The Old Testament's Two Biggest Idiots

And I'm not talking about Adam and Eve

We’ve gotten several episodes into this “Bible for Sickos” project without really telling particularly JEWISH versions of these stories. I mean, yes, of course, they are tales from the Hebrew Bible, aka the Old Testament, whatever you call it. But Christians would tell the story of Esther, Sodom, of Judah and Tamar pretty much the same way as I did. Maybe with less swearing.

Well, fuck that shit. Today, we're going Rabbinic.

The ancient rabbis were mega-sensitive to linguistic repetitions, basically taking a waste-not approach to language. Every single word of the Torah is presumed ultrasignificant and capable of drastically altering our understanding of the text. A perfect example of this tendency comes through the characters of Datan and Aviram, not invented but enlarged through this style of close reading.

So, yeah, we are getting pretty freaking obscure. Jump in, today we're telling a story the rabbinic way. It starts with Moses.

Lawrence Alma-Tadema, The Finding of Moses, 1904

You probably know a thing or two about Moses. Born to slaves, to escape Pharaoh’s oppression he’s tucked into a wicker basket and launched into the Nile. He drifts into the arms of Pharaoh's own daughter. She takes him from the river and raises him in the palace as her own son.

Did Moses look Hebrew? Maybe he did, maybe his whole ethnic situation was written all over his face and build. Or maybe he was circumcised; that’s a pretty big clue.¹ Maybe all that's wrong, maybe he spoke Yiddish-inflected Coptic and had a confusing urge for pickled foods, but the point is that somehow he DID figure out who he was.

One day, Moses, now a strapping young man, is walking outside the palace. He sees an Egyptian master beating a Hebrew slave, and it’s an enthusiastic beating. He’s really letting him have it, much harder than he should. He’s gonna kill that Hebrew. 

Moses walks up behind the slave master with a rock. He checks to see if anyone is nearby, and, satisfied that he’s unseen, Moses lodges the rock in the Egyptian’s skull. Moses buries him in the sand and walks away, his hands in his pockets, whistling to himself, making chitchat with passerby.

Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Julius, Moses Removing A Fucking Baseball Bat From His Clock, 19th Century

The next day, Moses goes out, and once again he stumbles on a beatdown in progress. He approaches—but this violence is a Hebrew-on-Hebrew affair. Moses tries to break up the fight.

Moses can’t use a rock; he’s stuck using words. Come on guys, that’s enough, be chill, etc. Anyone who has ever seen a fight knows how well this worked for him.

The guy doing the beating is holding the other Hebrew by the neck, and he stops and looks at Moses. He smiles at Moses, and even worse, the guy he’s beating the shit out of smiles too.

And what are you going to do, says the beater. Crush me with a rock?

Moses runs away, directly out from Egypt and into the wilderness, where no one knows his murdery history. He remakes himself into a desert shepherd, stumbles onto a burning bush…badabing, badaboom, the rest is history.

But wait—who were those two guys, the two Hebrew best frenemies who sent him packing? Well, that's just it; they're two guys. The text doesn’t even bother to mention their names. I mean, seriously: who cares?

Did someone say, who cares? Watch out, here come the rabbis! The ancient rabbis turned caring about this kind of stuff into high art. And, having given it some thought, they are pretty sure they know who these two guys were, and the sort of trouble they were capable of.

Botticcelli, Sandro, The Punishment of the Rebels, 1481-82.

Approximately one Exodus after that Dead Egyptian, a 250-person mob approaches Moses’ tent. Knock, knock, says Korach, their leader.

Moses comes out. Korach loudly coughs into his fist and speaks.

I think I speak for all of us—he gestures back at his assembled crowd—all of us when I say, thank you so much Moses for your service. The Ten Commandments? Who could forget. And what about those plagues? As we now shift to the next stage of national leadership, we would like to collectively say, three cheers for our Prophet Emeritus, Moses! Yay, Moses!

The crowd cheers and claps. Moses stares hard at Korach.

Yes, says Korach, it is time for a new model of leadership. As you yourself taught us, Moses, we are a sacred and chosen people. Or, I’m sorry, that’s what God told you. Anyhoo, seeing as we are a sacred people, we simply have no need for a single prophet to raise themselves above us all. In a way, Moses, you’re standing in the way of your own message—ironic, no? No? Don’t you agree, Moses?

