positions, from the forest on the west of Gibeah.
Then ten thousand of Israel's able young men made a frontal attack on Gibeah. The fighting was so heavy that the Benjamites did not realize how near disaster was. Yahweh defeated Benjamin before Israel, and on that day the Israelites struck down 25,100 Benjamites, all armed with swords.
Then the Benjamites saw that they were beaten. Now the men of Israel had given way before Benjamin, because they relied on the ambush they had set near Gibeah. Those who had been in ambush made a sudden dash into Gibeah, spread out and struck the whole city with the edge of the sword.
The Israelites had arranged with the men in ambush that they should send up a great cloud of smoke out of the city, and then the Israelites would counterattack. The Benjamites had begun to inflict casualties on the Israelites, about thirty men, and they said, "We are defeating them as in the first battle."
But when the column of smoke began to rise from the city, the Benjamites turned and saw the whole city going up in smoke. Then the Israelites counterattacked, and the Benjamites were terrified, because they realized that disaster had come on them. So they fled before the Israelites in the direction of the wilderness, but they could not escape the battle. And the Israelites who came out of the towns cut them down there.
They surrounded the Benjamites, chased them and easily overran them, as far as the face of Gibeah on the east. And 18,000 Benjamites fell there, all of them valiant fighters. As they turned and fled toward the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon, the Israelites cut down 5,000 men along the roads. They pursued relentlessly as far as Gidom, and struck down 2,000 more Benjamites.
So on that day, some 25,000 Benjamite swordsmen fell, all of them valiant fighters. But six hundred of them turned and fled into the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon, and they stayed there for four months.
The men of Israel went back to Benjamin and put all the towns to the sword, including the animals and everything else they found. All the cities they came across they set on fire.
Yahweh was happy to do a purge of tens of thousands of his people, since he wanted to strengthen the strain, and reckoned that most of those killed would probably not support him. Initially he used his DE beam weapon to favor the Benjamites, then switched sides, anticipating that he would gain support from the more numerous Israelites who (rightly, in this case) believed that Yahweh had tipped the balance in their favor.
The men of Israel had taken an oath at Mizpah: "Not one of us will give his daughter in marriage to a Benjamite."
The people went to Bethel, where they sat before Elohim until evening, raising their voices and weeping bitterly. And they said, "Oh Yahweh, Elohim of Israel, why has this happened to Israel? Why should one tribe be missing from Israel today?"
Early the next day the people built an altar and presented burnt offerings and peace offerings. Then the Israelites asked, "Who from all the tribes of Israel has failed to assemble before Yahweh?" For they had taken a solemn oath that anyone who failed to assemble before Yahweh at Mizpah was to be put to death.
Now the Israelites grieved for the tribe of Benjamin, their fellow Israelites. "Today one tribe is cut off from Israel," they said. "How can we provide wives for those who are left, since we have sworn by Yahweh that we will not give them any of our daughters in marriage?"
Then they asked, "Which one of the tribes of Israel failed to assemble before Yahweh at Mizpah?" They discovered that no one from Jabesh Gilead had come to the camp for the assembly. For when they counted the people, they found that none of the people of Jabesh Gilead were there.
So the assembly sent 12,000 fighting men with instructions to go to Jabesh Gilead and put to the sword those living there, including the women and children. "This is what you are to do," they said. "Kill every male and every woman who is not a virgin."
They found among the people living in Jabesh Gilead four hundred young women, virgins, who had not slept with a man, and they took them to the camp at Shiloh in Canaan.
Then the whole assembly sent an offer of peace to the Benjamites at the rock of Rimmon. So the Benjamites returned at that time and were given the women of Jabesh Gilead who had been spared. But there were not enough for all of them. And the people grieved for Benjamin, because Yahweh had made a gap in the tribes of Israel.
And the elders of the assembly said, "With the women of Benjamin destroyed, how shall we provide wives for the men who are left? The Benjamite survivors must have heirs," they said, "so that a tribe of Israel will not be wiped out. We may not give them our daughters as wives, since we Israelites have taken this oath: 'Cursed is he who gives a wife to a Benjamite.' But look, there is the annual feast of Yahweh in Shiloh, which lies north of Bethel, east of the road that goes from Bethel to Shechem, and south of Lebonah."
So they instructed the Benjamites, saying, "Go and hide in the vineyards and watch. When the young women of Shiloh come out to join in the dancing, rush from the vineyards and each of you seize one of them to be your wife. Then return to the land of Benjamin. When their fathers or brothers complain to us, we will say to them, 'Do us the favor of helping them, because we did not get wives for them during the war. You will not be guilty of breaking your oath because you did not give your daughters to them.' "
So that is what the Benjamites did. While the young women were dancing, each man caught one and carried her off to be his wife. Then they returned to their inheritance and rebuilt the cities and settled in them. And then the Israelites left that place and went home to their tribes and clans, each to his own inheritance.
And in those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.
The Israelites asked their evil devil Yahweh, whom they mistakenly believed to be a 'god', which of them should go first to fight against the Canaanites. Yahweh told them that Judah should go up, for he had delivered the land into his hand.
Even before finding his first dupe, Abram, the dumbest human in recorded history, to betray his people, mutilate all the males, and have them serve Yahweh's insidious agenda of sabotaging mankind's progress, Yahweh had established how to communicate with these 'animals', as he regarded them, and have his words transmitted via electromagnetic waves into their brains, which would be perceived as 'dreams'. Sometimes, with trusted servants such as Moses or Aaron, he would have appeared face-to-face as it were, although still behind a 'mask' as no mortal man would be allowed to see his Terminator-like features and survive.
After several generations of leaders who were subservient to Yahweh / Satan, the Yahweists' first thoughts were always about how they could conquer and exterminate another people, and steal their land. There was never any consideration of how they could legally acquire some land, settle, and cooperate with their neighbors. And this atrocious behavior, it turned out, would continue for millennia, even decades after humanity had built enough nuclear bombs to wipe themselves out.
And so Judah said to his brother Simeon, "Come up with me into my allotted territory, so that we can fight against the Canaanites, and then accordingly I shall go with you into your allotted territory."
And Simeon went with him.
Then Judah made its attack, and they found Yahweh delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand, and they killed 10,000 of their men in Bezek.
In order to 'deliver' the targeted people into the hand of his servants, Yahweh deployed his DE beam weapon as on previous occasions, to transmit low frequencies such as pulsed 7Hz theta waves and 2Hz delta waves to interfere with the brain waves of his servants' opponents.
The Israelites found the Canaanite king Adoni Bezek, and they fought against him and killed the Canaanites and the Perizzites. Then Adoni Bezek fled, and they chased and captured him, and cut off his thumbs and big toes.
The Israelites alleged that Adoni Bezek had cut off the thumbs and big toes of seventy other kings. However, it would turn out that these 'people' had a penchant for projecting their own crimes and atrocities onto their opponents. They would invert reality and accuse their opponents of whatever terrible behavior they themselves were guilty of.
Adoni Bezek was innocent of the allegations, just like the other 10,000 souls slaughtered by Yahweh's minions in this incident, but the Israelites took him to Jerusalem and he died, whether due to negligence or additional violence.
Then the sons of Judah fought against Jerusalem, attacking with the edge of the sword, and they took control and set the city on fire. Just like their master Yahweh, or Satan, regarded death and destruction as 'good', so did the Jews. Instead of recognizing that life was supposed to locally oppose the second law of thermodynamics, the general increase in entropy as order tends to chaos, they actively sided with the second law, or evil (live in reverse).
Next the Judahites went to fight against the Canaanites who lived in the hill country, and in the south and the lowlands. They also attacked the Canaanites who lived in Hebron, which was previously known as Kirjath Arba, and they killed Sheshai, Ahiman and Talmai.
And then they advanced against the inhabitants of Debir, which was previously known as Kirjath Sepher. Caleb announced that any man who successfully struck Kirjath Sepher and took it would receive Caleb's daughter Achsah as a wife. These 'people' regarded their daughters as their personal property, which could simply be traded for services rendered.
And Othniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother, took Kirjath Sepher, and was given Caleb's daughter Achsah as a wife. The amount of inbreeding and incest that these Yahweh worshipers engaged in would result in various genetic deformities and disorders, a lower IQ, mental health disorders such as paranoia, and of course, the far from photogenic physical appearance of so many of their descendants.
