Day 35: Mas-sacrificial Blood

Massacre
Sacred
Sacrifice

These three words all seem to share a root: "sacr", but from my dictionary (merriam-webster.com) look-ups I can't tell for sure if massacre really does.

Some excerpts from the merriam-webster.com definition of "sacred": dedicated, set-apart for the service or worship of a deity, devoted exclusively to one use, consecrated.

And from "sacrifice": the act of offering something to a deity, esp: the killing of a victim on an altar. destruction or surrender of something for the sake of something else.

From "massacre": the act or an instance of killing a number of usually helpless or unresisting human beings under circumstances of atrocity or cruelty.

One horrific biblical event that has been the subject of famous paintings is labeled by the church Massacre of the Innocents. After Jesus's birth, King Herod was troubled when travellers from the East came to his palace and asked to honor the new king that was born. He had his researchers give him a birthplace and age estimation for this rival king and made sure all the babies within that estimate were killed. Jesus' family had taken refuge in Egypt, so Jesus did not get killed as a baby.

Egypt was also home long before to a mass slaughter of infants under King Pharoah, who was troubled that his Hebrew slaves were becoming too strong and numerous. He winnowed the demographics by commanding the Hebrew midwives to kill any newborn boy upon birth. They evaded that command, so Pharoah gave authority to his own people to throw the boy babies in the river. Moses did not get killed as a baby, because Pharoah's daughter found him floating in a basket.

Unfortunately, Hebrew children were not only massacred by paranoid kings who were trying to wipe out any potential rivals. The children were in trouble if they had parents who were REALLY into the ritual of sacrifice. When Moses established the rules and regulations of sacrifice, there were many things that could become sacred or consecrated objects to be used in one of the various public offerings: birds, sheep, goats, bread, oil, cereal grains all were acceptable. Human children were not. But there were other nations living around the Hebrews who had rituals that seemed to kick it up a notch when it came to worshipping their gods. Fertility rites, prostitute-prophets, and an Ammonite god named Molech who was pleased when a parent consecrated a human child on the altar.

Here is a portion from Jeremiah who is passing on to the people of Judah and Israel a message from the God they are supposed to be loving and worshipping:
Chapter 32: The people of Israel and Judah have done nothing but evil in my sight from their youth; indeed, the people of Israel have done nothing but provoke me with what their hands have made, declares the LORD. From the day it was built until now, this city has so aroused my anger and wrath that I must remove it from my sight. The people of Israel and Judah have provoked me by all the evil they have done—they, their kings and officials, their priests and prophets, the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem. They turned their backs to me and not their faces; though I taught them again and again, they would not listen or respond to discipline. They set up their abominable idols in the house that bears my Name and defiled it. They built high places for Baal in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to sacrifice their sons and daughters to Molech, though I never commanded, nor did it enter my mind, that they should do such a detestable thing and so make Judah sin.

To this day, every time I hear the word "rash" I associate it with the tragic Bible story that I learned in 4th grade: Jephthahs' rash vow. This mighty warrior made a bargain with God that if God helped him defeat the Ammonites he promised to consecrate in a burnt offering the first creature that came out of his house to greet him on own property back home. Did he own a bunch of dogs? Slaves? I don't know what he was picturing when he made that promise. But as he was heading home to celebrate the victory, it was his daughter, an only child, who ran out to greet her dad. How ironic, he defeated the Ammonites, but his misguided religious fervor had this result: his daughter was sacrificed just like the Ammonites sacrificed their children to Molech.

When humans are in blood, children are not safe, even in their own homes, even if they have religious parents.