In other words, Moses ordered a massacre of Israelites whom he regarded as his enemies, people who had challenged his authority in the form of dancing around the golden calf.
Robert Alter in his 2004 book, The Five Books of Moses, comments on Moses's instruction: "each man kill his brother," etc.
"This chilling command enjoins the sword-wielding Levites to show no mercy to friend or kin," Alter wrote. "The figure of three thousand dead in the next verse indicates that this is not an indiscriminate massacre but an assault on the ringleaders -- or perhaps, those guilty of the most egregious excesses -- among the orgiasts."
It also seemed that whenever Moses was setting some rule, whether as grand as the Ten Commandants or as minor as personal hygiene, he always invoked the Almighty.
In Leviticus, for instance, God supposedly takes a direct interest in dictating how women should be treated after childbirth, with one set of rules for giving birth to sons and another for daughters.
According to this account, the Lord tell Moses, "Speak to the Israelites, saying "Should a woman quicken with seed and bear a male, she shall be unclean seven days, as in the days of her menstrual unwellness she shall be unclean. And on the eighth day, the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. And thirty days and three she shall stay in her blood purity. She shall touch no consecrated thing nor shall she come into the sanctuary till the days of her purity are completed.
"And if she bears a female, she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her menstruation, and sixty days and six she shall stay over her blood purity. And when the days of her purity are completed, whether for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring a yearling lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or a turtledove for an offense offering to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, to the priest. And he shall bring it forward before the Lord and atone for her, and she shall be clean from the flowing of her blood."
If you think that's a lot of unnecessary detail, you should read the Lord's instructions via Moses for how to assess whether a boil is leprosy or not.
In Deuteronomy, Moses explains to the Israelites about their right to reclaim the land of their forefathers, again speaking for God:
"And the Lord your God shall bring you to the land that your fathers took hold of, and you shall take hold of it, and He shall do well with you and make you more multitudinous than your fathers."
Moses also makes clear that God expected the conquest to include massacres and genocide. Again speaking for the Lord, Moses said:
"I will bring back vengeance on My foes and My enemies I will requite. I will make My shafts drunk with blood, and My sword will eat up flesh from the blood of the fallen and captive, from the flesh of the long-haired foe."
In his final blessing to the Israelites, Moses makes the genocide message even more explicit, painfully so. He called on them to "smash the loins of [the Lord's] foes, that His enemies rise no more. " Your enemies cower before you and you on their backs will tread."
So, more than 3,000 years later, should a modern state like Israel be demanding that Palestinians recognize Israel as an explicitly Jewish state, as Netanyahu now says?
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