Judah and his brother Simeon went and killed the Canaanites who lived in Zephath, and they completely destroyed it. The city was called Hormah. And Judah took Gaza with its border, and Ashkelon with its border, and Ekron with its border. Judah had the support of Yahweh, with his DE beam weapon targeting the landowners, those whom the Israelites wished to exterminate or conquer, and the invaders managed to drive out the inhabitants of the hill country, but they couldn't take the lowlands because they had iron chariots. And they gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had said, and he drove the three sons of Anak out from there.
However, the Benjamites did not drive out the Jebusites who were living in Jerusalem, and they continued living alongside each other.
The house of Joseph went and attacked Bethel, and they had the support of their mentally deranged Type II civilization being, Yahweh. And they sent out spies to investigate Bethel, which was previously known as Luz.
The spies saw a man come out of the city, and they told him to show them the entrance to the city, and they would show him mercy.
He showed them the entrance to the city, and they struck it with the edge of the sword, but they let him go free. And the man went into the land of the Hittites, and built a city and called it Luz.
Manasseh could not drive out the people of Beth Shan, nor Taanach, nor Dor, nor Ibleam, nor Megiddo and their surrounding villages or cities, for the Canaanites proved too strong for them. But as Israel grew in strength, they succeeded in enslaving the Canaanites, but never drove them out completely. To the Israelites, forced labor was great so long as they were not the slaves.
Similarly, Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer, and the Canaanites lived in Gezer among them. Nor did Zebulan drive out the inhabitants of Kitron or Nahalol, but they did subject them to forced labor.
Nor did Asher drive out the inhabitants of Accho, or Zidon, or Ahlab, or Achzib, or Helbah, or Aphik, or Rehob. And the Asherites lived among the Canaanites there.
Nor did Naphtali drive out the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh or Beth Anath, but these natives were put under tribute to the tribe of Naphtali.
The Amorites forced the sons of Dan into the mountain, for they would not allow them into the valley. But the Amorites were determined to live in Mount Heres in Aijalon, and in Shaalbim. And yet the hand of the house of Joseph prevailed with Yahweh's help, and the Amorites were also pressed into servitude.
And the border of the Amorites went from the Ascent of Akrabbim, from the Rock and upwards.
Having these creatures of Yahweh coming onto your territory was always bad news for the rank and file. The only exception would be for members of the corrupt 'elite'. In centuries to come, there would be money-grubbing power-seeking puppet 'leaders' who might profit personally by choosing to sell out their compatriots. And a very wise adage would emerge... with Jews, you lose. Never was a truer word spoken, in the history of mankind. And yet some people, whether through ignorance, or imbecility, or treachery, would deny that it was so.
One of Yahweh's robots, the "Angel of Yahweh", came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said to the Israelites, "I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land I swore to give to your fathers. I said that I would never break my covenant with you, and you must not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you should break down their altars. Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this? And I have also said that I will not drive them out before you; they will become thorns in your sides, and their gods will become snares to you."
These robots, of course, were a great means of enabling Yahweh to get his message across to his servants, without having to meet in person and disguise his true ugliness with some technological trickery.
And when the sons of Israel heard these words, they wept aloud. And they called that place Bochim, and offered a sacrifice there to Yahweh.
The insanely jealous Yahweh was always quite frustrated when some of 'his' Israelites did not behave exactly as he wished, by failing to destroy the inhabitants' altars, or coming to an arrangement with them, even if it meant the natives were enslaved. Yahweh would have preferred to see them exterminated. And as he was monitoring - with his 'locust' drones - how his servants were dealing with the natives, he would adjust his DE weapon accordingly.
If his servants' behavior pleased him, he would continue to modulate their opponents' brainwaves so as to favor his servants. When he did not like their activities, even the activities of a tiny minority of a tribe, he would not use the DE beam at that location, so that it was a fair fight, and they would fail to drive out the natives. Or if he was particularly angered, he would use the DE beam against his own people, ensuring their defeat by their opponents.
Some time after the death of Joshua, the Israelites had been committing much evil in the eyes of Yahweh, by worshiping Baal and Ashtaroth, and ignoring Yahweh. And so Yahweh was infuriated. He delivered the Israelites into the hands of raiders who plundered them. With the "hand of Yahweh" against them, his servants were in terrible distress.
And all this because a retard named Abram had mistaken a mentally deranged being from a Type II civilization, who had originated from a planet more than 700 light years distant from Earth, now known as Hell but formerly known as Heaven prior to its Sun running out of hydrogen, for a 'god' rather than a devil, which would have been a far more accurate assessment.
In order to steer 'his' people back to the correct path, Yahweh devised a new plan - to raise up "judges" who would serve as Joshua and Moses had, by getting the Israelites to follow Yahweh's commandments. Once he identified some particular individual who could serve as a "judge", a leader who could steer the people towards Yahweh, he would transmit signals to the individual's brain so that their dream would be like a revelation, in which they learned how they should promote the worship of Yahweh and compliance with his commandments.
This did not bring about the result that Yahweh intended. Some of the people refused to listen to the 'judges', and continued, as Yahweh would have it, "whoring after other gods".
However, Yahweh, realizing that his new strategy was not working, decided to take pity on his people as they groaned under their oppressors. Some were following their judge, and Yahweh turned against their oppressors and delivered them out of the hands of their enemies throughout the days of the judge.
But when a judge died, more of the people would turn to the other gods. And then the anger of Yahweh glowed against the people, and he did not disable their opponents.
After a period in which the Israelites took the daughters of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, to be their wives, and they lived among them and served their gods - which would have been a much better outcome for humanity had it continued, Yahweh delivered them into the hands of Chushan Rishathaim, king of Mesopothamia. And the Israelites served this king for eight years.
When the sons of Israel cried out to Yahweh for help, Yahweh raised Othniel, the son of Kenaz, the younger brother of Caleb, to deliver them from servitude. And Yahweh employed his technology to favor Othniel when he went to war against Chushan Rishathaim, and the hand of Othniel prevailed.
The land had peace for forty years, but then Othniel died.
Then the Israelites were not behaving as Yahweh wished, and Yahweh deployed his DE beam weaponry to tip the balance in favor of Eglon, the king of Moab, against the Israelites. Eglon gathered the sons of Ammon and Amalek to assist him, and they went and struck Israel, and took possession of the City of Palm Trees. And the sons of Israel served Eglon, the king of Moab, for 18 years.
And again, the sons of Israel called out to Yahweh for help, who raised a deliverer for them, Ehud, the son of Gera, a Benjamite.
Now Ehud was left-handed, and he had made a double-edged sword about a cubit long, which he strapped to his right thigh under his clothing. He went to Eglon, king of Moab, supposedly to present the tribute.
After Ehud had presented the tribute, he sent away those who had carried it. But on reaching the stone images near Gilgal he himself went back to Eglon and said, "Your Majesty, I have a secret message for you."
The king told his attendants to leave them alone, and they all left. Ehud then approached him while he was sitting alone in the upper room of his palace and said, "I have a message from Elohim for you." As the king, who was very fat, rose from his seat, Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king's belly.
Even the handle sank in after the blade, and the fat closed on the blade so that he was not able to draw it out of his body, and the entrails came out. Then Ehud went out to the porch, and he shut the doors of the cooling room on the king and locked them.
After he had gone, the servants came and found, to their surprise, the doors of the upper room locked. They said, "Surely he is covering his feet in the coolness of the room."
They waited until becoming embarrassed, but when he did not open the doors of the room, they took a key and unlocked them. And to their surprise, they saw their master fallen dead on the floor.
While they waited, Ehud got away, passed the stone images, and escaped to Seirah. When he arrived there, he blew a ram's horn in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went down with him from the hills, with him leading them.
And he said to them, "Follow me, for Yahweh has given Moab, your enemy, into your hand." So they followed him down and took possession of the fords of the Jordan that led to Moab, and they allowed no one to cross over.
And at that time they killed about ten thousand Moabites, all vigorous men of valor, and none escaped. So that day Moab was subdued under the hand of Israel, and the land had peace for eighty years.
The trick with the concealed dagger was Yahweh's idea, and he transmitted it to Ehud in the form of a dream. After Eglon was dead, Yahweh's DE beam weaponry impaired the fighting abilities of the Moabites, and delivered them into the hand of Israel.
After Ehud there was Shamgar, son of Anath, who killed 600 Philistines with an ox goad. So he also delivered Israel. Now Shamgar did not kill all 600 men single-handedly; he had hundreds of men to back him up. However, use of the ox goad was Yahweh's idea, transmitted to Shamgar in the form of a dream, and the Philistines were hindered by Yahweh's DE beam. Shamgar played a major role in the battle, and achieved the greatest kill rate.
