Pod Insights Data Over Dogma Biblical Sex Toys??? About this episode This week should be sponsored by that "adult play" company, because we're getting a little naughty! Or rather- the Bible got a little naughty (maybe), and we're just talking about it.
First, though, we're going to talk about one of those famous "judges" that the book of Judges was named for. It's the story of Gideon, and it has a lot going on! Did Gideon see God or an angel? Why did he ask for signs? Why is my hotel Bible named after him?
Then, it's time. We're going to talk about the... thing in the Bible that you don't write in the show notes. The biblical fun phallus. Is that actually what it is? We'll see!
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Transcript 11,286 words · 7 speakers
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1:39 Speaker 00 His son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press, which is, you know, just what they called it.
1:45 Speaker 01 Don't, don't mix your grains and your grapes. We, we don't need to do that in the same place. There's plenty of room. What are we doing?
1:52 Speaker 00 You're not beating out your wheat there in the wine press again, are you, Gideon?
1:56 Speaker 01 These boys been beating the wheat in my wine press.
2:03 Speaker 00 Damn it, Gideon!
2:05 Speaker 01 Been whacking in my camper.
2:10 Speaker 01 Okay, we need to go on.
2:18 Speaker 00 Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.
2:20 Speaker 01 And I'm Dan Beecher.
2:21 Speaker 00 And you're listening to the Data Over Dogma Podcast, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How go things today, Dan?
2:34 Speaker 01 Things are good. It's a beautiful day. You went golfing.
2:39 Speaker 00 I did.
2:40 Speaker 01 I went for a lovely walk.
2:42 Speaker 00 Excellent.
2:43 Speaker 01 Now it's time to combat some misinformation. Actually, we're not going to do a lot of misinformation combating right this week.
2:50 Speaker 00 Yeah.
2:51 Speaker 01 We're just gonna have some fun.
2:52 Speaker 00 Yeah.
2:52 Speaker 01 With the Bible.
2:53 Speaker 00 We're gonna lean into the first part of our mission statement.
2:57 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:57 Speaker 00 Increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion by addressing a couple of passages from the Hebrew Bible.
3:05 Speaker 01 Yes, indeed. The first thing we're gonna talk about, we're gonna hit a judge, one of the judges of judges.
3:12 Speaker 00 Yes.
3:14 Speaker 01 And that'll be fun. We're gonna talk about Gideon. And I'll tell you what, when you first type Gideon into, if you type Gideon into Google, you don't, I thought I was gonna be clever and type Gideon Bible into the Google, and that is a whole other thing. The Gideon Bible is its own thing. So you have to type Gideon in the Bible, and then you get Judges 6. So we'll get to that. That's our chapter and verse. And then in the latter half of the show, you're gonna wanna stick around for this. It's our Twisted Scripture segment. And I'll just say that we teased it a few weeks ago. We talked about it. We said we were gonna look into it.
3:56 Speaker 01 It is in Ezekiel, and it's naughty. So you're gonna wanna stay tuned for that action. But first, let's do a chapter and verse.
4:12 Speaker 01 And this chapter in verse, we're, like I said, we're in Judges, chapter six through eight.
4:17 Speaker 00 Six through eight.
4:18 Speaker 01 Yeah, we're talking about, about this Gideon fellow, although he gets another name partway through.
4:25 Speaker 00 Well, and this is interesting because the narrative is like, he gets another name. But a lot of scholars are like, it sounds like that was his name originally. And they just wrote a narrative to explain why he has a name that seems dedicated to a problematic deity, but we'll get to that. Yeah.
4:46 Speaker 01 Yeah, because it ends, I don't want to give too much away, but his name is something, something Baal.
4:53 Speaker 00 Yeah.
4:54 Speaker 01 As in the god Baal.
4:56 Speaker 00 Baal, yes, yes. Get those nasty Baals out of your mouth.
5:03 Speaker 01 That's the second segment of the show, Dan. Come on. So, okay, so let's start out with, with who was this guy?
5:12 Speaker 00 Well, Gideon was the son of Joash, but I want to, 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.
5:31 Speaker 01 Everybody chills. Forty years is about the right amount of time for everybody to sort of forget all of the good lessons that they've learned.
5:40 Speaker 00 Yes.
