Anyone who thinks the Bible is a boring book apparently has never read it. Here are some fascinating, startling and rather odd things I have found in the Bible during the course of my studies.

Book

Description

Picture

Genesis

Genesis 9   Noah places a curse on his son Ham when he saw his father naked and drunk

Genesis 14    The tar pits of Sodom

Genesis 15    God has Abraham walk between chopped animal parts while a terrifying darkness descends upon him and he has to chase off predator birds while God appears like a smoking furnace and a burning lamp

Genesis 17    God tells Abraham to cut off the tip of his male organ and then Abraham has to go tell all the men in his camp that if they want to serve the true God, they had to pull down their pants, take a knife, and cut off a piece of themselves

Genesis 19    Lot's wife turns into a pillar of salt when she looks back to see Sodom burning

Genesis 25   Abraham had intercourse with quite a few women during the course of his marriage

Genesis 29    Jacob thought he was marrying the beautiful Rachel, but when he woke up the following morning after the honeymoon, the homely Leah was in his bed!

Genesis 34    The Circumcision War

Genesis 38    Er was a wicked person, so God killed him. His dad Judah told Onah the brother to have intercourse with Er's wife so Er could have an heir. Onan refused, so God killed him, too.

Genesis 38    Tamar tricks her father-in-law into having intercourse with her when she disguises herself as a prostitute and seduces him when he went on a business trip. And God was pleased with her

Genesis 41    Joseph's wife was Asenath, who was the daughter of an Egyptian priest of the false God ON

Genesis 44    Joseph had a diviner's cup

Exodus

Exodus 4    Moses had an angry wife, Zipporah, and their marriage didn't last

Exodus 4    When Moses was returning to Egypt to set Israel free, God came to kill him because he hadn't circumcised his son

Leviticus

Numbers

Numbers 12    Moses later married a black wife (She is referred to as a "Cushite woman," and "Cush" means "black"). This upset his older sister Miriam, which made God angry, so the Lord struck her with leprosy

Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 3    The Bible took the time to write about King Og's iron bed

Deuteronomy 32    God uses a metaphor of "sucking honey out of a rock."

Joshua

Joshua 6 & 1 Kings 16    Joshua placed a curse of death on anyone who tried to rebuild the fallen city of Jericho. Years later a Jew came and did rebuild, and both his sons died during the construction

Joshua 7    When Achan hid some some forbidden stuff in his tent, God instructed Joshua to not only stone him and then burn him, but to also kill in the same way his children and all his animals. He may have been a widower, because his wife is not mentioned in the list

Judges

Judges 3    Ehud killed the fat king Eglon king of Moab by stabbing him in the belly with a dagger. Eglon was so fat his big belly engulfed the dagger so it couldn't be drawn back out

Judges 4    The woman Jael hammered a nail through King Sisera's head, and God was pleased

Judges 8    Gideon had 70 sons because he had many wives as well as concubines

Judges 9    God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shecham

Judges 14    Samson fed his parents honey from the mouth of a dead lion

Judges 15    When the Philistines made Samson angry, he captured 300 foxes, tied torches to their tails and set them lose in the Philistine fields

Judges 15    Samson killed 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey

Judges 19    When a Levite's girlfriend was gang-raped by violent homosexuals, the Levite chopped her into twelve pieces and sent her body parts throughout the twelve tribes of Israel

Ruth

Ruth 4   When Boaz purchased a piece of land, he also gave the seller his sandal as proof of purchase.

1 Samuel

2 Samuel

2 Samuel 8    David defeated the Moabite army and laid the soldiers on the ground. He then "measured them with a line," which meant every third person was allowed to live and the rest were put to death

2 Samuel 18    In a battle between Absalom and his father David, the trees killed more people than the soldiers did

2 Samuel 21    A brother of Goliath had twelve fingers and twelve toes

2 Samuel 21    God caused a famine to be upon Israel for three years as punishment for when King Saul wrongly killed some of the Gibeonites. God also refused to hear the prayers of the Jews until King David went out and hanged seven of Saul's sons.

2 Samuel 24    This book of Samuel says God tempted David to number Israel for the purposes of eventually causing God's wrath to fall and kill 70,000 Jews. However, the book of 1 Chronicles 21 says it was satan that tempted David to number Israel!