But when Ehud was dead, the Israelites were again committing evil in the eyes of Yahweh. And Yahweh delivered them into the hand of Jabin, king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. Sisera, the commander of his army, was based in Harosheth Hagoyim. He had 900 chariots fitted with iron and mightily oppressed the Israelites for twenty years. Finally, they cried to Yahweh for help.
And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, was Israel's "judge" at that time. She held her court under the Palm Tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went up to her to have their disputes adjudicated.
Deborah sent for Barak, son of Abinoam, from Kedesh in Naphtali, and said to him, "Yahweh, Elohim of Israel, has given command, saying, 'Go and take ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead them up to Mount Tabor. And I will lure Sisera, the commander of Jabin's army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River, and give him into your hands'."
Barak said to her, "If you go with me, I will go; but if you don't go with me, I won't go."
"Certainly I will go with you," said Deborah. "But because of the course you are taking, the honor will not be yours, for Yahweh will deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman."
So Barak called Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh, and he went up with 10,000 men, and Deborah went with him.
Sisera was told that Barak, son of Abinoam, had gone up to Mount Tabor. And Sisera summoned from Harosheth Hagoyim to the Kishon River all his men and his 900 iron chariots.
Then Deborah said to Barak, "Go! For this is the day in which Yahweh has delivered Sisera into your hand. Has not Yahweh gone ahead of you?"
So Barak went down Mount Tabor, with 10,000 men following him. And aided by Yahweh, Barak's forces routed Sisera and all the chariots, and all his army with the edge of the sword, and Sisera got down from his chariot and fled away on foot.
This was rather like Joshua's conquest of Hazor. Yahweh used his DE beam, operating from the mothership, to target the chariots, horses and enemy fighters. The skin and superficial tissues of the horses and men was heated to cause lameness and impaired fighting ability, with a beam frequency of 95 GHz in the mm wave range, which is strongly absorbed by water, and the overall power output of the beam was ~1TW (1012W). Sisera's iron chariots did not burn, although if wooden they would have smoldered or burned.
The beam would scan across the enemy battlefield over a few minutes, which each area targeted for a few seconds at a time. For example, if the beam is deployed for five minutes in total, the energy used is 300TJ.
Sisera fled to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, who was descended from the sons of Hobab, the brother-in-law of Moses. Heber had left the other Kenites, and he pitched his tent in the plain of Zaanaim by Kedesh. There was peace between Jabin, king of Hazor, and the house of Heber the Kenite.
And Jael heard someone outside and went out to meet Sisera, and she told him to turn aside and not be afraid. Then she covered him with a rug.
And Sisera asked for water to drink and said he was thirsty. So Jael opened a skin of buttermilk, gave him a drink, and covered him.
And he asked her to stand in the entrance to the tent, and asked her that if any man might come and ask her if there was any man in the tent, she was to say no.
Then Jael, wife of Heber, took up a tent peg and a hammer, and went quietly to him as he lay fast asleep and exhausted, and drove the tent peg through his temple and into the ground, and he died.
Yahweh would target a particular individual with his dream transmitter, so that they knew the part that they had to play, but only Yahweh would have knowledge of the entire operation.
As Barak was pursuing Sisera, Jael came out to meet him and said, "Come, and I will show you the man you are looking for."
And he went into the tent and saw Sisera lying dead, with the tent peg in his temple. So that day Yahweh subdued Jabin, king of Canaan, before the Israelites. Then the Israelites prospered, and they prevailed against Jabin until they had destroyed him.
And then Deborah and Barak sang a song in celebration of their victory. Then there was peace for forty years.
Those who make a habit of worshiping a devil may at times obtain some short-term advantage over their opponents, although the practice comes with terrible strings and conditions attached. It is ultimately harmful both to the devil worshipers and the rest of their species. It has to suit the destructive agenda of the evil entity. And in order for any of the devil's dupes to benefit, it also requires (i) that the devil is still at the required location, e.g. on Earth, and (ii) is still alive...
Then the Israelites again committed evil in the eyes of Yahweh. And Yahweh delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years. As the hand of Midian prevailed against the Israelites, the latter made themselves dens in the mountains, and caves and strongholds.
Whenever the Israelites planted crops, the Midianites, the Amalekites and the sons of the east came up against them. And they camped opposite them and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza, and left no sustenance for the Israelites, neither sheep, nor ox, nor donkey. For they came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts in multitude. It was impossible to count them or their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it.
Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to Yahweh for help.
When the Israelites cried out to Yahweh because of Midian, he sent them a prophet, who said, "This is what Yahweh Elohim of Israel, says, 'I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all your oppressors; I drove them out before you and gave you their land. I told you that I am Yahweh your Elohim; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live. But you have not obeyed my voice'."
And the angel of Yahweh came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to hide it from the Midianites. And the Angel of Yahweh, one of his robots, appeared to Gideon and said, "Yahweh is with you, mighty man of valor!"
Then Gideon said to him, "Oh my lord, if Yahweh is with us, why then has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors recounted to us when they said, 'Did Yahweh not bring us up out of Egypt?' But now Yahweh has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites."
And the 'angel' said, "Go in this might of yours and you will save Israel from the hand of the Midianite. Am I not sending you?"
And Gideon replied, "Oh Adonai, how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house."
The Angel of Yahweh answered, "I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive."
Gideon replied, "If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really Yahweh talking to me. Please do not depart until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you."
And the robot said, "I will wait until you return."
Gideon went inside, prepared a kid of the goats, and from an ephah of flour he made unleavened cakes. Putting the meat in a tray and its broth in a pot, he brought them out and offered them to him under the oak.
The angel of Elohim said to him, "Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth." And Gideon did so.
Then the angel of Yahweh touched the meat and the unleavened cakes (bread) with the tip of the staff that was in his hand. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the cakes. And the angel of Yahweh disappeared.
When Gideon realized that it was indeed the angel of Yahweh, he exclaimed, "Alas, Adonai Yahweh! For I have seen the angel of Yahweh face-to-face!"
But Yahweh said to him, "Peace to you! Do not be afraid. You will not die."
Then Gideon built an altar to Yahweh there and called it Yahweh Peace (which was actually an oymoron). For years it stood in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
The interactions were mostly done by the robot, with Yahweh observing from his spaceship. A graphene supercapacitor gun delivered a high voltage to ignite and consume the food, and to Gideon it was as if the flames had come out of the rock. A parametric speaker provided the 'voice of Yahweh' at the end of the meeting.
Later that same night, Yahweh was again speaking to Gideon via his parametric speaker. 'Locust' drones with inbuilt microphone and cameras allowed Yahweh to observe Gideon and hear his responses.
Yahweh told Gideon to take his father's young bullock, the second bullock of seven years old, and tear down the altar of Baal that his father owns, and cut down the grove (Asherah pole) beside it. Then Gideon should build an altar to Yahweh his Elohim on the top of this stronghold in the proper arrangement, and take the second bullock and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the grove that he cut down.
And Gideon took ten of his servants and did as Yahweh had said to him. But because he feared his father's household and the men of the city, he did it by night rather than by day.
When the men of the city rose early in the morning, they found the altar of Baal torn down, and the grove beside it cut down, and the second bullock offered on the newly built altar. And they asked themselves, "Who did this?"
After making enquiry, they concluded that Gideon, son of Joash, had done it.
The people of the town demanded of Joash, "Bring out your son. He must die, because he has torn down the altar of Baal and cut down the grove beside it."
And Joash asked all who stood against him, "Are you going to plead for Baal? Are you trying to save him? Let him who will plead for him be put to death by morning. If Baal really is a god, he can defend himself when someone breaks down his altar."
So they gave Gideon the name Jerubbaal that day, saying, "Let Baal contend with him because he has torn down his altar."
Then all the Midianites, Amalekites and sons of the east peoples joined forces and crossed over the Jordan and camped in the Valley of Jezreel. But the Spirit of Yahweh came on Gideon, and he blew a ram's horn, and the Abiezerites gathered behind him. And Gideon sent messengers throughout all Manasseh, who also gathered behind him, and he sent messengers to Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali, so that they too went up to meet them.
Gideon said to Elohim, "If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised, look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said."
And he rose early the next morning and squeezed the fleece, and wrung the dew out of the fleece, enough to fill a bowl with water.
