chapter 10

And the Lord told Moses to have two silver trumpets made to summon the people and direct the troops. Long blows for coming together. One long blow, just the chiefs. Short blows, the east troops move.

Numbers is like a handbook: How to control a 600,000-man army, illiterate and superstitious and ignorant, in a desert. And keep the luxury for the priests while the rest of the millions are in adventure desert camping mode.

Aaron’s sons, the priests, are the trumpets players. They weren’t nowhere as good as Wynton Marsalis

“Blow you trumpets over your roast beef to remind you I am the Lord. Your God.”

In the second year, Feb. 20th, it was time to leave the bubbling piles of shit and rotting waste there by God’s Mount Sinai and move to the wilderness of Paran and fill that with shit.

The troops set out and the tent of the Priests was taken down, a few people killed for looking, and moved. And the million head of cattle, the wives and children.

The original tells ya what divisions moved first and second and who they were. In charge of what and how talented the silly primates acted. Circus apes.

Hobah, the father of Moses’ wife, told Moses he’d go home when Moses told him of the promise land. And he wanted him as a guide. Moses did. Advisor perhaps also. And it was the normal formality.

With their Ark going before, they marched three days.

Moses said.

“Go onward Lord and scare away the enemy. And come back when we set up camp.”


chapter 11

Well, well, well. The people started bitchin’ before the Lord. So he sent fire to the camp.

“Help.”

Moses asked the Lord to settle down and he did.

So they called the place Taberah, to burn, ‘cause the Lord get’s pissed off some times. And he loves the smell of burnt flesh.

The riffraff got a gluttonous craving.

“We want some fuckin’ meat. In Egypt we had fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. We eat only fuckin’ manna.”

Let’s just pretend the story is real and ask if they didn’t have the odd bit of milk from any of their animals and maybe even a little meat. Who knows, maybe not.

Now manna was like coriander seed. You can boil it, grind it and make bread. Or something similar to bread only yuckier.

The chiefs told the weeping story to Moses and it distressed him and pissed the Lord right off.

Moses said. “I didn’t make these people. Why must I be continually pestered by them. They eat meat on holidays. That’s enough. I can’t take all this fuckin’ pressure. Just fuckin’ kill me and put me out of my misery.”

So the Lord made a counsel of elders to make Moses’ job easier.

The Lord gave them special power, like talking gibberish and making proclamations.

“Tell the people to purify yourselves for tomorrow you will eat meat. You wined enough. We know Egypt was a fine place. But I am the Lord and will drop so much fuckin’ meat on you sorry mother fuckers it will be coming out your nose.”

The Lord was always over reacting. No self control.

“Why the fuck did we leave Egypt. After we terrorized them, destroyed everything and murdered a bunch more, they kicked us out. Remember.”

Moses goes to the Lord and says. “Where the hell we gonna get so much meat. Could enough herds, flocks or oceans of fish be enough to satisfy them.”

“You forget who you are talking to.”

So the Lord blows quail from the sea and piled them two cubits, about a meter high. On the ground.

Sea quail. A sea of sea quail in the desert. Must be true if it is written.

They ate quail. Rotten quail after a few weeks, in the hot sun until a plague broke out and killed the protein starved slaves. Maybe scurvy.

So they named the place Kibroth-hattaavah to remind poor people not to want meat. Meat is for the ruling class. Manna for the poor.

Then they went to Hazeroth.


chapter 12

Although Aaron had seen Moses kill two of his sons and dishonor them even in their death, he had the nerve, him and his wife Miriam, to question the actions of the Lord’s top man.

“He married a Cashite woman!” Slut. Whore. Tramp. Definitely not a Levite. Filthy low life. Bad Genes.

Now the Lord got wind of the bitchin’ like he always did.

And Moses, the mass murderer, was a very humble man. For a demented gold hungry dictator megalomaniac. More humbler then any man on Earth. In fact.

So the Lord calls out to the three of them.

“Get your asses to the tent of meeting.”

They did. And the Lord came in on a cloud of smoke and ordered Aaron and Miriam to listen up.

“Look, puny humans. I make myself known to prophets in dreams. Visions. But my servant Moses can make himself at home in my chambers. We talk mouth to mouth. No riddles, like for every other human on the planet, unless you count the pope when he comes.”

“What’s a pope.”

“Shut up and listen. Moses looks like the Lord. How do you dare speak against him.”

The Lord fucked off and Miriam was left covered in white scales. Leprosy.

So Aaron begs the Lord to stop the torture.

“Okay, we fucked up. We should never question Authority even if it is tyrannical. Don’t let her be like a still born with its flesh rotted away in the womb.”

So Moses goes to the Lord and tries bargaining.

But the Lord said, “If her father spat in her face she would have to wallow for seven days. Put her out of the camp. In seven days she can come back.”

So they did and waited seven days for snow white scaled Miriam and then went on to the wilderness of Paran.


chapters 13 - 15