Too Explicit for Translation
You also took the fine jewelry I gave you, the jewelry made of my gold and silver, and you made for yourself male idols and engaged in prostitution with them. Ezekiel 16:17 NIV
Male idols – If you read this verse across a dozen translations, you will get everything from “male idols” to “images of men,” but none of these really capture Ezekiel’s frank address. They have all been modified to remove the explicit imagery. Look at the verse again. Why would Ezekiel include the word zakar in this description unless it was specifically necessary to make sense of the accusation? After all, if the prophet said, “You have made ‘tsalme,” any Hebrew reader would know he meant idols. Why male idols? The answer is found in the context of this accusation against Israel.
Go back to verse 2. Then read through verse 43. Notice that God compares Jerusalem to a woman, once rejected, then restored, beautiful and desirable who opens herself to pagan lovers and spurns the God of Israel. In fact, nearly the entire section speaks of Jerusalem’s prostitution, nakedness and immoral behavior. Now we know why the text reads tsalme zakar. These aren’t idols. They are phallic symbols. God accuses Jerusalem of being so infatuated with the lust of the pagan world that it created dildos to slake its sexual hunger. No wonder the translators chose to modify the imagery. But God didn’t. He used as graphic an image as possible to make sure the audience didn’t miss the picture. Sex is the subject. Sexual debauchery is the accusation. Guilty is the verdict.
Why shouldn’t we just quickly skip over all this as too embarrassing for Holy Writ? Because if we avoid the real imagery we will also miss the crucial point. The covenant relationship between God and Israel is a marriage; a marriage of exclusive, unbreakable, eternal commitment. All the intimacy that belongs in a marriage is the backdrop to God’s interaction with Israel. All the devotion. All the care. All the affection. All the tenderness. And all the rage at betrayal, the agony over adultery, the suffering over unfaithfulness.
Now go back and read verses 2 to 43 again. Do you see a rebuffed lover? Do you discover a slighted suitor? Can you appreciate the hurt God suffers when the only one He loves plays sexual games with another? Perhaps we need to read TDNT again. “Love in the OT is a spontaneous feeling which impels to self-giving, to grasping that which causes it, or to pleasurable activity. It involves the inner person. Since it has a sexual basis, it is directed supremely to persons.”[1] God is more interested in sex than you thought. Perhaps if we understood His perspective our intimacy with Him would change.
Topical Index: tselem zakar, male idols, Ezekiel 16:17
[1]Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (5). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.
“God is more interested in sex than you thought. Perhaps if we understood His perspective our intimacy with Him would change.” and, if I may add: as would also our ways of dealing with sex in the physical parallel picture – intimacy with each other.
OUR FLESH IS SHOWING!
Jesus spoke the nitty gritty.
“It is the Spirit who gives life;
the flesh profits nothing. The words
I speak to you are spirit and they are
life.” Jn 6:63
Paul’s tumultuous life got swallowed up
and turned around when the reality of
the nitty gritty overwhelmed him.
“For to be carnally minded is death, but to be
spiritually minded is life and peace.” Rm 8:6
Paul, like us, decided to let his spirit show!
“For as many are led by the Spirit of God,
these are the sons of God. For you did not receive
the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received
the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out,
“Abba, Father.” Rm 8:14-15
Then Paul spoke the nitty gritty.
“I say then: “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not
fulfill the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against
the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are
contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things
that you wish.” Gal 5:16-17
Is this too explicit?
Skip, a friend forwarded your commentary on the Ezekiel text. Yah is not embarrassed about his creation; sex is part of His creation. I do however see this text within the spiritual context of the 30-60-100 folds and explicit fourth fold or Elohim kingdom (Dan. 2:40). Strong 6754 is usually translated as ‘image’ but this word is one of a bevy of cognate words that mean angels, or Elohim from 6750-6767.
For instance, 6752 tzelal is an Angel Elohim word that is translated as shade or shadow. Why? Because the angels have been our ‘shade’ ‘covering’ for 6000 years. Without their covering of protection we would have destroyed all humanity long ago. Why shade, how does a shade paradigm work here? First, there only three (fold) kingdom ages that exist: the first 6000 year kingdom age of man, the spiritual MK, and then, after we become a perfected Bride, the Eternal Kingdom.
In this threefold paradigm, where is the origin of light? Yeshuah is light but His origin is in the eternal realm as Revelation tells us. Light originates in the third Eternal realm and shines DIRECTLY on the millennial realm. What does that leave us here in this present kingdom age? Shade, shadows!!! We only get shades of Torah in this age; Father purposely designed it that we just get an inkling of Torah Life so that we could choose Him or the world. In the direct light of the MK we will spiritually mature and perfect (the mustard seed) to the spiritual stature of a tree.
6754 is the same word used in 1 Samuel with regard to hemorrhoids and rats, or mice. What could the possible ‘spiritual’ connection be to this filth? The answer resides in a 30 fold paradigm of the wicked and lazy servant from Mt. 25:26.