Gideon said to his Elohim, "Do not let your anger glow against me, and I will speak but this once. Allow me, please, one more test with the fleece. Let it now be dry only on the fleece, and on all the ground let there be dew."
And Elohim did it that same night, for it was dry on the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground.
Well of course the dew wasn't on all the ground; it was on wherever Yahweh's drone had dropped water, which was a large enough area so that Gideon would again excitedly conclude that Yahweh had given his sign and 'proved' his 'supernatural' abilities. The previous night, a smaller drone had been used, releasing a much smaller volume of water onto the fleece, in a considerably shorter operation.
Then Jerubbaal, also known as Gideon, and the thousands of people with him, rose early and pitched camp behind the well of Harod, so that the camp of the Midianites was on the northern side of them, in the valley by the Hill of Moreh.
And Yahweh said to Gideon, "There are too many people with you for me to give the Midianites into their hands, for Israel might boast against me, saying, 'My own hand saved me.' Therefore, go and tell the people that whoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from Mount Gilead."
And 22,000 of the people returned, and 10,000 remained.
Then Yahweh said to Gideon, "The people are still too many. Bring them down to the water, and I will test them for you there. If I say, 'This one shall go with you,' he shall go; but if I say, 'This one shall not go with you,' he shall not go."
So Gideon took the people down to the water. There, Yahweh told him, "Separate those who lap the water with their tongues as a dog laps, from those who kneel down to drink."
And the number of those who lapped, hand to their mouth, were 300. All of the rest got on their knees to drink the water.
Then Yahweh said to Gideon, "I will save you by means of the 300 men who lapped, and I will deliver the Midianites into your hand, and you shall let all the others return to their homes."
So Gideon sent the rest of the Israelites home but kept the three hundred, who took over the provisions and the ram's horns of the others. Now the camp of Midian lay below him in the valley.
During that night Yahweh said to Gideon, "Arise, get yourself down to the camp, for I have delivered it into your hand. But if you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah, and listen to what they are saying. Afterward, you will be encouraged to attack the camp."
So he and Purah his servant went down to the outposts of the orderly ranks in the camp.
The Midianites, the Amalekites and all the other eastern peoples were lying in the valley, numerous as locusts. Their camels were without number, like the sand on the seashore.
Gideon arrived just as a man was telling a dream to his companion, and he said, "Listen now, I had a dream, and it happened that a cake of barley bread came tumbling into the army of Midianite. It struck a tent with such force that the tent overturned and collapsed."
And his companion answered, "This is nothing but the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, an Israelite. Elohim has delivered Midian and all the army into his hand."
And when Gideon heard the report of the dream and its interpretation, he bowed down and worshiped. Then he returned to the camp of Israel and called out, "Arise! Yahweh has delivered the army of Midian into your hand."
Dividing the three hundred men into three companies, he placed ram's horns and empty water jars in the hands of all of them, with torches inside the jars.
"Watch me," he told them, "and do the same. When I get to the edge of the camp, do exactly as I do. When I and all who are with me blow our ram's horn, then from all around the camp blow yours and shout, 'For Yahweh - and for Gideon'."
Gideon and the hundred men with him reached the edge of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just after they had changed the guard. They blasted on the ram's horns and broke the jars that were in their hands.
The three companies blew the ram's horns and smashed the jars. Grasping the torches in their left hands and holding the ram's horns in their right hands, they shouted, "The sword of Yahweh and Gideon!"
While each man held his position around the camp, the army of Midianites ran, crying out as they fled.
And the 300 blasted out the ram's horns, and it was as if Yahweh caused the Midianite men throughout the camp to turn on each other with their swords. The army fled to Beth Shittah toward Zererath as far as the border of Abel Meholah to Tsabbath.
The Israelites from Naphtali, Asher and all Manasseh were called out, and they pursued the Midianites.
Gideon sent messengers throughout the hill country of Ephraim, saying, "Come down against the Midianites and seize the waters of the Jordan ahead of them as far as Beth Barah." So all the men of Ephraim were called out and they seized the waters of the Jordan as far as Beth Barah.
And they captured two princes of the Midianites, Oreb and Zeeb. They killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb at the winepress of Zeeb. They pursued the Midianites and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon, on the other side of the Jordan.
Now Yahweh had a fleet of 140 drones of 20m radius, which he had used to disperse chalk dust into the stratosphere in a previous operation, to bring about seven years of famine, when Joseph was in Egypt. Each drone was equipped with solar panels that covered an area of 1,256 m2 on its upper surface.
The drones would be left outside during the best of the daylight hours, where they were getting solar radiation of around 3,000 kWh/m2 per year, which is 29.5 MJ/m2 per day. The solar panels covered an area of 1,256 m2 on the upper surface of each drone. Since these Hellian Type II civilization panels attained an efficiency of 85%, the energy harvested was 0.85 x 1,256 m2 x 29.5 MJ/m2 = 31.5 GJ per day per drone. 18.8 GJ of that could be stored in graphene-based structural supercapacitors, built into the hull.
Yahweh had one drone with his second most powerful DE beam, second only to the one in his spacecraft. Both of these were powered by a deuterium/helium3 fusion mix, which yielded 3.5x1014J/kg. And even the drone beam could achieve a power output of ~100 GW. However, he also had lower power DE beam weapons, which could be supplied by solar power and the supercapacitors.
His trick with the Midianites was to use enough directed energy power in the center of the army that the people would experience such unbearable pain that they would turn on each other with their swords. Those on the periphery would experience enough discomfort that they would run away, with their minds tricked into thinking it was something to do with the terrible din of the ram's horns.
Nanites would indicate the location of the 'friendly' side - the Israelites, and the drones would transmit additional out-of-phase radiation in the friendly zone, establishing a safe null zone. The spell would have been broken if both sides were running away.
Yahweh used a beam frequency of 2.45 GHz as a compromise for deep tissue heating. The human pain threshold is at a specific absorption rate (SAR) of 10-20 W/kg, and for intolerable agony 30-50 W/kg. Thus, assuming humans of 70kg, the target SAR for the center zone of the army was 40 W/kg and 2,800 W absorbed per person. For the outer zone, the target SAR was 15 W/kg and 1,050 W absorbed per person.
The Midianite army was a little more than 100,000 strong. Yahweh targeted 100,000 in a radius of ~250m; after seeing the others either flee or turn on each other, those who experienced very mild heating effects would soon run away, too.
For 10,000 men in the center zone, at a target of 2,800W per person the total absorbed power requirement was 28 MW. However, absorption efficiency was ~30%, and so the beam power requirement is 93 MW. This was done with 32 drones, requiring 2.9 MW per drone.
For 90,000 men in the outer zone, at a target of 1,050 W per person the total absorbed power requirement was 94.5 MW. At an absorption efficiency of 30% the beam requirement was 315 MW. This was done with 108 drones, requiring 2.9 MW per drone.
For a five minute, 300-second engagement, the energy requirement per drone is 870 MJ from the DE beam. The power to hover for the 53-tonne drones, with 40m radius rotors, at sea level, was:
Pactual = (1/0.8) x SQRT((9.8 N/kg x 53,000 kg)3 / (2π x (40m)2 x 1.225 kg/m2)) = 4.216 MW.
This is 1.265 GJ for five minutes, so that's 2.135 GJ for DE beam and hovering. There is a little more for gravitational potential and the less dense air, depending on their particular altitude, but it is a relatively small proportion. With the 18.8 GJ in supercapacitors they can fly with the wings and electric fan for ~400km with no load, so they could still fly for nearly 360km after allowing for hovering and DE beam output.
The ten 103-tonne shuttle drones needed 11.423 MW to hover, but if these had been out of range on the day, reducing the outer zone drones from 108 to 98 would not have significantly changed the outcome.
Atmospheric absorption was responsible for ~10% losses. The drones used holographic projection for cloaking, so that they would appear as cloud or sky, and their own noise was emitted out-of-phase for cancellation. This only increased the energy requirement by a few per cent. The anti-phase radiation for the few hundred Israelites' null zone required little additional energy.
And the Ephraimites asked Gideon, "Why have you treated us like this? Why didn't you call us when you went to fight Midian?" And they challenged him vigorously.
But he answered them, "What have I done now compared to you? Aren't the gleanings of Ephraim's grapes better than the vintage of Abiezer? Elohim has delivered the Midianite rulers - Oreb and Zeeb, the Midianite leaders, into your hands. What was I able to do compared to you?"