1 Kings

2 Kings

2 Kings 6    During the time of Elisha, the nation of Syria came up and laid siege to Samaria, so there was a great famine. The famine was so great that two women boiled one of their sons and ate him

2 Kings 10    The nation of Israel tore down the temple of Baal and turned it into a latrine

2 Kings 13    While Elijah got to ride into heaven on a fiery chariot, his predecessor Elisha, who had double the anointing, died in bed after a lengthy and painful illness

2 Kings 13    A man was resurrected to life when his dead body was thrown into the grave of Elisha and touched the dead prophet's bones

1 Chronicles

2 Chronicles

2 Chronicles 20    When three pagan nations came to attack Israel, God had the king send out the choir in front of Israel's army, and as they sang, their enemies were defeated

Ezra

Nehemiah

Nehemiah 13    Nehemiah was angry that the priest Eliashib let Tobias stay in a room beside the temple, so Nehemiah went and threw all of Tobia's furniture out into the courtyard

Nehemiah 13    When Nehemiah saw that the Jews had married some of the pagan women, he was so angry that he went and hit them with his fists, cursed at them and plucked out some of their hair

Esther

The name of God is never mentioned in the book of Esther

Job

Psalms

Psalm 58    David prays for God to break the teeth of the wicked

Proverbs

Proverbs 11    A beautiful woman without discretion is like a jewel of gold in a pig's snout

Proverbs 19    A quarrelsome wife is like a constantly dripping faucet

Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes 1    In much wisdom there is much grief, and he who increases in knowledge increases in sorrow

Ecclesiastes 3    There is a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to love and a time to hate; a time of war and a time of peace

Ecclesiastes 7    Do not be overly righteous and do not be overly wise, why destroy yourself?

Song of Solomon

Song of Solomon 8    We have a little sister who has no breasts. If she is a wall, we will build on her a palace of silver; if she is a door, we will encase her with boards of cedar

Isaiah

Isaiah 7    God is going to send the King of Assyria to Israel to be a razor that shaves of all of Israel's hair and beard

Isaiah 8    Isaiah's wife gives birth to a son which they name "Make haste to plunder"

Isaiah 11    The lion will lie down with the lamb, and the lion will eat straw like the ox

Isaiah 13    Children will be dashed to pieces

Isaiah 20    God told Israel to walk around stripped and barefoot for 3 years

Isaiah 66    When God makes the New Heavens and the New Earth, the saints will go out on sabbath and look upon the burning bodies of the wicked

Jeremiah

Jeremiah 5    "They were like lusty, well-fed stallions in the morning; every one neighing after his neighbor's wife."

Jeremiah 31    Jeremiah is told to bury a girdle in the dirt until it is rotted

Lamentations

Ezekiel

Ezekiel 4    God told Ezekiel to lie on his side for 390 days and eat a special bread which was to be cooked over a fire made of human feces!

Ezekiel 5    During a time of siege, fathers would eat their sons and sons would eat their fathers

Ezekiel 16    Bible pornography

Ezekiel 16    God describes putting a "ring in her nose" as a sign of beauty

Ezekiel 18    The fathers have eaten sour grapes and it has set the teeth of the sons on edge

Ezekiel 37    Ezekiel's vision of a valley filled with dry bones that come to life

Daniel

Daniel 12   An angel came to explain to Daniel the meaning of a disturbing dream that he had, but when the angel finished, Daniel still had no idea what the angel was talking about

Hosea

Hosea 1   God tells Hosea to marry a prostitute

Hosea 1    God tells Hosea to name his daughter "No Mercy" and to name his son "Not My People"

Hosea 4    God's people are destroyed for lack of knowledge

Hosea 8    If you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind

Hosea 13    Their children will be dashed to pieces and their pregnant women ripped open

Joel

Joel 3    The Valley of Decision

Amos

Obadiah

Jonah

Jonah 4    God tells Jonah that the Ninevites can't "tell their right hand from their left"

Micah

Micah 4    In the last days many nations will come to the house of God to learn His Holy ways

Nahum

Nahum 3   God will cast filth upon Nineveh

Habakkuk

Habakkuk 2   The earth will be filled with the knowledge of God, as the waters cover the sea

Habakkuk 3   Even though there is no food to eat, I will still praise the Lord

Zephaniah

Haggai

Haggai 3   God struck Israel's crops with blight, mildew and hail to try and get their attention to return to Him

Zechariah

Zechariah 1   Vision of a man riding a red horse standing among myrtle trees in a ravine

Malachi

Malachi 1   God loved Jacob but hated Esau