I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it sanctions theft and robbery.
Its pages teem with accounts of robberies, and in many instances God is said to have planned them and shared in the spoils. He instructs Moses to send a marauding expedition against the Midianites. They put the inhabitants to the sword, and return with 800,000 cattle. Of this booty God exacts 800 head for himself and 8,000 head for his priests. The remainder he causes to be divided between the soldiers and citizens. So elated are the Israelites with their success, so grateful to God for his assistance, that they make him a gift of 16,000 shekels of stolen gold (Num. xxxi).
When Joshua took Jericho, “they burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein; only the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron they put into the treasury of the Lord” (Josh, vi, 19–24).
When he captured Ai, “the cattle and the spoils of that city Israel took for a prey unto themselves, according unto the word of the Lord which he commanded Joshua” (Josh, viii, 27).
Jehovah gets the spoils of Jericho, and Israel those of Ai.
David, a modest shepherd lad, is placed under the tutelage of Jehovah only to become the cruelest robber of his time. On one occasion, purely for plunder, he despoiled three nations and “saved neither man nor woman alive to bring tidings to Gath, saying, Lest they should tell on us” (1 Sam. xxvii, 8–12).
It is said that the Italian bandit never plans a robbery without invoking a divine blessing upon his undertaking, doubtless believing that the God of David, of Moses, and of Joshua still reigns.
Jacob’s wives, Leah and Rachel, were both thieves. Leah appropriated the property of her son; Rachel stole her father’s jewels. Neither act was condemned.
“When thou comest into thy neighbor’s vineyard, then thou mayest eat grapes thy fill at thine own pleasure, but thou shalt not put any in thy vessel.
“When thou comest into the standing corn of thy neighbor, then thou mayest pluck the ears with thine hand; but thou shalt not move a sickle unto thy neighbor’s standing corn” (Deut. xxiii, 24, 25).