Biblical Sex Toys???  ## Metadata - Author: [[Data Over Dogma]] - Full Title: Biblical Sex Toys??? - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/c3224df9-a88a-48f7-bed5-01ab1dabc842 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Gideon Narrative Shows Editorial Layering** - Judges' Gideon story shows editorial layering and later additions in the text. - Scholars spot interpolations (like the prophetic sermon) and textual shifts that signal editing. Transcript: Dan McClellan Was this guy? Well, Gideon was the son of Joash. But I want to start at the beginning of chapter six because we have chapter five ends with, and the land had rest 40 years ah everybody's able to the land is able to relax and take a breath Dan Beecher Everybody chills yes 40 years is about the right amount of time for everybody to sort of forget all of the good lessons that they've learned yes and think that everything's cool forever And then start doing dumb stuff. Way to edit yourself there. Dan McClellan And nothing happened. What are you talking about? And then chapter six starts the way all of the new stories start in Judges. The Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. And so... Dun-dun Oh, you wacky, fickle Israelites. Yeah. And so then God gives them into the hands of Midian for seven years. And Midian would be this territory that's kind of south, southeast of Israel. So other side of the Jordan, but further down south, kind of on the east side of the Gulf of Aqaba. So this is where Moses is supposed to have met up with Jethro, his father-in got training in priesthood and all this kind of stuff. So the relationship of Israel to Midian is an interesting one. But when you get to verse 7, it says, when the Israelites cried to the Lord on account of the Midianites, the Lord sent a prophet to the Israelites. And so we've got this interim prophet who just pops up out of nowhere and says, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery. And I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all who oppressed you and drove them out before you and gave you their land. And I said to you, I am the Lord, your God. You shall not pay reverence to the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live, but you have not given heed to my voice. And immediately after that, we get Gideon. And as I was reading that, it sounds a little different from the rest of the narrative, but in the SBL Study Bible, there are actually double brackets. Dan Beecher Yeah, I'm seeing that in the NRSVUE as well. Yeah, yeah. Dan McClellan So I was like, huh, that's usually where something has been added in. Like this is the long ending of Mark, the story of the woman taken in adultery. Those passages have the double brackets around it as well. And it looks like there's a Qumran manuscript. One of the Dead Sea Scrolls just straight up doesn't have verses 7 through 10. So we've got a little text critical. How's your father going on there? And I haven't pulled up the manuscript to see if there's a case to make for, uh, like some kind of, uh, haplography, which would be where maybe in the copying of the text, the scribe accidentally Left, uh, four verses out. Like that's a lot to leave out. You usually don't see that, but maybe, maybe that's why. ([Time 0:04:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0a97e6e1-9cb6-4031-8e4b-361b1f94618c)) - **Angel Versus Lord Changes Theological Reading** - The text alternates 'angel of the Lord' and 'the Lord,' suggesting theological smoothing. - Removing 'angel' makes the episodes of divine appearance (e.g., Gideon) read more coherently as direct Yahweh theophanies. Transcript: Dan McClellan We're in the middle of this. Gideon's like, did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has cast us off and given us into the hand of Midian. And then verse 14 says, then the Lord turned to him and said, go in this might of yours, you wheat beater and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. I hereby commission you. And Gideon responds, but sir, how can I deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh and I am the least in my family. The Lord said to him. So we've transitioned from the angel of the Lord to the Lord. Gideon does not seem to have noticed any And change here. Right, right. And it's just going back and forth. And then we're going to get to Gideon's sign. But there's something interesting going on here. I and other scholars have published arguments because when you look in the Greek translation of this, the Septuagint, the verses that have angel of the Lord versus just Lord are not Identical. They switch them up a little bit. And this is an indication that maybe the word angel there is a later addition, an interpolation, if you will. In other words, the story is originally Adonai is the one who shows up and goes, Zah! And sorry, Zah comes from an old Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie. It came