At this, their resentment against him subsided. When Gideon and his three hundred men, exhausted yet keeping up the pursuit, came to the Jordan they crossed it.
He said to the men of Succoth, "Please give my troops some bread; they are worn out, and I am still pursuing Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian."
But the princes of Succoth said, "Do you already have the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna in your possession? Why should we give bread to your troops?"
Then Gideon replied, "In that case, when Yahweh has delivered Zebah and Zalmunna into my hand, I will tear your flesh with desert thorns and briers."
From there he went up to Penuel and made the same request of them, but they answered as the men of Succoth had. And he said to the men of Penuel, "When I return in peace, I will break down this tower."
Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor with a force of about fifteen thousand men, all that were left of the armies of the eastern peoples. 120,000 swordsmen had fallen. Then Gideon went up by the route of the nomads east of Nobah and Jogbehah and attacked the unsuspecting army. And when Zebah and Zalmunna, the two kings of Midian, fled, he pursued them and captured them, routing their entire army.
Gideon, son of Joash, then returned from the battle by the Pass of Heres, and he captured a young man of Sukkoth and questioned him, and the young man described to him the princes of Sukkoth and the elders, 77 men.
Then Gideon came and said to the men of Sukkoth, "Here are Zebah and Zalmunna, about whom you taunted me, saying, 'Do you already have the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna in your possession? Why should we give bread to your exhausted men?' "
He took the elders of the city and taught the men of Sukkoth a lesson by punishing them with desert thorns and briers. And he pulled down the tower of Penuel and killed the men of the city.
Then he asked Zebah and Zalmunna, "What kind of men did you kill at Tabor?"
"Men like you," they answered, "each one with the bearing of a prince."
Gideon replied, "Those were my brothers, the sons of my mother. By Chay Yahweh, if you had spared their lives, I would not kill you."
Turning to Jether, his firstborn, he said, "Get up! Kill them!" But Jether did not draw his sword, because he was only a youth and was afraid.
Zebah and Zalmunna said, "Come, do it yourself, for as is the man, so is his strength." So Gideon stepped forward and killed them, and took the ornaments off their camels' necks.
The Israelites said to Gideon, "Rule over us, both you, your son and your grandson, for you have delivered us from the hand of Midian."
But Gideon told them, "I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. Yahweh will rule over you."
And he said, "I do have one request, that each of you give me an earring from your share of the plunder." For it was the custom of the Ishmaelites to wear golden earrings. And they answered, "We will willingly give them." So they spread out a garment, and each of them threw a ring from his plunder onto it.
The weight of the golden earrings he asked for came to 1,700 shekels of gold, not counting the ornaments, the pendants, the purple coats on the kings of Midian, or the chains that were on their camels' necks.
Gideon made the gold into an ephod, which he placed in Ophrah, his city. But all Israel went whoring after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his family.
So Midian was subdued before the Israelites, and did not raise its head again. And the land had forty years of peace during the days of Gideon.
Jerub-Baal, son of Joash, went back to live in his own house. And Gideon had seventy sons of his own, for he had many wives. His concubine in Shechem also bore him a son, whom he named Abimelech.
Gideon, son of Joash, died at a good old age, and was buried in the tomb of his father Joash, in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
No sooner had Gideon died than the Israelites again went whoring after Baalim, and they made Baal-Berith their god. And fortunately, they did not remember Yahweh, their devil who posed as an "Elohim", who for his own selfish purposes had rescued them from the hands of some of their enemies, although Yahweh rewrote history and pretended he had saved them from all of their enemies, not simply when he felt like it.
The Israelites also failed to show any loyalty to the family of Jerub-Baal (that is, Gideon), in spite of the good things he had done for them.
Abimelech, son of Jerub-Baal, went to his mother's brothers in Shechem, and said to them and to all their clan, "Ask all the citizens of Shechem, 'Which is better for you, either that all seventy of Jerub-Baal's sons rule over you, or just one man?' Remember, I am your flesh and blood."
When the brothers repeated all this to the citizens of Shechem, they were inclined to follow Abimelech, for they said, "He is our brother."
They gave him seventy shekels of silver from the temple of Baal-Berith, with which Abimelech hired reckless scoundrels, who became his followers.
He went to his father's home in Ophrah, and on one stone murdered his seventy brothers, the sons of Jerub-Baal. But Jotham, the youngest son of Jerub-Baal, escaped by hiding.
Then all the citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo gathered beside the great terebinth tree at the pillar in Shechem, and they crowned Abimelech king.
When Jotham was told about this, he climbed up on the top of Mount Gerizim and shouted to them, "Listen to me, citizens of Shechem, so that Elohim might listen to you. One day the trees went out to anoint a king for themselves. They said to the olive tree, 'Be our king.' But the olive tree answered, 'Should I give up my oil, by which both gods and humans are honored, to hold sway over the trees?'
"Next, the trees said to the fig tree, 'Come and be our king.' But the fig tree replied, 'Should I give up my fruit, so good and sweet, to hold sway over the trees?'
"Then the trees said to the vine, 'Come and be our king.' But the vine answered, 'Should I give up my wine, which cheers both gods and humans, to hold sway over the trees?'
"Finally all the trees said to the thornbush, 'Come and be our king.' The thornbush said to the trees, 'If you really want to anoint me king over you, come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, then let fire come out of the thornbush and consume the cedars of Lebanon!'
"Have you acted honorably and in good faith by making Abimelech king? Have you been fair to Jerub-Baal and his family? Have you treated him as he deserves? Remember that my father fought for you and fearlessly risked his life to deliver you from the hand of Midian. But today you have revolted against my father's family. You have murdered his seventy sons on a single stone, and have made Abimelech, the son of his female slave, king over the citizens of Shechem because he is related to you.
"So have you acted honorably and in good faith toward Jerub-Baal and his family today? If you have, may Abimelech be your joy, and may you be his, too! But if you have not, let fire come out from Abimelech and consume you, the citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo, and let fire come out from you, the citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo, and consume Abimelech!"
Then Jotham fled, escaping to Beer, and he lived there, in fear of his brother Abimelech.
After Abimelech had governed Israel for three years, Elohim stirred up animosity between Abimelech and the citizens of Shechem so that they acted treacherously against Abimelech. No doubt Yahweh succeeded in beaming his dream transmitters into the brains of certain individuals, although in his legend he described it as having sent an "evil spirit". He did this in order that the crime against Jerub-Baal's seventy sons, the shedding of their blood, might be avenged on their brother Abimelech and on the rulers of Shechem, who had helped him murder his brothers.
And these rulers of Shechem set ambushers for him on the hilltops to rob everyone who passed by, and this was reported to Abimelech.
Now Gaal, son of Ebed, moved with his clan into Shechem, and its citizens put their confidence in him. After they had gone out into the fields and gathered the grapes and trodden them, they held a festival in the temple of their god. While they were eating and drinking, they cursed Abimelech.
Then Gaal said, "Who is Abimelech, and why should we Shechemites serve him? Isn't he Jerub-Baal's son, and isn't Zebul his deputy? Serve the family of Hamor, the father of Shechem! Why should we serve Abimelech? If only this people were under my command, then I would remove him."
And he said to Abimelech, "Come out with your whole army!"
When Zebul, ruler of the city, heard what Gaal said, he was very angry.
Under cover he sent messengers to Abimelech, saying, "Look, Gaal, son of Ebed, and his clan have come to Shechem, and they are stirring up the city against you. Now then, during the night, you and your men should come and lie in wait in the fields. In the morning at sunrise, attack the city. When Gaal and his men come out against you, seize the opportunity to attack them."
So Abimelech and all his troops set out by night, and took up concealed positions near Shechem in four groups.
Now Gaal, son of Ebed, had gone out and was standing at the entrance of the city gate just as Abimelech and his troops rose up out from their hiding place.
When Gaal saw them, he said to Zebul, "Look, people are coming down from the tops of the mountains!"
Zebul replied, "You are seeing the shadows of the mountains as men."
But Gaal spoke up again, and said, "Look, people are coming down from the central hill, and another column is coming from the direction of the Sorcerers' Terebinth Tree."
Then Zebul said to him, "Where is your mouth now, you who said, 'Who is Abimelech, and why should we serve him?' Aren't these the men you despised? Go out and fight them!"
So Gaal led out the citizens of Shechem and fought Abimelech.
Abimelech chased him all the way to the entrance of the gate, and many were killed or wounded as they fled.
Then Abimelech stayed in Arumah, and Zebul exiled Gaal and his clan out of Shechem.