All Scripture is written within the threefold and Elohim fourth fold paradigms. Once we are able to track with HIS paradigms then we will begin to stop making up our own interpretations of Scripture. When we manufacture our own paradigms we wind up with 40,000 different denominational opinions according to wikipedia.
There is Scriptural proof that Yah is not embarrassed about sex. It is visible in the construction of the temple itself. Tony Badillo is a Jew that was anointed to reveal this secret Temple Man (TM) figure.
http://www.templesecrets.info/sitemap.html The pillars of Yachin and Boaz are phallic symbols in the temple profile. There is also proof text in the TM that tells us there will only be 120 priests in the MK.
The Parable of the Sower reveals the paradigms that interpret the Mysteries of the Kingdom. I clearly see the Eternal Spiritual Principle paradigm in the Ezekiel text of Chapter 16 and 1 Samuel. We can’t see these paradigms because we don’t know the road signs. Skip, we really need to connect up. In the mean time my book is still available to anyone who requests it at embeast@mail.com
Shalom
Paul Mueller
And if you need a second witness just read Hosea!
Matthew 5:27, 28 “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”
It has been duly noted that the biggest problem with sex is that it is “all in the head”. It seems to me that if sex were run on instinct, like the creatures and plants do it, then we would not have problems with it. We probably wouldn’t even pay it much mind, either! But our brains are our biggest sex organ, so says science, which is still trying to catch up with that Sermon on the Mount. However, our Creator (Who knows us better) said it first. Infidelity is a head problem that just shows up in the body. The body is simply responding to what is already in the head. At that point, whether or not it is actually consummated with another person is not even so much of an issue, as the body is already reacting as soon as the thought is formed, because, of course (in the Hebrew mindset anyway) there is no difference between the heart, mind and body. Wait. That is what the Sermon is saying!
This is the problem with sex. It isn’t even about sex. It is so much more than that. It is about oneness of heart, mind and purpose. It is about sublimating one into another. It is about looking at reality from another’s point of view; sharing the world through their eyes from inside their skin, their heart, their perspective. The closest we come to not feeling alone in the flesh is this act. We can talk about ‘mere sex’, but, I think, from a human standpoint anyway, the more we manage to insulate ourselves from that scary ‘oneness’ stuff, the more we manage to make it less than sex, until it becomes something so totally divorced from its full definition that it devolves into something so pointless it is no longer attractive to anyone, thus finally rendering it impossible at all.
Given that sex itself is about oneness (which is what we are supposed to be enjoying with our Creator, by the way), then, in a very real sense, ANY betrayal of trust between anyone is going to have powerful sexual overtones. Think about it. Why else does betrayal feel so awful? Is it not because it breaks that oneness bond; tears the very fabric of shared existence that makes us one Body together? (1Cor. 6:16, 17 “What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.” Which tells me that if I join my spirit to any other spirit other than God, I am committing adultery.) And if sex is actually what happens in the head, then, in a very real sense, where is its counterpart in our corporate Head, which is Yeshua? Are we not supposed to be showing in our Body what is going down in His Mind? And at what level is this intimacy supposed to be reflecting that He desires us to be exhibiting towards our God, ourselves, and each other?
I have seen pictures of those giant phallic symbols of old; some of which still stand, and some of which we are still copying, unfortunately. If you want to see ours, I think it has an address on Washington Avenue in Washington D.C. Wait! I digress. Where was I? Oh, yeah. I have a suspicion that by the time the Israelites were actually building stuff that reflected where they were at (not) with YHVH, they had been at it full blown in their hearts and minds for a good while. Betrayal is a blow below the belt. In every way.
Note, Laurita, how the Bible express the physical organs- the head, heart, kidneys and so on – with thoughts, decisions, feelings and emotions. It makes a difference in many ways to acknowledge that thoughts are all formed in the heart where the seed is sown and where your spirit lives and where the life-providing blood is administrated, while decisions are made in our head. Feelings, however – which the world tries to teach you is seated in your heart, has – accordring to God – it’s physical place in your kidneys. This doesn’t sit well in a western mind, but it sure is a part of Gods design 🙂
I looked up that word, idol, in Strong’s concordance, 6754# and it says espec. an idol, image. I was just curious how accurate Strong’s concordance is. Is it always going to line up with what the translators wrote? Is there a better resource to use. I am learning of some translator bias and I’d like to know the right meanings of the words. Thanks for your in depth teachings Skip.
Strong’s will follow most Christian conservative meanings. Useful but not complete by any means.
As Strong’s along with any other dictionary provides abstract descriptions of abstract words, it’ll never be able to show the true rooted meaning of the words. Together with Skip Moen I mainly take my hebrew lessons from Jeff Benner’s http://www.ancient-hebrew.org – and Brad Scotts http://www.wildbranch.org. They’re also both exellent and complementary teachers of the ancient hebrew language and culture.
Thank you,Lennart Ims for the references.