out before I realized that nobody was going to get that reference except my wife, who doesn't listen to our show anyway. Rude. She's rude. The Hand of Satan, by the way, is the particular episode. And so an editor has probably come in here and written in Malach, Angel, in order to muddy the waters a bit regarding who it is that's talking to Gideon. Because it's theologically problematic that the Lord would appear to him. Yeah, and because Gideon wants to give the Lord a gift, a present, he goes into his house. He's like, wait right here, and runs into his house, comes back, prepared a kid, which would be an animal, and unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour, the meat he put in a basket and the Broth he put in a pot and brought them to him under the oak and presented them. And the angel tells him, put them on this rock, pour out the broth. And the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes. And fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes. And the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. So, so God has a staff in, in their hand and God is like, boop, and consumes everything in, yeah, in a pillar of fire. And so it's, it's a little problematic to have God showing up with his staff going, hey, what's up? I was just under the shade of that tree. I heard you beating your weed in here and came to say, you've got quite the arm there. I think we could use you. Dan Beecher It makes sense to me because right immediately after what you just said in verse 22, It says, then Gideon perceived that it was the angel of the Lord. And Gideon said, help me, Lord God, for I've seen the angel of the Lord face to face. And that struck me as weird because they see angels all the time and nobody's worried about it, but they're scared. They're terrified of seeing Lord. Yes. So yeah, it makes total sense to me. Like this whole chapter makes way more sense. Dan McClellan If we take away the word angel. Yeah. And it's just God who shows us. God. Because there's, there's like, it kind of defeats the point. You're not supposed to be able to see God's face and live. According to Exodus 33, 20, that's what God tells Moses. God's like, I'm going to cover your face when you walk by, and I'll take my hand away, and you'll see my back, but you're not going to see my face. ([Time 0:10:42](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9c291242-8f5a-4c0a-b674-c707fefa52c4)) - **Gideon's Alternate Name Reflects Older Religion** - The name Jerubbaal/Jerubail likely reflects pre-Israelite theophoric naming tied to Baal. - Editors later reframed that name to distance the hero from Baal worship and explain the odd theophoric element. Transcript: Dan McClellan Yes. And then the first thing, though, that Gideon has got to do, that night the Lord said to him, take your father's bull, the second bull, seven years old. Dan Beecher Don't take the first bull. Dan McClellan Go steal your dad's car, but take the bad one. Yeah, not the good one. Leave the gun. And pull down the altar of Baal that belongs to your father and cut down the sacred pole. And that is the Asherah that is beside it. And build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of the stronghold there in proper order. Then take the second bull offered as a burnt offering. And he does it at night, just so he doesn't catch the attention and catch any hands. He sneaks it. He's a sneak. Yeah. But this is interesting because we're getting altars to Adonai all over the place. This is prior to the... Well, this is after Deuteronomy, ostensibly, if you're following the canon, this is supposed to be after God is like, don't build anything anywhere except for the place that I will Choose, hint, hint, Jerusalem. But they're having, you know, the Lord appears to Gideon and Gideon's like, altar. And then the Lord's like, go build an altar, altar. And so we've got altars popping up all over the place to worship Adonai. Dan Beecher So first we got to take down Baal and Asherah's. Right. So we take them down the next day. Dan McClellan Everybody wakes up and they're like, huh? Pourquoi? And who has done this? And after searching and inquiring, they were told Gideon, son of Joash did it. So they go to Joash. They say, bring out your son so that he may die for he has pulled down the altar of Baal and cut down the sacred pole beside it. And Joash, according to the text, is Joash's stuff. Pull down the altar that yeah pull down the altar of ball that belongs to your father okay so it's joash's stuff but joash's is just kind of like well you got to do what you got to do and uh And just lets it go uh joash said will you contend for ball or will you defend his cause whoever contends for him shall be put to death by morning. If he is a god, let him contend for himself because his altar has been pulled down. And this is the story because the name Jerubal means Baal contends. Right. But and this seems to probably