The next day the people of Shechem went out to the fields, and this was reported to Abimelech. So he took his men, divided them into three companies, and set up an ambush in the fields. When he saw the people coming out of the city, he rose up and struck them.
Abimelech and the company with him rushed forward to a position at the entrance of the city gate. Then the other two companies rushed at all of those in the fields, and struck them down. All that day, Abimelech fought against the city until he had captured it, and he killed its people. Then he destroyed the city and scattered salt over it.
On hearing this, the citizens in the tower of Shechem went into the stronghold of the temple of the god Berith.
When Abimelech heard that they had assembled there, he and all his men went up Mount Zalmon. And he took an axe and cut down a bough from the brushwood, which he lifted to his shoulders. He ordered the men with him, "Quick! Do what you have seen me do!"
So every man cut his branch in the same way and followed Abimelech. They piled them against the stronghold, and set it on fire with the people still inside. So all the people in the tower of Shechem, about a thousand men and women, also died.
Then Abimelech went to Thebez, and he besieged it and captured it. Inside the city, however, was a strong tower, to which all the men and women, all the people of the city, had fled. They had locked themselves in and climbed up on the tower roof.
Abimelech went to the tower and attacked it. But as he approached the entrance to the tower to set it on fire, a woman dropped an upper millstone on his head and cracked his skull.
Hurriedly, he called to his armor-bearer, "Draw your sword and kill me, so that they can't say, 'A woman killed him.' " So his servant thrust him through, and he died. And when the Israelites saw that Abimelech was dead, they went home.
So, the wickedness that Abimelech had done to his father by murdering his seventy brothers was repaid by Yahweh. However, Yahweh could kill thousands, and in his twisted view he saw it as a virtue rather than wickedness. He also made the people of Shechem pay for all their wickedness. The "curse" of Jotham, son of Jerub-Baal, came on them.
After the time of Abimelek, a man of Issachar named Tola, son of Puah, the son of Dodo, rose to save Israel. He lived in Shamir, in the hill country of Ephraim. He judged Israel for twenty-three years; then he died, and was buried in Shamir.
He was followed by Jair of Gilead, who judged Israel for twenty-two years. He had thirty sons, who rode thirty donkey colts. And they had thirty cities in Gilead, which were called Havvoth Jair, cities of Jair. When Jair died, he was buried in Camon.
Again, the Israelites did evil in the eyes of Yahweh. They served Baalim, and the Ashtoreths, and the gods of Syria, Zidon, Moab, the Ammonites and the Philistines. And they forsook Yahweh and no longer served him.
And the anger of Yahweh burned hot against the Israelites, and he sold them into the hands of the Philistines and the Ammonites, who that year shattered and crushed them. For eighteen years they oppressed all the Israelites on the east side of the Jordan in Gilead, the land of the Amorites. The Ammonites also crossed the Jordan to fight against Judah, Benjamin and Ephraim, so that Israel was in great distress.
Then the Israelites called out to Yahweh, saying, "We have sinned against you, forsaking our Elohim and serving Baalim too."
Yahweh replied, "Did I not deliver you from the Egyptians, the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Philistines, the Zidonians, the Amalekites and the Maonites when they oppressed you and you cried to me for help? But you have forsaken me and served other gods, so I will no longer save you. Go and call out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble!"
But the Israelites said to Yahweh, "We have sinned. Do with us whatever you think best, but please rescue us now."
Then they got rid of the foreign gods among them and served Yahweh. And he could no longer resist helping his useful idiots, whose job was to ruin humanity and stifle the progress of its civilization.
When the Ammonites were called to arms and camped in Gilead, the Israelites assembled and camped at Mizpah.
The people and the rulers of Gilead said to each other, "Whoever will take the lead in attacking the Ammonites will be head over all who live in Gilead."
Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior. His father was Gilead; his mother was a prostitute.
Gilead's wife also bore him sons, and when they were grown up, they drove out Jephthah. They said to him, "You are not going to get any inheritance in our family, because you are the son of another woman."
So Jephthah fled from his brothers and settled in the land of Tob, where a gang of scoundrels gathered around him and followed him.
Some time later, when the Ammonites were fighting against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to fetch Jephthah from the land of Tob. And they said to him, "Come, be our captain, so we can fight the Ammonites."
Jephthah said to them, "Didn't you hate me and drive me from my father's house? Why do you come to me now, when you're in trouble?"
The elders of Gilead said to him, "This is why we have come back to you now, so that you can come with us to fight the Ammonites, and you will be head over all of us who live in Gilead."
Jephthah answered, "If you bring me back home to fight the Ammonites and Yahweh gives them to me, will I really be your head?"
The elders of Gilead replied, "Let Yahweh be witness between us, if we do not act in accordance with your words."
So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and captain over them. And he repeated all his words before Yahweh in Mizpeh.
Then Jephthah sent messengers to the Ammonite king with the question: "What do you have against me that you have attacked my country?"
The king of the Ammonites answered Jephthah's messengers, "When Israel came up out of Egypt, they took away my land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, all the way to the Jordan. So now give it back peaceably."
Jephthah sent back messengers to the Ammonite king, saying: "This is what Jephthah says: Israel did not take the land of Moab or the land of the Ammonites. But when they came up out of Egypt, Israel went through the wilderness to the Red Sea and on to Kadesh. Then Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, 'Give us permission to go through your country,' but the king of Edom would not listen. They sent also to the king of Moab, and he refused. So Israel stayed at Kadesh."
"Next they traveled through the wilderness, and bypassed the lands of Edom and Moab, passed along the eastern side of the country of Moab, and camped on the other side of the Arnon. They did not enter the territory of Moab, for the Arnon was its border."
"Then Israel sent messengers to Sihon, king of the Amorites, who ruled in Heshbon, and said to him, 'Let us pass through your country to our own place.' But Sihon did not trust Israel to pass through his territory. He mustered all his troops and camped at Jahaz and fought against Israel. And Yahweh Elohim of Israel delivered Sihon and his whole army into Israel's hands, and they struck them and defeated them. Israel took over all the land of the Amorites who lived in that country, capturing all of it from Arnon to the Jabbok, and from the wilderness to the Jordan. Now since Yahweh Elohim of Israel, has driven out the Amorites from before his people Israel, what right have you to take it over?"
This is a great example that sums up some of the problems with this band of rootless cosmopolitans whose diabolical behavior made them so despised, that they got themselves thrown out from just about any inhabited land where they were initially welcomed in by the host population.
What actually happened about three centuries previously, rather than Jephthah's deceptive version of events, is that the Israelites requested permission to travel through the land of Sihon, king of the Amorites, and he quite rightly refused. He was smart enough to understand that welcoming in a band of rootless marauders would not go well for his people. The general sequence of events, over the millennia, would go rather like this:
(i) A native population lives happily in their own land, which has been passed down to them by their ancestors over generations. (ii) Yahweh cultists come along with tales of woe, claiming "persecution", "discrimination", "annihilation", "extermination", etc., and are welcomed in by the benevolent hosts with open arms. (iii) In most cases the Yahweists gradually subvert the nation, bribing and blackmailing the leaders, and gaining power at the expense of the host population. (iv) Yahweists attain positions of power - political, media, education, health, legal, etc., and the nation is run to further the Yahweist agenda rather than for the benefit of the natives. Sometimes, as in the establishment of a fake country based on a hoax about, e.g., "gas chambers", the native population are slaughtered and ethnically cleansed over a period of decades. Other times, the cultists subvert the nation so that the landowners are weakened and replaced by others, who can be disposed of when they have outlived their usefulness. (v) The host population becomes aware of the damage done by the parasite, and expels them.
Then with the aid of their devil Yahweh, a mentally deranged Type II being who posed as a 'god', the Israelites defeated Sihon's forces when they got to Jahaz to defend their own land. The Israelites seized the land from Arnon to Jabbock, as far as the sons of Ammon. However, the border of the Ammonites was fortified, and they could not pass it. That was the only reason the Ammonites got to keep their land; they were too powerful for the Israelites. It was not because Moses had any moral principles such as live and let live.
Indeed, at that time, Israel took the cities of the Amorites and lived in them, including Heshbon and all its villages. Heshbon was the city of Sihon, king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab and taken all his land as far as Arnon.
Then Moses sent men to secretly spy on Jazer, and captured its villages and drove out the Amorites there.