Moses is still staring, but now he’s looking past Korach. He’s glaring directly at two men in the row directly behind Korach, introduced by the text as Datan and Aviram, sons of Eliab, descendants of Reuben.

The men catch Moses’ gaze. They stare right back, then break into laughter. They make obscene gestures in Moses direction and high-five each other.

That’s Datan and Aviram for you. And the rabbis had an insight—that those two guys in Egypt are the same as these two fucking idiots.

The rabbis go further: any time some unnamed “guys” complain or pick a fight, it’s actually a coded reference to Datan and Aviram, the Bible’s biggest chowderheads.

They were the unnamed assholes who chased Moses out of Egypt.

While standing in front of the Red Sea, some anonymous jerks raise the possibility that maybe Moses has no idea what he’s doing, and possibly they’re all about to get drowned and/or stabbed by Pharaoh’s large army. Datan and Aviram were those anonymous jerks.

When literal manna falls from the sky to feed the Hebrews, two fuckers try to hoard more than their allotted share. By morning the leftover manna was infested with maggots and Moses was furious at the example they’d set. That’s them again, laughing it off while Moses fumes.

Money Booth, but for manna. Source.

And here they are now at the heart of Korach’s rebellion, the only incident in which they are explicitly named. And now, while they chuckle their asses off, Moses glares at them.

OK God, Moses finally says, turning his face heavenward. Can you take care of this one?

•

Korach is walking around the camp with his crowd of men, making speeches about equality and leadership to confused shepherds. There is talk of a sort of sacrificial gauntlet to see which leader God favors—whatever, Moses doesn’t seem to care. Amidst this hubbub he sends a messenger out—tell Datan and Aviram to come to my tent. Tell them I want to talk.

A few hours later the messenger returns. I’m sorry, Moses, he says. They are unable to attend at the present moment.

Moses furrows his brow and scratches his beard. Did they give a message?

The messenger’s face grows white while he stares at the floor. In his hand is a piece of parchment. He tries to hide it from Moses. Moses takes it from his hand and reads it:

DEAR STUPID MOSES,

YOU WERE A PUNK BACK IN EGYPT AND YOU’RE A PUNK NOW. YOU KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WANDERING THE DESERT AND BEING LITERAL SLAVES? WE DON’T EITHER, BUT AT LEAST YOU GAVE US A LIST OF ANIMALS NOT TO EAT. THAT WAS SARCASTIC BY THE WAY. ALSO YOU KILLED A GUY. FUCK YOU MOSES.

XOXOXOXOX

D&A

Moses thanks the messenger, stands up and walks into the middle of the Hebrew camp. He clambers on top of a particularly tall rock, and a crowd gathers round.

I have an announcement, he says. Please move all your items directly away from the tents of Datan and Aviram. Korach too. My advice is to do this right now.

Datan and Aviram come out of their tents. Around them people are running like mad, trying to get as far away from them as possible. Datan and Aviram are smiling. They are surrounded by their kids, each and every one of them also grinning like assholes.

Moses turns back to the Israelite crowd. Never a great speaker, he searches for the right words. These guys, he says. These guys have—well, they’ve always sucked. And…

But Moses doesn’t have a chance to finish. His voice is overtaken by a loud rumble. It’s an earthquake, or something akin to one. And these guys, their possessions, their many stupid wives, their impish children, and their stupid laughing faces are gobbled up by the Earth itself. They descend down, down, down into a giant pit. Then the Earth closes up, and Datan and Aviram are no more.

Buh bye!

The Bible will go on to document more complaints and crises, a truly unending litany of Israelite pettiness and misbehavior. These goddamn people are never satisfied and always looking for trouble. Moses walks back to his tent and closes the curtain. Any moment there will be some other awful guys to deal with.

But for the first time in years, not Datan and Aviram. And Moses smiles.

1. My wife, who knows lots of stuff, points out that the Egyptians were circumcised, so this sentence is stupid. But then she points out that the Egyptians were only circumcised at puberty, so maybe the sentence is OK. Thank you, wife.