I think that the actual evolution of Yahweh is pretty interesting. As stated on everyone's top scholarly reference:
Wikipedia wrote:In the oldest biblical literature, Yahweh is a typical ancient Near Eastern "divine warrior", who leads the heavenly army against Israel's enemies;[9] he later became the main god of the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) and of Judah,[10] and over time the royal court and Temple in Jerusalem promoted Yahweh as the god of the entire cosmos, possessing all the positive qualities previously attributed to the other gods and goddesses.[11][12] By the end of the Babylonian captivity (6th century BCE), the very existence of foreign gods was denied, and Yahweh was proclaimed as the creator of the cosmos and the true god of all the world.
I think that when Yahweh is viewed as an evolving idea, the Old Testament starts to make perfect sense. Yahweh was probably originally the "God of war" in the Canaanite pantheon which was worshipped by the early Israelites. Archeology shows them to be polytheists throughout periods where the Old Testament claims they were monotheistic.
At some point, the worship of Yahweh grew in cultural importance and he became a "jealous god" and demanded the stop of worship to others in the pantheon. Monotheism starts out as Monolatry and gradually grows into Monotheism as the Jews obey the edict not to worship the other Gods of their pantheon.
The Old Testament is compiled at a much later date and the earlier events are interpreted by the redactors through the lens of Monotheism. Once you drop the redactor's filter everything the early Israelites do makes much more sense now. No wonder they kept worshipping their idols. They were polytheists! They didn't "know" that they were doing anything wrong. They have to worship and appease all of the gods that they believe in! Duh!
Try reading the Old Testament through this lens and everything clicks into place. Why does early Jehovah seem so concerned with battles and killing? Because he's the God of War. What else would he be interested in? Why are the Israelites so bent on worshipping idols rather than the obvious
One True God? Because it is not at all obvious to them that he is the One True God. The pillar of fire and all of the supernatural stuff was made up, that's why it didn't convince them. It all makes sense now why they might turn right back to the golden calf. They are just trying to make sense of the world.
Further confusing things is that these early stories are made up. They are totally inconsistent with archaelogical evidence. The escape from Egypt and a unified campaign of the conquest of Canaan never happened like that, the Israelites were likely just Canaanites themselves who migrated from the lowlands to the highlands during a period of political instability to find a safer place to live. Then they made up or incorporated stories that they heard into a founding myth of their culture over time.
The Bible contains a lot of made-up stories but mixed in there is the true story of the evolution of the God of Abraham, and the subsueqent birth of the Christian God, slowly evolving from a (probably) Cannanite God of War. Pretty fascinating stuff.
And as a God of War, early Yahweh is going to look pretty morally harsh, and is going to demand strict discipline. He's got enemies to conquer and you don't get that done by coddling your soldiers. But Yahweh has made a special covenant with the Israelites that if they strictly obey him, he'll get them some land to prosper on. Strict obedience is key to battlefield success...
