wakened the wrath of Jehovah, the god. And he smote the men of
Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the Lord, even
he smote of the people fifty thousand and three score and ten men; and
the people lamented, because the Lord had smitten many of the people
with a great slaughter. And the men of Beth-shemesh said, Who is able
to stand before this holy Lord God?

This terrible old Hebrew divinity said of himself that he was "a
jealous god". Throughout the time of his sway he issued through his
ministers precise instructions for the most revolting cruelties, the
extermination of whole nations of men, women and children, whose sole
offense was that they did not pay tribute to Jehovah's priests. Thus,
for example, the chief of his prophets, Moses, called the people
together, and with all solemnity, and with many warnings, handed down
ten commandments graven upon stone tablets; he went on to set forth
how the people were to set upon and rob their neighbors, and gave them
these blood-thirsty instructions:

When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither
thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations
before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the
Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the
Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and
mightier than thou; And when the Lord thy God shall deliver
them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy
them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy
unto them: ... But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall
destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut
down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.
For thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord