Today’s Scripture Reading (October
20, 2015): Deuteronomy 3
Zombies. Our
culture seems to be obsessed with them. Essentially a zombie results from the
reanimation of a dead body. The myth of the zombie originated from the idea
that there was a magic powerful enough to even make the dead live. Modern
tellings of the Zombie myth often rely on a virus that reanimates the human
body after death. In appearance, the zombie features the rotting flesh of a
dead body. In intelligence, well, that in the current myth tends to be
completely lacking along with any speed of movement. But what is left is
persistence, great strength and a hunger for human flesh. And of course, while
the body might be dead, the virus that caused the zombie to reanimate in the
first place is alive and well – and can be transferred from the zombie to the
live human in a zombie attack. According to the myth, the appearance of the
zombie can be frightening, the persistence and strength can be dangerous, especially
when combined with the zombie’s inability to die unless killed in a specific way.
But the lack of intelligence and slow robotic movement of the zombie is
humanity’s salvation. Zombies usually can be avoided.
Og was a King,
but the king had some mythical elements. The first being that he was large. We
are a little uncertain about the word that we have translated as bed and some
have thought that the original intent of the word indicated his sarcophagus or
burial receptacle. But either way, if the bed or the sarcophagus was built to
the measure of the man, then Og was huge. In standard measurements the size
would have been about fourteen feet (or four meters) by six feet (or just
slightly less than two meters.) His width was the height of a tall man in our
culture, and his height was twice the height of a tall basketball player (or
more specifically he was almost twice the size of Shaquille O’Neal.) Og was a
massive man.
But it was
not just the King’s size that might have struck fear into the hearts of Israel.
Og was reportedly the last of the Rephaites or Raphaim. And the
word Raphaim appear to have two definitions. The first, and definitely the one
that is intended by this verse, is that they were a race of ancient giants.
This passage describes his bed (or sarcophagus) as being ‘decorated with iron’
but it might be closer to the original intention of the words to say that they
were made of Iron. Nothing else could have been an adequate support for the
sheer weight of the king.
But Raphaim, or more specifically Rapha’im, is also the name of the
undead members of the Netherworld – or zombies with brains. These were
literally the long dead ancestors or dead kings that still inhabited the earth.
Ancient Israel seems to have had an active belief in the ability of the dead
spirits to either bless or curse the living. And if you had to fight against a
member of the undead legions, well, even the bravest warrior would likely find
his moment of weakness.
Og and the
Raphaites may have even played up this part of their reputation. But Moses
makes it clear that even Og – regardless of whether he was a giant or a dead
king, or both – was unable to stand against the God of Israel. And if Og had failed,
who exactly did Israel believe could defeat their God?
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy
4
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