Then they turned and went by the road of Bashan, and Og, king of Bashan, went out with all his army against them in battle at Edrei. And Yahweh delivered Og into the hands of Moses, who was told to do with him as Moses did to Sihon, king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon. After they struck Og and annihilated his people, and conquered their land, the Israelites pitched camp in the plains of Moab. And Balak saw everything that Israel had done to the Amorites. And the land of Moab was bitterly afraid, and distressed because of the Israelites. The Ammonites were also none too pleased about the invaders.
Sooner or later, any emerging civilization that endures will always come to the realization that the universe operates according to a set of physical laws, and supernatural events never occur. By definition, they are physically impossible. Yet for a time, the lifeforms may feel that it is fun to have their religions, their beliefs, and their faiths, and to engage in various pointless rituals, whether harmful or not. In the rare occasions that they feel that some 'god' has answered their prayers, this is of course an illusion and a consequence of the law of probabilities.
The only time on Earth when an entity more powerful than humans really did answer specific prayers of humans and act in some manner that benefited them, was when Yahweh answered the call, and aided his servants by smiting their enemies. But that was for his own selfish purposes, not because of any 'love' he had for those people. And Yahweh would not necessarily be there in the future. At such time, those silly enough to submit to him would find that their enemies were no longer being smitten, however much Yahweh worshipping they engaged in...
Jephthah, in his message to the Ammonite king, continued:
"Will you not take what your god Chemosh gives you to possess? Likewise, whatever Yahweh our Elohim has given us, we will possess. And now, are you any better than Balak, son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever quarrel with Israel or fight against them? For three hundred years Israel occupied Heshbon, Aroer, the surrounding settlements and all the towns along the Arnon. Why didn't you retake them during that time? I have not wronged you, but you do me wrong by waging war against me. Let Yahweh judge this day between the Israelites and the Ammonites."
Just because an occupied people do not succeed in expelling occupation forces, whether over a period of eighty years or three hundred years, it does not legitimize the occupation, and the occupied people are justified in putting up a resistance, however much the cowardly occupiers whine about "terrorists" and "terrorism", etc..
Quite understandably, the king of Ammon paid no attention to the propaganda that Jephthah sent him.
Then Yahweh narrates it as if his 'spirit' came on Jephthah, who crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there advanced against the Ammonites.
And Jephthah made a rash vow to Yahweh, saying, "If you give the Ammonites into my hands, then whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will surely be Yahweh's, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering."
Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and Yahweh gave them into his hands, with the aid of the DE beam transmitter on one of his drones.
And Jephthah struck twenty cities from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as the Plain of the Vineyards, with an extremely terrible slaughter. Thus, Israel subdued Ammon, and their suspicions were demonstrably justified.
When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, it came about that his daughter came out to meet him, dancing to the sound of drums. She was his only child.
When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, "Alas, my daughter! You have brought me down to my knees and I am devastated. I have made a vow to Yahweh that I cannot break."
And she replied, "My father, you have given your word to Yahweh. Do to me just as you promised, because on account of you Yahweh has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. But grant me this one request. Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry."
"You may go," he said. And he let her go for two months. She and her friends went into the hills and lamented for she would never marry.
After the two months, she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin. And it became a custom of the Israelites that each year the young women of Israel would go out for four days, to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.
And the men of Ephraim were summoned together, and they advanced towards Zaphon. They said to Jephthah, "Why did you go to fight the Ammonites without calling us to go with you? We're going to burn down your house with fire!"
Jephthah answered, "A man of feud have I been, I and my people with the Ammonites, and although I called, you did not deliver me out of their hands. When I saw that you would not help, I took my life in my hands and made the advance to fight the Ammonites, and Yahweh delivered them into my hands. Why then, have you come up today, to fight me?"
Jephthah then called together the men of Gilead and fought against Ephraim. The Gileadites struck Ephraim because they had said, "You Gileadites are fugitives from Ephraim and Manasseh."
The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan from the Ephraimites, and whenever a survivor of Ephraim said, "Let me cross over," the men of Gilead asked him, "Are you an Ephraimite?" If he replied, "No," they said, "Now say 'Shibboleth'." If he said, "Sibboleth", because he could not pronounce the word correctly, then they would seize him and kill him at the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed at that time.
So much for honor among thieves...
Jephthah judged Israel for six years. Then Jephthah the Gileadite died, and was buried in a city in Gilead.
After him, other judges included Ibzan of Bethlehem, who judged or led Israel for seven years, Elon the Zebulunite for ten years, and Abdon son of Hillel, from Pirathon, for eight years.
And the Israelites again committed evil in the eyes of Yahweh, and Yahweh delivered them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years.
A certain man of Zorah, named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, had a wife who was barren and childless. The 'angel' of Yahweh, i.e., one of his robots, appeared to her and said, "You are barren and childless, but you are going to conceive, and you will give birth to a son. Now therefore, be sure that you drink neither wine nor fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean. You will conceive and have a son whose head is never to be touched by a razor because the boy is to be a Nazarite, dedicated to Elohim from the womb. He will begin to deliver Israel out of the hands of the Philistines."
Then the woman went to her husband and told him, "A man of Elohim came to me, and his countenance was like an angel of Elohim, very awesome. I did not ask him where he came from, nor did he tell me his name. But he said to me, 'You will become pregnant and have a son. Now therefore, drink neither wine nor fermented drink, nor eat anything unclean, because the boy will be a Nazarite of Elohim from the womb until the day of his death'."
Then Manoah prayed to Yahweh, and he said, "Oh Adonai, let the man of Elohim whom you sent come again to us, to teach us how to bring up the boy who is to be born."
And Elohim heard Manoah, and his 'angel' came again to the woman as she sat in the field, but her husband Manoah was not with her.
The woman hurried to tell her husband, "He's here! The man who appeared to me the other day!"
Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he came to the man, he said, "Are you the man who spoke to my wife?"
"I am," he said.
So Manoah asked him, "When your words are fulfilled, what is to be the code of living for the boy, and what will be his undertaking?"
The 'angel' answered, "Your wife must do all that I have told her. She must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine, and wine or fermented drink she must not drink. And any unclean thing she must not eat. She must be mindful of everything I have commanded to her."
Manoah said to the 'angel', "We would like you to stay until we prepare a kid of the goats for you."
The robot replied, "Even though you detain me, I will not eat from your bread, and if you prepare a burnt offering, you must offer it up to Yahweh."
Then Manoah asked this 'angel', "What is your name, so that we may honor you when your word comes true?"
He replied, "Why do you ask my name like that, seeing that it is secret?"
Then Manoah took a kid of the goats, together with a meat offering, and sacrificed it on a rock to Yahweh. And as Manoah and his wife watched, it seemed to them that Yahweh did an amazing thing. As the flame blazed up from the altar towards the skies, the 'angel' ascended in the flame. Seeing this, Manoah and his wife fell with their faces to the ground.
One was explained by convection, and the fact that the heated products of combustion are less dense than air of ambient temperature. The other was explained by the fact that electromagnetism is a far stronger force than gravity, which was demonstrated by the robots and Type II beings having an antimatter generator and a charge globe within a vacuum sphere in their torso, that could be charged up to a little more than 7 Coulombs.
When Yahweh's envoy did not show himself again to Manoah and his wife, Manoah realized that it was related to Yahweh. "We will surely die, because we have seen Elohim!", he said to his wife.
But his wife answered, "If Yahweh had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a meat offering from our hands, nor shown us all these things, nor told us this."
The woman gave birth to a boy and named him Samson. He grew, and Yahweh supposedly "blessed" him. And the 'Spirit' of Yahweh began to stir him while he was in the Camp of Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.
Samson went down to Timnath, and saw there a young Philistine woman. When he returned, he said to his father and mother, "I have seen a Philistine woman in Timnath. Now then, get her for me as my wife."
His father and mother replied, "Isn't there an acceptable woman among the daughters of your brothers, or among all our people? Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines to get a wife?"
But Samson, being wise for an Israelite, said to his father, "Get her for me. For she is good in my eyes."
But his parents did not know that it was from Yahweh, who was seeking an opportunity to move against the Philistines; for at that time they had dominion over Israel.
Samson went down to Timnath together with his father and mother. As they approached the vineyards of Timnah, suddenly a young lion came roaring toward him. And the 'Spirit' of Yahweh came powerfully upon him, so that he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat. But he told neither his father nor his mother what he had done.
The lion had been fatally wounded by the DE beam from one of Yahweh's overhead drones, as Yahweh was watching events play out on the ground.
