Chapter Four: David and the Visitors
Moses is now dead and it is Joshua‘s task to conquer Canaan. It seems like a most hopeless mission. The country is dotted with strongly fortified towns and the people,experienced warriors all, greatly outnumber the Israelites.
But they hadn’t counted on the God of Israel and his new-fangled weaponry.
Joshua 3-…stay about a mile behind,with a clear space between you and the Ark;be sure you don’t get any closer…The Ark of God,who is Lord of the whole Earth,will lead you across the river…When the priests who are carrying the Ark touch the water with their feet,the river will stop flowing…and will pile up as though against an invisible wall.
4-and the twelve stones from the Jordan were piled up as a monument.
5-The Lord then told Joshua to set aside a day to circumcise the entire male population of Israel.
6-Your entire army is to walk around the city once a day for six days,followed by seven priests walking ahead of the Ark,each carrying a trumpet…On the seventh day you are to walk around the city with the priests blowing their trumpets.Then when they give one,long blast,all the people are to give a mighty shout and the walls of the city will fall down… But all the silver and gold and the utensils of bronze and iron will be dedicated to the Lord,and must be brought into his treasury.
7-God’s command to destroy everything except that which was reserved for the Lord’s treasury was disobeyed…So (Israel) was defeated.
10-As the enemy was racing down the hill To Beth-Horon,the Lord destroyed them with great hailstones…As the men of Israel were pursuing and harassing the foe… the sun and the moon didn’t move until Israel had finished destruction of its enemies…the sun stopped in the heavens and stayed there almost twenty-four hours.
11-During this period Joshua routed all of the giants-the descendants of Anak.None was left in the land of Israel…
The Ark is essential to the success of Joshua’s army. It leads the soldiers into battle and when carried around Jericho for a week,creates a force field which destroys the city’s fortifications by the amplification of trumpet blasts. When the Ark’s powers are irrelevant to an open battle situation,God helps with artillery power.
God has taken a lot of trouble to form a unique people to obey his commands.
He instructs them to build monuments where his miracles took place to form nation-building legends and to keep his memory alive.He has the men circumcized for health reasons,including the reduction of cervical cancer and to set them apart.
In return He asks for obedience and all the metal captured in battle,which undoubtedly was of value to Him. Perhaps the aliens needed the metal for shipbuilding or maybe,they valued gold and silver for the same reasons as earth inhabitants,beauty and rarity.
When He was disobeyed and an Israelite withheld His booty,He withheld his invaluable help in battle.This is possibly,the most recurring theme in the scriptures. Without total obedience to God’s commands,Israel is foresaken and left to suffer at the hands of her enemies.
Judges 2-One day the Angel of the Lord arrived…and announced to the people of Israel,”…And now since you have broken the contract…I no longer promise to destroy the nations living in your land…So when the nation of Israel went out to battle against its enemies,the Lord blocked their path.
13- Then one day the Angel of the Lord appeared to the wife of Manoah…and said to her,”Even though you have been barren so long,you will soon conceive and have a son.Don’t drink any wine or beer and don’t eat any food that isn’t kosher.
Then Manoah took a young goat and a grain offering and offered it as a sacrifice to the Lord;And the Angel did a strange and wonderful thing,for as the flames from the altar were leaping up toward the sky,and as Manoah and his wife watched,the Angel ascended in the fire.
The artificial insemination of Israelites occurs throughout the testaments.
The octogenarian Sarah produced Isaac from alien seed as did Mary,Jesus.
Mark 1-“Joseph,son of David,”the angel said,”don’t hesitate to take Mary as your wife! For the child within her has been conceived by the Holy Spirit.”
To prevent miscarriage,the Angel offers sensible advice; eat good food and don’t drink alcohol. Once his mission had been completed and he had a healthy meal for the flight,the Angel climbed into his craft and took off.Indeed a strange and wonderful thing, as was the conception itself which produced Samson,who like Joshua,would later fell an impregnable structure with the Lord’s help.
