1 Samuel
Introduction

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31

Absurdities
Cruelty and Violence
Injustice
Contradictions
Intolerance
Family Values
Women
Sex
Homosexuality
Interpretation
Language
Science and History
Good Stuff
SAB: 1 Samuel

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Cruelty and Violence in 1 Samuel

  1. "The Lord killeth ..." -- every chance he gets. 2:6, 2:25

  2. "The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces; out of heaven shall he thunder upon them." If God doesn't like you, he'll send a thunderstorm your way to break your body into little pieces. 2:10

  3. God will kill those who sin against him. 2:25

  4. If you piss him off, God will cut off your arm, consume your eyes, grieve your heart, and kill your sons and grandfathers. 2:31-34

  5. God will punish Eli's descendants forever for the sins of Eli's sons. 3:12-13

  6. God smites the people of Ashdod with hemorrhoids "in their secret parts." 5:6-12

  7. God kills 50,070 men for looking into the ark. "And the people lamented, because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter." 6:19

  8. "I make a covenant with your, that I may thrust out all your right eyes." Deals like this can only be found in the Bible. 11:2

  9. "And the spirit of God came upon Saul ... and he took a yoke of oxen, and hewed them in pieces, and sent them throughout all the coast of Israel." People do the darnedest things when the spirit of God comes upon them! 11:6-7

  10. "Saul ... slew the Ammorites unto the heat of the day." Then he took a little break. After all, killing is hard work. 11:11

  11. God delivers the Philistines into Jonathan's hand. And his very "first slaughter ... was about twenty men." Not bad for a first slaughter. 14:12

  12. Under God's influence, the Philistines killed each other. 14:20

  13. But later, Saul and his army kill all of those who had not already been killed. 14:36

  14. God orders Saul to kill all of the Amalekites: men, women, infants, sucklings, ox, sheep, camels, and asses. Why? Because God remembers what Amalek did hundreds of years ago. 15:2-3

  15. Saul killed everyone but Agag (the king) and the best of the animals. But still God was furious with Saul for not killing everything as he had been told to do. He said, "it repenteth me that I have set Saul up to be king." 15:7-26

  16. Saul is rebuked by Samuel for "doing evil in the sight of the Lord" by failing to kill all of the Amalekites. 15:18-19

  17. Because Saul didn't kill everyone as God commanded, God changes his mind about him being king. 15:23-26

  18. To please God, Samuel hacks Agag in pieces "before the Lord" [I bet God enjoyed that!] -- after Agag pleads with him saying, "surely the bitterness of death has past." 15:32-34

  19. After God rejects Saul for refusing to kill indiscriminately, he sends Samuel to find another king. David is chosen and anointed by Samuel, and "the spirit of the Lord came upon him from that day forward." 16:13

  20. The evil spirit from the Lord
    "But the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul [since he was not murderous enough for God], and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him." But if God is good, then how could he have an evil spirit? 16:14-16, 23

  21. David kills Goliath with his sling, beheads him, and carries the head back to Jerusalem. 17:51-57

  22. David and Saul have a contest to see who can kill the most people for God, and the women act as cheerleaders saying, "Saul has killed his thousands, and David his tens of thousands." 18:6-7, 21:11, 29:5

  23. David kills 200 Philistines and brings their foreskins to Saul to buy his first wife (Saul's daughter Michal). Saul had only asked for 100 foreskins, but David was feeling generous. 18:25-27

  24. "David went out, and fought with the Philistines, and slew them with a great slaughter." 19:8

  25. Saul kills 85 priests of Nob and all men, women, children, and animals in the city of Nob. 22:18-19

  26. "David inquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I go and smite these Philistines? And the Lord said unto David, Go, and smite the Philistines ... So David smote them with a great slaughter." 23:2-5

  27. David vows to kill "any that pisseth against the wall." 25:22, 34

  28. "And it came to pass about ten days after, that the Lord smote Nabal, that he died." This was convenient for David who then took his property and his wife, Abigail. 25:38

  29. "And David smote the land and left neither man nor woman alive." (No wonder God liked David so much!) 27:8-11

  30. Saul visits a woman with a "familiar spirit" and she brings Samuel back from the dead. Samuel once again explains that God is angry at Saul for not killing all of the Amalekites. He says God is going to deliver all of Israel into the hands of the Philistines. (Since Saul refused to slaughter innocent people, God will slaughter the Israelites. Fair is fair.) 28:8-19

  31. David spends the day killing more of those pesky Amalekites. They are completely wiped out again. (See 1 Sam.15:7-8, 20 and 27:8-9 for the last two times that they were exterminated.) 30:17