5:41 Speaker 01 And, and, and think that everything's cool forever and then start doing dumb stuff.
5:49 Speaker 00 Way to edit yourself there.
5:52 Speaker 01 And nothing happened? What are you talking about?
5:55 Speaker 00 And then, uh, chapter six starts the way all of the, the new stories, uh, start in, in Judges. The Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.
6:05 Speaker 01 And so, oh, you, you wacky, fickle Israelites.
6:10 Speaker 00 Yeah. And, and so then, uh, God gives them into the hands of Midian for seven years. And Midian would be this territory that's kind of south, south. East of Israel, so other side of the Jordan, but but further down south, kind of on the east side of the Gulf of Akaba. So this is, this is where Moses is supposed to have met up with Jethro, his father in law, got training and priesthood and all this kind of stuff. So the relationship of Israel to Midian is a, is an interesting one.
6:51 Speaker 00 But when you get to verse seven, 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, and immediately after that, we get Gideon. And as I was reading that, it is, it sounds a little different from the rest of the narrative. But in, in the SBL Study Bible, there are actually double brackets.
7:35 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm seeing that in the NRS VUE as well.
7:38 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah. So, so I was like, huh, that's usually where something has been added in. Like this is the, the long ending of Mark, the, the story of the woman taken in adultery. Those passages have the double brackets around it as well. So, and I looked down at the, at the note, and it looks like there's a Kumran manuscript, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, just straight up doesn't have verses seven through 10. So we've got a little text critical. How's your father going on there? So, and I, and I haven't pulled up the manuscript to see if there's a case to make for
8:22 Speaker 00 like some kind of haplography, which would be where maybe in the copying of the text, the scribe accidentally left four verses out, like that's a lot to leave out. You usually don't see that, but maybe, maybe that's why. But I, I think what that indicates is that somebody actually threw this in afterwards. This is a secondary addition to this.
8:45 Speaker 01 Yeah, it does feel very like just sort of a preachy moment that doesn't. Advance the story at all or anything like that? It's just sort of a like reminder.
8:57 Speaker 00 Yeah. And it sounds kind of Deuteronomistic.
9:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
9:01 Speaker 00 It's using the language that Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic history uses. This, I brought you up from Egypt, gall darn it. Um, cause it uses gall darn it. And that is a distinctly Deuteronomistic, um, um, rural.
9:18 Speaker 01 What is, what is the ancient Hebrew for gall darn it again? I'm just, I'm trying to remember.
9:23 Speaker 00 Uh, it's, yeah, you, you gotta be able to pronounce the, uh,
9:27 Speaker 01 The ch.
9:28 Speaker 00 The ch, yeah.
9:29 Speaker 01 It's just, it's just ch.
9:32 Speaker 00 Just like Gamora is actually Ramora. It is a, it is an I and it's not a G.
9:37 Speaker 01 Oh my goodness.
9:39 Speaker 00 But anyway, uh, and, and she was also in the Guardians of the Galaxy. Now, uh, you get to verse 11 and you have the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash, the, uh, Abi is right. As his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press, which is, you know, just what they called it.
9:59 Speaker 01 Um, yeah. Uh, that, that confused me cause it's like this whole threshing thing, but like, why are you threshing? Don't, don't mix your grains and your grapes. We, we don't need to do that in the same place. There's plenty of room. What are we doing?
10:13 Speaker 00 You're not beating out your wheat there in the wine press again, are you, Gideon?
10:17 Speaker 01 These boys been beating the wheat in my wine press.
10:24 Speaker 01 Damn it, Gideon. Been whacking in my camper.
10:31 Speaker 01 Okay. We need to go on.
10:35 Speaker 00 And, uh, it says, the angel of the Lord appeared to him. Suddenly he's just beating his wheat and, uh, and the angel pops up.
10:42 Speaker 01 Oh, that is the worst. When an angel shows up right when you're beating your wheat, that is, uh, you don't want that, but okay.
10:48 Speaker 00 It says, the Lord is with you, you mighty warrior.
10:52 Speaker 01 He's apparently impressed by what he saw.
10:54 Speaker 00 And Gideon went, ah.
10:58 Speaker 01 Oh my, we are getting silly, sir.
11:01 Speaker 00 Yes.
11:01 Speaker 01 We are being, we are being silly.
11:03 Speaker 00 It's been a long day.
