Brace yourself.
We're about to do a deep dive into the card we get asked about the most. To do this, we're going to look into the life, times, and metaphors of the prophet Ezekiel: What he said and how he said it.
Trigger warning: myriad accounts of sexual assaults presented, in the bible, as sanctioned by God
Part 1: What He Said
Five Fast Facts About Ezekiel
1. He was a prophet from a family of priests.
"...the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi..." (Ezekiel 1:3b)
Not that this was unheard of, but the religious class were often at odds with prophets during this time period. However, being a priest possibly gave Ezekiel more clout with his listeners.
2. He was writing from captivity in Babylon.
In my thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. (Ezekiel 1:1)
In 587 B.C.E., when the Babylonians invaded Judah and took captives, Ezekiel was among them Yes Bob Marley fans, Ezekiel was one of the people "by the rivers of Babylon" (Psalm 137). His stark words and warnings need to be interpreted as coming from the mouth of someone torn away from his home, his Temple, and his family (his wife even dies in Babylon, Ezekiel 24:15-25).
3. He's like Jeremiah 2.0, but even more pissed off.
The prophet Jeremiah warned his people to turn away from evil for fear of God's punishment, especially if that punishment would be coming from the hands of foreign powers. In this way, Ezekiel was no different: he was constantly warning about the bleakness of the future if his people continued down the path that they are on. And remember fast fact #2: he's writing from Babylon. He knows things can get worse.
However, Ezekiel went beyond Jeremiah in content. While Jeremiah was primarily focused on the spirituality of this people, Ezekiel focused on both their spiritual and political failings, seeing the latter as a natural and moral extension of the former.
Furthermore, as discussed in other Card Talks, while Jeremiah (and Hosea) used marital and feminine images in their sermons-- such as presenting God as a husband and the people as a wife-- Ezekiel ratcheted up these metaphors in graphic ways.
4. A major policy of his political platform can summed up in two words: Fuck Egypt.
5. He likes extended metaphors and allegories.
This is where our card comes into play:
"...and [she] lusted after her paramours there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose emission was like that of stallions." (Ezekiel 23:20)
We can't make this stuff up. But Ezekiel could. It was part of his prophetic extended metaphor against the actions of his people. From his place in captivity, Ezekiel was expanding on the metaphors of Jeremiah and his hatred of Egypt. Allow us to explain.
On Donkey Gentiles and Horse Emissions
In chapter 23 of his book, Ezekiel presents the story of two sisters, Oholah and Oholibah. These women "played the whore in Egypt; they played the whore in their youth; their breasts were caressed there, and their virgin bosoms were fondled" (vs 3), until a strapping young man arrived (God) and rescued them from their debased lifestyle. Knowing some people are a bit slow, Ezekiel pulls back the skirt of the metaphor, making the connections clear: "As for their names, Oholah is Samaria, and Oholibah is Jerusalem" (vs 4b).
The names Oholah and Oholibah are important, as they translate from Hebrew to mean “Her own tent” and “My tent is in her” respectively. Scholars suggest that this is a reference to the location of worship. During the Exodus from Egypt (notice how Egypt keeps coming up?) the people lived in tents, and had one special tent set up for the worship and habitation of the divine presence, the Tabernacle (which was was later replaced by the Temple). However, when the kingdom was divided, new shrines were set up in the north. In other words, Samaria/Israel set up "her own tent," while those in Jerusalem/Judah felt God's true "tent is in her." While it seems obvious that Ezekiel is showing some hometown bias in his metaphor, it should not be forgotten that in chapter 10, Ezekiel envisions God's glory leaving the southern Temple altogether.
The story moves on with Ezekiel spending time verbally maligning and molesting both of these "women" as a means of political and spiritual commentary on God's chosen people.
Oholah = Israel (vs 5-10)
He begins with Oholah, representing Samaria, the capital of Israel, the northern kingdom of the divided monarchy (remember: Saul brought everything together into one nation, David strengthened it, Solomon pissed it all away). Ezekiel claims she "played the whore" with every Assyrian man she could find, and then screwed their idols (vs 5-7). After which, she went back to her Egyptian lovers and continued her "whorings" with them, allowing them to play with her breast and cum on her stomach, among other things (vs 8). Yes. That's in the text. Read it.