have been Gideon's original name. Okay. But why, why is the hero of the story, um, named after ball? Right. Well, let's tell a story that changes the significance of the name. And so now the, the name kind of becomes let ball contend like, right. Dan Beecher Or, or contend against ball or something like that. Yeah, or something like that, yeah. Dan McClellan Because we've heard names that mean ex-god contends before. Well, that's what Israel probably means. Right, exactly. Is El Contends. Dan Beecher So it's interesting to hear it in this context now, but with a different God as the sort of the subject. Dan McClellan So I don't know about you, Dan, but right now I am the busiest I've ever been. I got three girls who are just starting back at school, three different schools, and I am running all over the place. The last thing I don't want to worry about these days is phones and phone bills. I want all my girls to have phones. I want to know that I can get a hold of them whenever I need to, particularly my oldest, who's in the pep band now, which means she's going to a bunch of football games. She doesn't even know how to spell football, which is a bit of a problem as a junior in high school. But I need to know that I can get a hold of her. And luckily, we've got Mint Mobile for all of our girls, and it is plug and play. We have never had a problem. It's been wonderful. Dan Beecher Yeah, Mint is, look, you're going to get the coverage and speed that you're used to it's just less money and for a limited time mint mobile's offering three months of unlimited premium Wireless service for 15 bucks a month so while your friends are sweating over data overages and surprise charges you're just chilling literally and financially so you can say bye-bye Dan McClellan To your overpriced wireless plans, jaw-dropping monthly bills and unexpected overages. Mint Mobile is here to rescue you. All plans come with high-speed data, unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Dan Beecher You use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and bring your phone number along with your existing contacts. Dan McClellan It's been better than my old provider. I'm so glad we made the switch. We never have to worry about things. This year, skip the stress, skip breaking the bank, get this new customer offer and your three-month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com/dogma. That's mintmobile.com/dogma. Upfront payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 a month. Limited time new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Hey Matt, did you know that wombats poop cubes? Nope. Never heard that before. Did you know the unicorn is the national animal of Scotland, Ken? I didn't know, nor do I care. Dan Beecher Neil, did you know that Lichtenstein is the only doubly landlocked country in Europe? Jeff, isn't that an American pop artist? Well, actually, it's both. Dan McClellan If you want to learn things like that and more, join us each week on Triviality, a pub trivia-style game show podcast where a lack of seriousness meets a little bit of knowledge. Dan Beecher Listen in each week to answer general knowledge trivia alongside exciting guests from around the world. Dan McClellan And we're here, too. Join us every Tuesday for new hour-long episodes of Triviality, plus tons of extra themed content on everything from The Office and Lord of the Rings to science and geography. And sometimes we even do sports. Find us on all your preferred podcast apps and take part in the fun of playing bar trivia without the need to wear pants. Real mature, Jeff. Forget it, Neil. It's triviality. Want to learn how you can make smarter decisions with your money? Well, I've got the podcast for you. I'm Sean Piles, and I host NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast. On our show, we help listeners like you make the most of your finances. I sit down with NerdWallet's team of nerds, personal finance experts in credit cards, banking, investing, and more. We answer your real-world money questions and break down the latest personal finance news. The NERJ will give you the clarity you need by cutting through the clutter and misinformation in today's world of personal finance. We don't promote get-rich schemes or ([Time 0:16:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/44916192-1807-4799-b345-1ad563b89020)) - **Treat Biblical 'Signs' As Narrative, Not Always Faith Failure** - Question divine direction but accept signs when culturally normal in the narrative. - Note how Gideon requests two signs (fleece) despite earlier divine confirmation, reflecting ancient faith practice. Transcript: Dan Beecher First, Gideon is like, I need some signs, yeah this was this was a little baffling to me because he called he says to God I mean he met the guy he saw the magic rock flames trick yeah but he Still says to God hey if I'm gonna do this you're gonna have to give