I know, I know, I am supposed to capitalize all the words in the title. But I can’t bring myself to capitalize the word “gods.” It feels sacrilegious. Ok, back to the point. While God might not be mocked, He sure does like to mock other gods. Here’s a couple of examples.
The Plagues of Egypt
One way to look at the plagues of Egypt during the days where Moses was asking Pharoah to let God’s people go is that God was systematically defeating (or maybe mocking) the various gods of the Egyptians. When He turned the Nile into blood, maybe He was picking on Hapi and Isis the god and goddess of the Nile. Or my favorite plague when God sent all the frogs, He was probably going at Heqet who was a goddess of fertility but often depicted with a frog head. I like the plague because the Egyptians would never kill a frog because that was a messenger of the Nile telling them the water would soon rise helping to flood their fields. So God sent so many frogs they couldn’t take a step without killing one. I just picture all these people shuffling their feet trying to shew 12 billion frogs away. With each plague, the people prayed to their gods like Geb, Khepri, Hathor, Apis, Sekhmet, Imhotep, Nut, Shu, Seth, and Neper as flies, gnats, locusts, boils, sickness, and death destroyed their way of life. But none of their prayers were answered. The plagues kept coming. It reminds me of when Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal, and they begged and pleaded for Baal to respond as Elijah is laughing at them and saying things like get louder… Baal might have his noise canceling headphones on… maybe he took too much Ambien. The same appears to be true in Egypt. A lot of people are looking at the sorcerers and witch doctors telling them to fix this. But they were at a loss. God really dropped the mic when He went right at Ra the sun god and Horus the sky god and brought darkness all over the land. Then not even Osiris could stop the death of the firstborn sons in Egypt. Even Pharoah himself (considered a god by the people) couldn’t save his own child.
The Walls of Jericho
There’s a little speculation here, and while I wouldn’t preach it as a fact, I don’t mind mentioning it as a real possibility in a blog post. Here’s two facts. Fact numero uno. One of the predominate gods of the Canaanites was Moloch. The pagans inhabiting the land would sacrifice their children to this god for good luck and blessings in life. Some scholars think that Moloch might not be his name but the name for the act of sacrificing a child. (One of the reasons I say that there is nothing new under the sun is that people were lied to 4,500 years ago that their life would be better if they sacrificed their baby, and people are still lied to today that aborting their baby will make them more successful in business or have a less stressful life or some such nonsense). Fact number two. Archeologists have found lots of babies in jars throughout ancient Canaan, especially in Jericho. These jar babies were likely connected to child sacrifice as they were put under floorboards and in walls to likely “bless” the home in some way. This brings a whole new angle on why God may have wanted the walls of Jericho to come tumbling down. Those walls may have been lined with sacrificed babies. That wickedness needed to end. God told the Israelites to spare no one in the city. Moloch has no power. His walls couldn’t even withstand the voices of God’s people.
Jonah and the “Whale”
Our church is going through the story of Jonah, and this connection was made. One of the deities of the Ninevite pantheon was Dagon. He’s probably a fertility god like most but he is depicted as a half-man, half-fish. That’s right, he’s a mermaid. (Someone in the back doing a Zoolander impression, “Merman… merman!”) So here comes this guy, Jonah, walking up to the Ninevites smelling like rotting fish guts baking in the Iraqi sun. How did he get there? He was swallowed up by some sort of giant sea-monster, fish thing and delivered to their shores. So who delivered this messenger? In their mind, Dagon. Dagon delivered this man, and they better listen. And listen they did. Dagon gave the messenger credibility, and the message he delivered scared them into action. The God of Israel was angry at them, and they better repent. God could have punished and/or transported Jonah any way He wanted. He picked the funniest way possible, and the way in which the Ninevites would think Dagon did it. The One True God rules the whole world – everything on the land and in the sea and everything in the seen and the unseen realm. I don’t think God actually commanded Dagon to special deliver Jonah to Nineveh, because I don’t believe in mermaids. But if mermaids are real, and Dagon really did rule the Mediterranean Sea, yes, God could make him do whatever He wanted. (God has toyed with Dagon before, see 1 Samuel 5:1-5)
To review, whether these ancient deities were actually some sort of demonic entity or just the concoctions of superstitions warmongers, God mocks, dominates, or utilizes these false gods to reveal His existence, power, and sovereignty.
(I’ve been busy working on my PhD for the last 5 years, but I’m done now. I’ll try to start posting my weird thoughts on the Bible, theology, Christianity, and ministry again. Do people even read blogs anymore? I don’t have the time for a 3-hour podcast, that’s for sure, goodness.)
Joe Allotta 