An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 163: Israel the Dirty Slapper, House Lannister, and The Mixedest of Mixed Metaphors (Ezekiel 16-20)

Ezekiel 16-20
Israel the Dirty Slapper, House Lannister, and The Mixedest of Mixed Metaphors.

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT

For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

Ezekiel 16
“But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was.”

In this chapter, Israel is represented as a woman, raised by God from an unwanted infant that was lost in the wilderness, still covered in birthing blood, that “wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all”. A salted baby? Some kind of cleaning method, I guess. Anyway, God raises this unwanted infant, gives “her” oils and clothes and finery, but when “she” is older she turns her attentions to others (Egypt, Assyria, Samaria etc.) and goes “whoring” after others.

Ezekiel really gets his teeth into this metaphor. There’s a lot of whoring and harlotry and lewdness, you can almost feel the veins pulsing in his temples with righteous indignation. “How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord GOD, seeing thou doest all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman” he writes. It’s like the later Philip K Dick stories after his divorce. As punishment, of course, this wayward daughter Israel, sister to other “whorish” nations but worse than even them, will be stoned, and thrust through with swords. Oh, and of course, stripped naked.

Now, the metaphor works quite well, but it’s all very uncomfortably misogynistic, not least because Ezekiel keeps going for over sixty verses with this stuff. I bet if he’d likened Israel to a boy child he wouldn’t have gone on at such length about harlotry, and the stripping would not have been part of the punishment.

Ezekiel 17

“And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; A great eagle with great wings, longwinged, full of feathers, which had divers colours, came unto Lebanon, and took the highest branch of the cedar”

More metaphors, but this time it involves eagles taking twigs from cedar trees and planting them, and vines growing from the twigs. Which suggests that Ezekiel perhaps doesn’t know much about eagles and horticulture, or he doesn’t care for the sake of the metaphor.

Even though this is explained a few verses down, I’m not 100% clear on the meaning. I think it contrasts the Babylonians, having carried off the kings and princes of Israel, with the Egyptians, who are helping the Israelites rebel against Babylon (so now we have a location in the timescale, under the occupation). God seems to be telling the Israelites to put up with the Babylonians rather than fight them, because to do so would be oath-breaking. I may be wrong, this is one of those opaque chapters.

It ends with some talk of a scion from the “cedar” being planted by God on a high mountain; “In the mountain of the height of Israel will I plant it: and it shall bring forth boughs, and bear fruit, and be a goodly cedar: and under it shall dwell all fowl of every wing; in the shadow of the branches thereof shall they dwell,” and of the tall, green tree withering and the stunted, dry tree flourishing. These few verses have “Christian Symbolism” written all over them.

Ezekiel 18

“Because he considereth, and turneth away from all his transgressions that he hath committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die.”

Now here’s an interesting chapter. God doesn’t like the saying “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge”, and I can’t blame Him, it’s rubbish. But the intent is obviously that “the sins of the fathers shall be visited on the child”. God instead says here that if a father sins but his child is righteous, only the father will be punished (likewise a parent will not be punished for having a wayward child). Now, this isn’t what we’ve had before, I’m pretty sure that God has promised punishment down to several generations for various transgressions, and that doesn’t even include the vexed issue of all of humanity, forever, being cursed because of Adam and Eve’s transgressions, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Furthermore, not only is sin no longer an inter-generational burden, but also if a transgressor repents then they will be saved, because “Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?” So we’ve moved in fairly short order from the destruction of Israel with only a remnant to be saved, to something more akin to the hope of salvation for all, and interesting that these notions seem to develop during the Babylonian occupation.

Also of some interest on this chapter, finally we get an actual list of things to do, or not do, rather than vague references to “abominations” and “transgressions”. Idol worship, lack of charity, usury, violence, adultery, and sex with a menstruous woman all get listed, as well as the more general “failure to keep the covenant” which I take to mean “see Leviticus/Deuteronomy for the fine print”. So, still some vagueness.

Ezekiel 19

“And say, What is thy mother? A lioness: she lay down among lions, she nourished her whelps among young lions.”

A lamentation for the princes of Israel. This one, to me, is a bit of a confusing bit of metaphor. The “mother” of Israel (so, are we specifically talking Rachel, or Leah, or even Rebekah? Or is this simply a metaphor for “origins”?) is cast as a lioness, who gives birth to lions. One cub is taken captive by Egypt, so she raises up another who “devours men”. And now I’m unavoidably thinking Cersei Lannister here, damn you lion metaphors! So, I guess the “young lions” are the nation of Israel rising and falling, as the next cub is captured by Babylon.

And then the mother becomes a vine.

In the blood.

Which is on fire, and has a broken sceptre.

Yeah, I think this one needed work to make it more coherent, frankly.

Ezekiel 20

“Because they despised my judgments, and walked not in my statutes, but polluted my sabbaths: for their heart went after their idols.”

“In the seventh year, in the fifth month, the tenth day of the month” the elders come to Ezekiel to inquire after God. Usually these dates have a regnal year attached, there’s nothing here so the date is meaningless. Seventh year of what, Ezekiel? Come on! Units, man, units!

God tells Ezekiel, essentially, “I don’t want to talk to these people”. He recounts, again, the story of the exodus and how the people had no sooner been given the covenant than they were off breaking it and worshipping golden calves and so forth, and the various punishments and forgiveness that God has meted out over the long history of the Israelites. This is told quite repetitively throughout this chapter, culminating in the promise to bring together the remnants under a new covenant, having purged the rebellious element.

There’s something of a bitter irony that the Jewish people are purging “undesirables” from their midst, given all the various awful things that have happened to them over history. And there is a kind of uncomfortable extremist notion running through this thread of God’s anger at the apostates and covenant-breakers. You’d think there could be a bit of flexibility built into the system, because people are different, and even people adhering to a common culture express that in different ways. Child sacrifice, however, is probably beyond the pale as regards cultural difference, and I have no qualms about God’s anger “that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb”.

I like Ezekiel’s reply at the end, which gibes with my comments from the last chapter: “Ah Lord GOD! they say of me, Doth he not speak parables?”