Samuel 3-Messages from the Lord were very rare in those days.but one night…Samuel was sleeping in the Temple near the Ark and the Lord called out,”Samuel,Samuel.” … “Let’s bring the Ark here from Shilo,”…So they sent for the Ark of the Lord of heaven who is enthroned above the angels.
5-The Philistines took the captured Ark of God…to the temple of their idol Dagan…but the next morning the same thing happened -the idol had fallen before the Ark of the Lord again…Then the Lord began to destroy the people of Ashdod and nearby villages with bubonic plague.
7-Just as Samuel was sacrificing a burnt offering,the Philistines arrived for battle,but the Lord spoke with a might voice of thunder from heaven…and the Israelis routed them.
21-Later during a war with the Philistines at Gob,Sibbecai the Hushathite killed Saph,another giant…And once when the Philistines and the Israelis were fighting at Gath, a giant with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, defied Israel and David’s nephew Jonathan…killed him. These four were from the tribe of giants in Gath…
22-Then the earth shook and trembled; The foundations of the heavens quaked Because of his wrath. Smoke poured from his nostrils; Fire leaped from his mouth And burned up all before him, Setting fire to the world. He bent the heavens down and came to earth; He walked upon dark clouds. He rode upon the
glorious- On the wings of the wind.Darkness surrounded him, And clouds were thick around him; The earth was radiant with his brightness. The Lord thundered from heaven; The God above all gods gave out a mighty shout. He shot forth his arrows of lightning And routed his enemy.
The lesson here is that anyone who absconds with the holy Ark will be rewarded with biological warfare. The Philistines,who numbered amongst their warriors the descendents of the giants,made the mistake of capturing the Ark and paid for it in their cities and on the battlefield.
The author of the poem quoted last was David,another prophet who had recently had an encounter with an alien.(Samuel 24-When David saw the angel,he said to the Lord…)He offers a superb description of the Lord’s spacecraft with fire spitting from its mouth,flying down from heaven to cloud level and illuminating the darkness. The craft’s battlefield methods are also meticulously recorded. The Lord’s armies seemed to have used conventional weapons that made a booming noise before shooting either shells or concentrated particles of light.
The same remarkable description continues in the story of Elijah but with a far more dramatic conclusion.
2 Kings 1-But Elijah replied,”If I am a man of God,let fire come down from the heaven and destroy you and your fifty men.”Then lightning struck them and killed them…And again the fire from God burned them up. 2- Now the time came for the Lord to take Elijah to heaven-by means of a whirlwind…Then Elijah folded his cloak together and struck the water with it; and the river divided…As they were walking along talking,suddenly a chariot of fire,drawn by horses of fire appeared…and Elijah was carried by a whirlwind into heaven.
Could anything be clearer? To reiterate,the ancient Hebrews saw a vehicle spinning and no other word in their vocabulary than sufa or whirlwind came close to describing what they had witnessed.
Before Elijah was taken to his final and unknown destination in the heavens,he bequeathed his mission to Elisha under the watchful eyes of the extraterrestrial visitors.(2 Kings 6-Then Elisha prayed…and the Lord opened the young man’s eyes so that he could see the horses of fire and chariots of fire upon the mountain.)
It’s impossible to guess how many Israelites where chosen by the aliens to convey their messages for the poor communicators were undoutedly lost to history. Up to this point in the scriptures,God’s prophets would be lost without ample displays of technological power before a skeptical people.
Moses was,,self-admittedly, a very poor speaker and not terribly charismatic. He was,however, a highly intelligent clerk who absorbed instructions and successfuly conveyed them.Joshua won his following because of his success as a general.Samuel,Elijah and Elisha were powerful and persuasive figures in their day but their deeds lack the complete depth of more profound encounters called inspiration.
What the visitors needed to immortalise their mission was a writing genius,someone who could move the people to devotion with his passion. That person turned out to be David.