me some signs uh proving that you're you and blah, blah, blah. And he does this whole thing with the fleece. But before we get to the fleece, aren't there places in the Bible that specifically say don't ask for signs? Dan McClellan Yes. Yes. And this is probably because the notion developed that you should have enough faith to not ask God to prove it to you. Right. But then we've got a bunch of places where God is like, you want a sign? I'll give you a sign. Where people are like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And God's like, you're getting a sign. Dan Beecher And here we have... There's no, no, no, no, no, no, no, here. This is just a, here, I'm going to tell you exactly what i want you to do yeah and if you do it then maybe i'll believe or maybe i'll make you do the opposite of it and then i'll believe yeah Because he because because and so what he has he does just quickly is that he he lays a fleece of wool on the threshing floor because the, I guess the, the wine press was not available at The time. And he, and he said, if there's dew on the fleece alone and not on the ground, then I know that it's you, that you're going to deliver Israel as you have said, blah, blah, blah. And that happens. There's no dew on the ground. He squeezes a full bowl of water out of the fleece. Yep. And then he's like, okay, but let's do it again, only reverse it, and this time no dew in the fleece and dew all over the ground. And then I'll definitely believe you. So calling for two signs, that just seems like it's pure balls at this point. That just seems like it's... Dan McClellan And he's being humble about it. He's like, please don't be mad at me. Your humble and obedient servant would like you to do another sign. Yeah. And then there we have 30,000, I think, troops that they marshal, which is obviously not how many people they had available to them back then. Dan Beecher But God is. Look, I've never know. It's not obvious to me because I've never known like I've always been confused about the numbers of people. I always imagine that these are smallish villages and whatever. Yeah. But then you see numbers like 30,000 troops and you're like, oh, that's way bigger than I thought it was. Yeah. But that's probably not right then is what you're saying? Correct. Dan McClellan Okay. Yeah. It's going to be a lot smaller than that. Dan Beecher These are little villages for the most part. I've always been so confused about that. You've got these huge numbers and it just sounds so wrong. Dan McClellan Yeah. And so the Lord says to Gideons, the troops with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into your hand. Israel would only take the credit away from me saying my own hand has delivered me. So the idea here is you're going to route them just by pure numbers alone. And then they're not going to attribute the victory to me. They're going to say, yeah, we just had the numbers. And so God's like, send some of them home and so getting is like if you're afraid you can go home and 20 000 men uh are like thanks great thanks all right i'm out of here and so there are 10 000 Left and god is like still too many and so which is crazy but yeah okay god mean, God really wants to pare this down. Yeah. And so here we have this weird thing and we're not sure, we're still not sure exactly what's going on here, but God is like, hey, take them down to the water. I want to show you something. Tell everybody to go get a drink. Yeah, get a drink. And if they just slurp the water straight out of the lake, the whatever, the river, put them in one side. If they use their hand to cup water and slurp from their hand, they're on the other side. And then you're going to send all the hand slurpers home so that it's just the people who bent down and knelt down to drink. I think you got it backwards. I think the hand people are the ones who stay. All those who lap the water with their tongues as a dog laps, you will put to one side. All those who kneel down to drink, put in their hands to their mouths, you should put to the other side. And then the Lord said to Gideon, with the 300 who lapped, I will deliver you and give the Midianites into your hand. Dan Beecher Right. Okay. Yeah. I got confused. It's a very confusing test. Yes. And we're not sure exactly what it's supposed to indicate. Yeah. Apparently lapping water like a dog is a good sign for a soldier. Dan McClellan Yeah, so there are 300 who lapped. And so we've whittled it down from 30,000 to 300. So we've got 10%, or excuse me, a lot less than that. I don't know where my math went. ([Time 0:26:49](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8bac04bc-b791-4408-9b8d-3b1cb76e4f70)) - **Why God Shrinks Gideon's Army** - The divine motive in reducing Gideon's army is theological not military. - God narrows forces so Israel cannot credit numerical advantage instead of divine deliverance. Transcript: Dan McClellan Yeah. And so the