Answers

1. Foreskins, of course—just what any young woman wants for her bride price.

Saul replied, “Say to David, ‘The king wants no other price for the bride than a hundred Philistine foreskins, to take revenge on his enemies.’” Saul’s plan was to have David fall by the hands of the Philistines. . . .

David took his men with him and went out and killed two hundred Philistines and brought back their foreskins. They counted out the full number to the king so that David might become the king’s son-in-law. Then Saul gave him his daughter Michal in marriage. (1 Samuel 18:25–7)

2. Known as a “blood oath,” walking between the cut-up animals meant one would become like them should you break your oath.

Those who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces. The leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests and all the people of the land who walked between the pieces of the calf. (Jeremiah 34:18–19)

3. The Bible says that the Israelites miraculously received water from a rock twice (Exodus 17:1–7 and Numbers 20:1–13). 1 Corinthians 10:4 reflects a common ancient interpretation—that the Israelites were followed by a water source during their wilderness wanderings. Since Moses used the same name “Meribah” for both the rock at Rephidim (Exodus 17:7) and the one at Kadesh (Numbers 20:13), the logical conclusion was that both were the same rock and that it must have accompanied the Israelites on their journey.

4. The poetic prophet was Ezekiel.

There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses. (Ezekiel 23:20)

The “she” here is a young woman who stands in for Jerusalem. The speaker here is God, and he is describing how this woman prostituted herself first to the Egyptians and then, back in Mesopotamia, with Assyrians and Babylonians.

5. God’s bow would shoot lightning bolts.

He shot his arrows and scattered the enemy, with great bolts of lightning he routed them. (Psalm 18:14)

This connection between arrows and lightning is also made in Psalm 77:17–18 and Psalm 144:6.

(We see a major continuity error, however, since had God promised to put up his bow after Noah’s flood in Genesis 9:13. It’s the rainbow you see after a storm. This means that God couldn’t have fired any lightning-arrows.)

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