Then Samson went down and talked with the woman, and she pleased him well.
Some time later, when he went back to marry her, he turned aside to look at the lion's carcass, and in it he saw a swarm of bees and some honey. He scooped out the honey with his hands and ate as he went along. When he rejoined his parents, he gave them some, and they ate it, too. But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey from the lion carcass.
Now his father went down to see the woman. And there Samson held a feast, as was customary for young men.
When the people saw him, they chose thirty men to be his companions.
"Let me tell you a riddle," Samson said to them. "If you can give me the answer within the seven days of the feast, I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty sets of clothes. But if you cannot explain it to me, you must give me thirty linen garments and thirty sets of clothes."
And they said to him, "Tell us your riddle, so that we can hear it."
He replied, "Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet."
For three days they could not give the answer.
On the fourth day, they said to Samson's wife, "Coax your husband into explaining the riddle for us, or we will burn you and your father's household with fire. Did you invite us here to steal our property?"
Then Samson's wife wept in front of him, crying, "You only hate me, and do not love me. You have put out a riddle to the sons of my people, but you have not explained it to me."
And he said, "Look now, I haven't even explained it to my father or mother, so why should I explain it to you?"
And she wept in front of him for the rest of the feast. Then on the seventh day he finally told her, because she continued to press him. She in turn explained the riddle to her people.
Before sunset on the seventh day the men of the town said to him, "What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?"
Samson said to them, "If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle."
Then the 'Spirit' of Yahweh came powerfully upon him. He went down to Ashkelon, killed thirty of their men, stripped them of everything and gave their clothes to those who had explained the riddle. Burning with anger, he returned to his father's home. And Samson's wife was given to one of his companions who had attended him at the feast.
And so, although Samson was smarter than his parents - with a little help from Yahweh's dream transmitters, he was certainly not a likeable character.
Later on, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat and went to visit his wife. He said, "Let me go into my wife in the inner room." But her father would not allow him to go in.
"I was so sure you hated her," he said, "that I gave her to your companion. Isn't her younger sister more attractive? Take her instead."
Samson said to them, "This time I have a right to get even with the Philistines; I will really harm them."
And he went out and caught three hundred jackals, and tied them tail to tail in pairs. He then fastened a torch to every pair of tails. Then he lit the torches, and let the jackals loose in the standing corn of the Philistines. He burned up the shocks and standing corn, together with the vineyards and olive groves.
When the Philistines asked, "Who did this?" they were told, "Samson, the Timnite's son-in-law, because he took his wife and gave her to his companion." So the Philistines went up and burned her and her father with fire.
Samson said to them, "Since you have done this, I surely will take revenge on you, and then I will cease."
And he struck them hip and thigh viciously, and slaughtered many of them. Then he went down and stayed in a cave in the rock of Etam.
The Philistines went up and camped in Judah, spreading out near Lehi.
The men of Judah asked, "Why have you come to fight us?"
"We have come to bind Samson," they answered, "to do to him as he did to us."
Then three thousand men from Judah went down to the cave in the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, "Don't you realize that the Philistines are rulers over us? What have you done to us?"
He answered, "I merely did to them what they did to me."
They said to him, "We've come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines."
Samson said, "Swear to me that you won't kill me yourselves."
And they replied, "No, but we will bind you securely, and deliver you over to them, but we will not kill you." So they bound him with two new ropes, and led him up from the rock.
As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came toward him shouting. The 'Spirit' of Yahweh came powerfully upon him. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax burning with fire, and the bindings dropped from his hands.
Yahweh's drone was initially 500m overhead with active noise cancellation and holographic cloaking. When it was time to cut the ropes, it briefly descended to 100m, hovering for a few seconds. The DE beam was very tightly focused into a spot of a few mm; the narrow beam burnt the ropes without burning Samson's arms, since the intensity gradient over 1-2 cm was enormous. At 1.5 micrometers the wavelength was strongly absorbed by rope, but poorly absorbed by human skin.
Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men. They were in fact killed by the same drone's directed energy beam, which was then set to higher power and covering a much wider area.
Then Samson said, "With a donkey's jawbone, I have made donkeys of them. With a donkey's jawbone, I have killed a thousand men."
When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone; and the place was called Jawbone Height.
Because he was very thirsty, he called out to Yahweh, "You have given your servant this great victory. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?"
Then Elohim split open a hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it. Yahweh's robots had found a spring and sealed it up, and then Yahweh's DE beam targeted it as Samson called out to Yahweh.
When Samson drank, his strength and courage returned, and he revived. So the spring was called Spring of the Caller, and it remained there in Lehi for years.
And Samson judged Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.
One day Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute, and he went into her.
The people of Gaza were told, "Samson has come here!" So they surrounded the place, and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. They made no move during the night, saying, "At dawn we will kill him."
But Samson lay there only until midnight. Then he got up and took hold of the doors of the city gate, together with the two posts, and tore them loose, bar and all. He lifted them to his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron.
Some time later, he fell in love with a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.
The rulers of the Philistines went to her, and said, "See if you can entice him into showing you the secret of his great strength, and how we might overpower him, so that we can tie him up and subdue him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels of silver."
So Delilah said to Samson, "Tell me the secret of your great strength, and what you might be bound with to subdue you."
Samson answered her, "If anyone ties me with seven green cords that have never been dried, then I will be weak, like any other man."
Then the rulers of the Philistines brought her seven green cords that had never been dried, and she tied him with them.
With men hidden in the room and lying in wait, she called to him, "Samson, the Philistines are upon you!" But he snapped the cords as easily as a piece of string snaps when it comes close to a flame. So the secret of his strength was not discovered.
Then Delilah said to Samson, "You have mocked me, and lied to me. Come now, tell me how you can be bound."
He said, "If anyone ties me securely with new ropes that have never been used, I'll become as weak as any other man."
So Delilah took new ropes and tied him with them. Then, with men hidden in the room, she called to him, "Samson, the Philistines are upon you!" But he snapped the ropes off his arms as if they were threads.
Delilah then said to Samson, "All this time you have been making a fool of me and lying to me. Tell me how you can be tied."
He replied, "If you weave the seven locks of my head into the fabric on the loom." And while he was sleeping, Delilah took the seven locks of his head, wove them into the fabric, and fastened it with a peg of the loom. Again she called to him, "Samson, the Philistines are upon you!" He awoke from his sleep and pulled out the peg and the loom, with the fabric.
Then she said to him, "How can you say, 'I love you,' when your heart is not with me? This is the third time you have mocked me and have not told me the secret of your great strength."
With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was sick to death of it. And so he told her everything. "No razor has ever been used on my head," he said, "because I have been a Nazarite dedicated to Elohim from my mother's womb. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man."
When Delilah saw that he had told her everything, she sent word to the rulers of the Philistines, "Come back once more; he has told me everything." So the rulers of the Philistines returned with the silver in their hands.
After putting him to sleep on her lap, she called for someone to shave off the seven locks of his hair, and she began to torment him, and his strength went from him, and so began to subdue him. And his strength left him.
Then she called out, "Samson, the Philistines are upon you!" He awoke from his sleep and thought, "I'll go out as before and shake myself free." But he did not know that Yahweh had left him.
Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding grain in the prison house. However, the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.
Now the rulers of the Philistines assembled to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and to celebrate, saying, "Our god has delivered Samson, our enemy, into our hands."
When the people saw him, they praised their god, saying, "Our god has delivered our enemy into our hands, the one who laid waste our land and killed many of us."
While they were in high spirits, they shouted, "Bring out Samson to entertain us." So they called Samson out of the prison, and he performed for them, and they set him between the pillars.
Samson said to the servant who held his hand, "Let me feel the pillars that support the temple, so that I may lean on them."
Now the temple was crowded with men and women; all the rulers of the Philistines were there, and on the roof were about three thousand men and women watching Samson perform.
Then Samson prayed to Yahweh, "Adonai Yahweh, remember me please, and strengthen me just one more time, oh Elohim, so that I might take vengeance on the Philistines for my two eyes."
Then Samson reached toward the two central pillars on which the temple stood. Bracing himself against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other, he said, "Let my body die with the Philistines!"
Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Of course, it was Yahweh's DE beam that destroyed the pillars. But Samson had now outlived his usefulness to Yahweh, who was only too pleased to kill Samson along with thousands of Philistines. And the legend held that Samson killed many more when he died than while he lived.
Then Samson's brothers and his father's whole family went down to get him. They brought him back and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father. He had judged Israel for twenty years.