For Ezekiel, the “whoredoms” of Israel were its political alliances with Assyria and Egypt, and the gruesome punishments he relays-- rape, child slavery, and execution (vs 9-10)-- are his metaphorical recasting of the destruction of Israel during the Assyrian Exile (722 B.C.E.). He says Oholah/Israel has become a “byword” (v 10), an example and a stark warning of what not to become. A warning her sister did not heed (v 11).
Oholibah = Judah(vs 11-35)
Zeke then turns to Oholibah, representing Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, the southern kingdom of the divided monarchy. She gets the same verbal treatment as her sister, with a list of her various “whoredoms” with Assyria (v 11-13), then Babylon (v 14-16), and currently with Egypt (v 17-22). It is in the midst of this scathing rebuke that our Card's verse is located: those donkey-like dicks and horse amounts of jizz are Egyptian in provenance.
For this reason, and because Ezekiel finds her to be 1000 times worse than her "sister," he launches into a graphic description of the punishment that shall befall her, including all the horrors of the impending Babylonian Captivity (vs 22-35).
But why all the anger? Especially in relation to Egypt?
The Devil You Know is STILL THE DEVIL
In a historical nutshell, Judah had a back and forth relationship with Egypt. While they were the previous enslavers of the Hebrew people, Israel, and Judah were in a few "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" situations with the nation. Ezekiel is writing during such a time: some Judaeans are hoping an alliance with Egypt will stave off the Babylonian hordes. But this is at the root of Zeke's "fuck Egypt" rhetoric.
The national identity and spiritual heritage of the Hebrew people was predicated on being everything that the Egyptians were not.
Consider this small sample of statements from the Torah:
You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not follow their statutes. (Leviticus 18:3)
Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom, “Thus says your brother Israel: You know all the adversity that has befallen us: how our ancestors went down to Egypt, and we lived in Egypt a long time; and the Egyptians oppressed us and our ancestors; and when we cried to the Lord, he heard our voice, and sent an angel and brought us out of Egypt; and here we are in Kadesh, a town on the edge of your territory. (Numbers 20:14-16)
...then you shall say to your children, “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. The Lord displayed before our eyes great and awesome signs and wonders against Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his household. (Deuteronomy 6:21-22)
The long/short:
Egyptians are oppressive, amoral, assholes who God spent a lot of time and energy rescuing the Hebrew people from, leaving very specific instructions to not be like them.
Ezekiel has a right to be pissed.
Perhaps there is something to be learned from their example of selling out your spiritual and cultural values for political gain. At least Ezekiel thought so, and so do we:
Part 2: How He Said It
The Book of Ezekiel has provided a lot of content for our game. And one day we may get to all of them in Card Talks. In the past we've discussed the graphically gendered and misogynistic metaphors Ezekiel employs in his prophesies. While we stand by the comments made in those previous posts in terms of his context, but they did not fully explore the content.
Ezekiel uses intricate metaphors which span entire chapters, most notably in chapters 16 and 23. Our gilded dildos post highlights this. Therein we acknowledge that the modern reader can (and should) be aghast at the apparent and inherent misogyny. As we said:
"...the power of this metaphor is rooted in Ezekiel's knowledge and use of horrific patriarchal norms; he is banking on the fact that the male hearers of his words would be scandalized by, not only the graphic sexual content, but also as being referred to as women, unfaithful women, and unfaithful women who use sex toys. This was intended to be a body-blow to them.
In their estimation the female body should be devoid of pleasure, unless the pleasure being referenced is in the context of providing pleasure to the man rightfully in charge of her body; that women are, in essence, sexual chattel. Yes: Ezekiel's metaphor is pretty fucked up, and he employs much worse in his tome.”
But this post did not go far enough. We weren’t graphic enough, because we weren’t true enough to Ezekiel’s own tone.
"Yahweh's Profound Irrationality"
Here's the harsh truth:
Ezekiel’s metaphors only work if we view women as utterly worthless and unlovable. cREATURES who should be grateful if some man comes along and deems them as worthy of more than sexual conquest.