Lord says to Gideons, the troops with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into your hand. Israel would only take the credit away from me saying my own hand has delivered me. So the idea here is you're going to route them just by pure numbers alone. And then they're not going to attribute the victory to me. They're going to say, yeah, we just had the numbers. And so God's like, send some of them home and so getting is like if you're afraid you can go home and 20 000 men uh are like thanks great thanks all right i'm out of here and so there are 10 000 Left and god is like still too many and so which is crazy but yeah okay god mean, God really wants to pare this down. Yeah. And so here we have this weird thing and we're not sure, we're still not sure exactly what's going on here, but God is like, hey, take them down to the water. I want to show you something. Tell everybody to go get a drink. Yeah, get a drink. And if they just slurp the water straight out of the lake, the whatever, the river, put them in one side. If they use their hand to cup water and slurp from their hand, they're on the other side. And then you're going to send all the hand slurpers home so that it's just the people who bent down and knelt down to drink. I think you got it backwards. I think the hand people are the ones who stay. All those who lap the water with their tongues as a dog laps, you will put to one side. All those who kneel down to drink, put in their hands to their mouths, you should put to the other side. And then the Lord said to Gideon, with the 300 who lapped, I will deliver you and give the Midianites into your hand. Dan Beecher Right. Okay. Yeah. I got confused. It's a very confusing test. Yes. And we're not sure exactly what it's supposed to indicate. Yeah. Apparently lapping water like a dog is a good sign for a soldier. Dan McClellan Yeah, so there are 300 who lapped. And so we've whittled it down from 30,000 to 300. So we've got 10%, or excuse me, a lot less than that. ([Time 0:30:01](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ac5adb0e-84a1-416c-95d8-bce96373b766)) - **Gideon's Trumpet-And-Jar Ruse** - Gideon's night trick used trumpets, torches in jars, and shouting to create the illusion of a vast army. - The ruse startled Midianites into chaos and mutual slaughter rather than a conventional melee. Transcript: Dan McClellan So uh what Gideon's idea is okay everybody get a trumpet and a jar here's your truck everybody so yes all 300 of the guys nobody grab a sword everybody just grab a trumpet and a jar and then A uh a a lantern yeah or something he splits them into three companies of 100 each and they and they basically are scattered around the the the midianite camp and at gideon's signal uh Dan Beecher This is at night by the way so presumably everybody's asleep and they just sneak in and infiltrate the camp yeah and so when gideon blows his trumpet they're all going to blow their trumpets Dan McClellan And then they're all going to smash the empty jars that they have. And I think the idea here is probably to give the Midianites the perception of significantly inflated numbers. Right. Trumpeter per 10 50 hundred soldiers or whatever and so if you suddenly hear 300 trumpets right that's a buttload of soldiers right and then the smashing of the jar i guess is supposed Dan Beecher To make a really creepy sound that that is supposed to freak well i i the sense that i got because it says there's torches inside the jars so the sense that i got was that like they were they Had the jars over the torches to like keep it dark oh yeah broke the jars holding in the left hands the torches and in their right hands the trumpets to blow so that suddenly it's bright Dan McClellan In the camp or something well well they see all the they if if that's what's going on they would see all of the the lights yeah and that would give them the impression of they're surrounded By thousands and thousands of men. In other words, they had the numbers they originally had. ([Time 0:34:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8786cfb8-7a26-4f3a-8e0c-18885ddb03f8)) - **Victory Spoils Become A Dangerous Ephod** - Gideon's golden ephod became a cult object that led Israel astray. - Ritual objects fashioned from victory loot can shift into local shrines and cause syncretic worship. Transcript: Dan McClellan And then Gideon takes that and makes an ephod out of it and put it in his town in Ophrah. So an ephod, in Exodus, the ephod is like a priestly vestment, like a vest, the thing that goes over the tunic that is supposed to carry the precious stones and things like this. But it also seems to be used to refer to some kind of divine image, some kind of tool of divination. So it's a way to inquire of God. But it's functioning like a divine image. And it's kind of like that in Exodus, because it seems like there's a pouch, and the Urim and Thummim go into the pouch. And according