More than this, "the female body is used to conjure up for Ezekiel’s audience images of dred, chaos, anarchy, and evil” (Weems, 61). Some have gone as far as calling Ezekiel's language pornographic, or “pornoprophetic” (Knight & Levine , 317). Which is valid, as Ezekiel’s use of women in his metaphors contains “the preservation of male domination through a denial, or misnaming, of female experience,” which is “considered a distinguishing feature of pornography” (van Dijk-Hemmes, 164). You think we go to far?
Consider:
Ezekiel spends time obsessing over women’s pubic hair, menstrual cycles, and the fondling of their breasts.
He has women dreaming about the size of their lovers’ dicks and the amount of semen they can release.
He pictures women crafting dildos out of gold jewelry and being sexually aroused by simply staring at the engravings of men's penises on the walls they walks by.
In his world, women are the victims of sexual harassment, abuse, and rape, both as “enjoyment” and punishment from God, making them completely to blame for whatever may befall them. This is why our card "God-sanctioned Gang Rape. (Ezekiel chapter 23)" was not out of line.
Remember the “whoredoms” in Egypt discussed above (vs 3)? The parsing of the Hebrew suggests that this was a forced sexual encounter: the two sisters were the objects of the sexuality, not the actors. Or as one scholar translated the passage: "They were sexually abused in Egypt, in their youth they were sexually abused" (van Dijk-Hemmes, 166).
A terrifying thought: the original audiences may have understood the women’s time in Egypt in exactly this light, that they were sexually abused. But they were rescued by a man willing to overlook their “damaged” and married them anyway. So, when they decided to cheat on that man, and go back to their abusers, they deserve everything they got! If this sort of theology is comfortable for you, is something you could say to the face of an abused woman in your midst. . . our theology of swearing does not allow us to share our thoughts about you at this time. Email us and we'll let you know where you can go.
This overly-graphic degradation of femininity to make theological points, is what Walter Brueggemann calls "Yahweh's profound irrationality," when speaking of Ezekiel 16, 20, and 23 in particular:
"...in Ezekiel... Yahweh's made passion for Israel has turn to the kind of irrational destructiveness that appears to be driven by sexuality embedded in violence, or violence embedded in sexuality ... What is not often notice is that these texts not only displace the mighty deeds [of God] with sins, they displace a passionately pro-Israel Yahweh with a side of Yahweh not so often visible, a Yahweh who is out of control with the violent, sexual rage of a husband who assaults his own beloved" (382).
One of the difficulties with the text is that Ezekiel's words only works if God is painted in an abusive light.
Period.
There is no way around this. One can say that this is taking the words out of context. But as we show, it isn't. At all, and that's the problem. Others can argue that we're placing modern sensibilities on an ancient text. Those people sound like they are trying to defend their grandparents against charges of racism because they still use certain words to describe different minorities. "They're from a different time." Sure, but we're talking about God. The Alpha and Omega. Beginning and End. The One who is timeless. We can say that the people of the time thought this was an acceptable use of metaphor, but that doesn't mean it is either an accurate representation of God, or that it is an acceptable way for men to refer to and/or treat women.
Phrased another way: do you really think that God would sanction gang rape as an appropriate punishment?
We at A Game for Good Christians are writers, artists, poets, musicians, and a few other creative-types. We understand the purpose of a good metaphor or analogy. We like to think we come up with good ones pretty often (some of us more than others).
We see the brilliance of what Ezekiel was doing. But within that brilliance is the horror.
Perhaps what we say matters as much as how we say it.
Perhaps we do not have to throw the biblical baby out with the modern bathwater.
Perhaps we can acknowledge the purpose of the images, while also acknowledging why they are so problematic. Not just today, but when Ezekiel wrote them.
Perhaps we should remember the women in the room when Ezekiel first uttered these words. They had been forcibly marched from their homes. They had watched their families die. Some had been raped by the Babylonians. How did they feel?
Perhaps we should remember the women who read these texts today, the women in our churches and homes, whose current situations are not too dissimilar to the women in exile by the rivers of Babylon. They have enough reasons to weep.
But what do we know: we made this game and you probably think we're going to Hell.
Postscript:
Once upon a time we talked about the Bible's misogyny, and how we respond to it.