to ancient Jewish tradition, that was kind of how the priests divined God's will, was they used these seer stones, for lack of a better word, to somehow divine God's will. So the ephod of the priestly ephod is functioning like a tool of divination as well. But this can't be that. Dan Beecher I mean, you can't have 1,700 shekels worth of gold in an ephod and wear that. Dan McClellan Yeah. And so there are scholars who think this is some kind of cult object that is not necessarily a vestment, whether it's a standing stone or some kind of anthropomorphic statuary or whatever It might be. This has been put up in Ofra, and all Israel prostituted themselves to it there. I'm going to look up what the word translated prostituted there is. Dan Beecher Yeah, because I saw that and was like, I don't know what we're talking about now. Because it does seem like to this point, Gideon hasn't really done anything bad. He's been great. And now suddenly they're using what seems to be a very negative word for what Israel is doing with this ephod. Dan McClellan It seems like the season finale of a TV show where the hero in the very last scene, you're like going behind into his private time. And then, you know, the out of the shadows comes some kind of evil that is associated with your hero. So the verb is zana, which just means to be a sex worker or to engage in sex work. Okay. To ply your sexy wares. Sure. The King James Version has all Israel went thither a whoring after it. Dan Beecher I love the KJV so much. We're going to go a whoring, thither and yon. Dan McClellan Yeah. Hey, let's go thither and a whore. All right. Have you been beating your wheat? No, I swear, I've been a whoring. Dan Beecher I've been a whoring by the ephod. Yeah. So, okay. So Israel prostituted themselves to the ephod. Yeah. And it became a snare. Yeah. To Gideon and to his family. Yes. So Midian was subdued before the Israelites and they lifted. So it doesn't say much after that. Like it's. Yeah. He doesn't seem to be condemned for it. It's just noting, by the way, he made this thing and everybody was kind of a whore ([Time 0:44:57](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3ae9b3b3-fb58-41ba-b2e3-b4469d1ee5ed)) - **Rest-And-Relapse Pattern In Judges** - Israel repeatedly lapses after deliverance; Gideon's family line fails to secure lasting fidelity. - The pattern of 'rest then relapse' is a theological motif explaining recurring apostasy in Judges. Transcript: Dan Beecher And then we get the death of gideon yeah so like so like god doesn't punish anybody for this prostituting before the ephod uh he just he's gonna let him have it they had a hard time with the Dan McClellan With this battle so might as well just let him have the little bit of and we and get in verse 29, it goes back to calling him Jerobal. So Jerobal, son of Joash, went to live in his own house. Now Gideon had 70 sons, his own offspring, for he had many wives. His concubine who was in Shechem also bore him a son, and he named him Abimelech. And he died at a good old age and was buried in the tomb of his father Joash at Ophrah. And as soon as Gideon died, the Israelites relapsed. That's a great rendering there, NRSVUE. I wonder what relapse is. That's got to be Shuv. It's just got to be returned. Yeah. Yep, Shuv. They returned and prostituted themselves with the balls, making Balberit their God or ball of the covenant, Lord of the covenant. The Israelites did not remember the Lord their God who had rescued them from the hand of all their enemies on every side. And they did not exhibit loyalty to the house of Jeroboam. By the way, that's Gideon. In return for all the good that he had done to Israel. ([Time 0:48:42](https://share.snipd.com/snip/fe29f406-3224-44fb-886e-76938614a485)) - **Ezekiel's Sexualized Metaphor For Unfaithfulness** - Ezekiel 16 uses vivid sexualized metaphor to depict Jerusalem's unfaithfulness. - The prophet explicitly accuses the city of crafting 'male images' from God's gold, blending cultic and sexual imagery. Transcript: Dan Beecher The chapter starts with the Lord coming to our... Who is the Lord coming to? Who's writing this, theoretically? It says, the Lord came to me. Well, this is Ezekiel. Oh, it's Ezekiel, right. Okay. So Ezekiel's writing, and he says, the word of the Lord came to me. And then he goes into this very long, the Lord is doing a metaphor. Dan McClellan Yes. God is fond of metaphors. Dan Beecher And Jerusalem in this metaphor is a lady, starts out as a baby. And interestingly, this is God talking to Jerusalem and says, your origin and your birth were in the land of the Canaanites. Your father was an Amorite and your mother was a Hittite. I think that's really interesting because you and I have, you've talked about how the Israelite people were probably of Canaanite origin. Yeah. And this seems to just overtly confirm that. Is that what this is doing or is that, am I being too literal in metaphor land? Dan McClellan Well, it says your birth were in the land of the Canaanites. It says your father was an Amorite. And that might have reference to the notion that Abraham was an Amorite. Oh, okay. And then your mother, a Hittite. I'm curious about that because they don't say a lot about the Hittites, but you are the daughter of your mother who loathed her husband and her children, and you are the sister of your Sisters who loathed their husbands and their children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite. Okay, why are you saying this? Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelled of elderberries. Yes. Let me see one other passage. Yeah, I think that it might just be saying that bad-mouthing Israel. There's probably something there. I have just not looked into it. Okay, so anyway, we know the parentage. Dan Beecher As for your birth, on the day you were born, it basically just says you popped out, nobody took care of you as a baby, nobody did all of the birth things, and then they just plopped you in A field. Dan McClellan Yeah. You were abhorred on the day you were born. Dan Beecher Right. And I, meaning I, the Lord, passed by and saw you flailing about in your blood. As you lay in your blood, I said to you, live and grow up like a plant of the field. So anyway, Jerusalem grows tall and arrives at full womanhood. It gets very explicit here. Your breasts were formed and your hair had grown and yet you were naked and bare. It's all very sexy uh and it's about to get sexier um but but anyway the lord clothes jerusalem uh i pledged myself to you and entered into a covenant with you says the lord god and you became Mine then i bathed you with water and washed off the blood from you and anointed you with oh she left the blood on her the whole time that's that's weird uh and uh i clothed you with embroidered Cloth and with sandals of fine leather i bound you in fine linen and covered you with rich fabric rich in this case i assume means actually very expensive fabric because uh... Dan McClellan Yeah, it looks like the word is silk. Dan Beecher Oh, okay. I adorned you with ornaments. I put bracelets on your arms, a chain on your neck, a ring in your nose, earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown upon your head. That is some fancy stuff. Mm-hmm. You are adorned... So she is richly adorned. She's got embroidered cloth. It just goes on and on and on. You had choice flower and honey and oil for food. You grew exceedingly beautiful, fit to be a queen. Everybody loved you. You're hot. Blah, blah, blah. But you trusted in your beauty. This is where it takes a turn in verse 15. You trusted in your beauty and you prostituted yourself because of your fame and lavished your prostitutions on any passerby. You took some of your garments and made for yourself colorful high places, and on them you prostituted yourself. Nothing like this has ever been or shall ever be. And here's verse 17. You took your beautiful jewels of my gold and silver that I had given you, and you made for yourself male images and with them prostituted yourself. Yeah. Dan McClellan Now, I'm going to guess that you're pausing me on that. Yes. This is an interesting little reference here. Because it says, so you made for yourself, which would mean images of men or images of male or male images. And so the tselem, the image probably refers to a divine image. ([Time 0:53:24](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6207a01d-4d25-4332-b462-d0099d3a5b04)) - **Ezekiel May Allude To Phallic Cult Objects** - The 'male images' phrase may intentionally imply phallic cultic objects or sexualized divine images. - Scholars consider the provocative possibility that Ezekiel alludes to ritual phallic devices or sexual acts with cult images. Transcript: Dan McClellan So this would be some kind of cultic object, but it's male. So maybe it's anthropomorphic or maybe it is an image of the male member. Yeah. Because it then says, and you yourself with them, or as Zana, so you, KJV, didst commit whoredom with them. Yes. And so there is, we could think of this two ways. The metaphor could be saying you prostituted yourself in the sense that I am your husband, yet you worshipped other gods. And so that is the metaphor of prostitution in Hosea and Ezekiel and the other texts. Okay. Except the metaphor seems to be pretty on the nose, because it's not just that they worshipped other gods, but specifically made male images. Yeah. So there are scholars who think this could be a reference to phallic images. And the idea is you are having actual sex with the male images that you created with my gold and my silver. In other words, we've got a holy dildo, potentially, potentially in Ezekiel 16, 17. This could be a divine image functioning as a dildo. Dan Beecher Right. In metaphor in ([Time 0:59:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b6408d53-c7f7-4c35-ae14-25c9a0ed128c))