11:04 Speaker 01 This is a very serious episode, so we need to be
11:07 Speaker 00 Okay.
11:08 Speaker 01 far more serious about this.
11:09 Speaker 00 So we get this back and forth between the angel of the Lord and Gideon. And you, you have some odd things because it says, the angel of the Lord said this, the angel of the Lord said that. Gideon said this, and then, um, verse 14, 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, uh, 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."
11:54 Speaker 00 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 change here.
12:02 Speaker 01 Right, right.
12:02 Speaker 00 Um, and it's just going back and forth.
12:07 Speaker 00 And, and then we're going to get to Gideon's sign, but, but this is a, there's something interesting going on here. I and other scholars have published arguments, uh, 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, they switch them up a little bit.
12:26 Speaker 01 Okay.
12:26 Speaker 00 And this is an indication that maybe the word angel there is a later addition, an interpolation, if you will. Uh, 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.
12:52 Speaker 01 Rude, she's rude.
12:55 Speaker 00 The, the hand of Satan, by the way, is the, um, is the, the particular episode, but, um, and so an editor has probably come in here and, um, written in Malach, angel, in order to muddy the waters a bit regarding who it is that's, that's talking to Gideon.
13:12 Speaker 01 Because it's, it's theologically problematic that the Lord would appear to him.
13:16 Speaker 00 Yeah, and because, um, Gideon is, uh,
13:21 Speaker 00 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 him on this rock, pour out the broth, then 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.
14:00 Speaker 00 So, so God has a staff in, in their hand, and God is like, boop, and consumes everything.
14:07 Speaker 01 Right.
14:08 Speaker 00 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, you've got quite the arm there, I think we could use you.
14:27 Speaker 01 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 have 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 the Lord.
14:54 Speaker 00 Yes.
14:54 Speaker 01 So, so yeah, it makes total sense to me. Like, this whole chapter makes way more sense if we take away the word angel.
15:04 Speaker 00 Yeah, and it's just God who shows up.
15:07 Speaker 01 It's just God.
15:07 Speaker 00 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 3320. That's what God tells Moses. God's like, I'm gonna cover your face when you walk by, and I'll take my hand away, and you'll see my back, but you're not gonna see my face. And, and so you have all these instances where somebody's like, ah, we've seen God, and they're terrified, but they don't. Die and it kind of defeats the point of using a messenger as an intermediary. Uh, you know, I don't want to kill him, so I'm gonna send a messenger and then like they look at the messenger and die and like crap. We didn't think this through. Um, like there's no, there's no reason that seeing an angel uh would threaten your life.
15:50 Speaker 00 But then God's like, no, don't worry about it. Don't worry. We'll make an exception for you. Yeah. And, and so these stories, uh, we've got Hagar, we've got Moses, we've got Gideon. In Judges 13, we're gonna have Mennoach and his wife, who are the parents of Samson, same exact thing. Angel of the Lord. And then they go, ah, we have seen God and we're going to die, but they don't die. So, uh, and this place to this day, and this is some of the, the language of the Deuteronomistic literature and other literature that gives away that these stories were not written when they happened. Cause it says, um, then Gid- Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it the Lord is peace.
16:33 Speaker 00 To this day, it still stands at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abia's rights. So this is, this is something, uh, from Hore antiquity and you know, you can still go see it through down to this day. So, uh, this is something that they're writing about much later, but God has called Gideon to deliver, uh, the Israelites from the hand of Midian that God also called them to be delivered into.
17:01 Speaker 01 Right.
17:02 Speaker 00 So, yeah, there's.
17:03 Speaker 01 Even, even though, uh, Gideon is, is the, the lowest on the totem pole at his house and his house is not a, a big deal and he's just like, what the heck? Okay. I'll go do it.
17:15 Speaker 00 Sounds kinda like David, like I'm the youngest.
17:18 Speaker 01 Right, right, right. Yeah. Everybody loves an underdog story.
17:22 Speaker 00 Yes. Uh, and then the, the first thing though, that, that Gideon has got to do, that night the Lord said to him, take your father's bull, the second bull, seven years old.
17:34 Speaker 01 Don't leave, don't, don't, don't take the first bull. That's just, that's, go steal your dad's car, but to, but take the bad one. Yeah. Not the good one.
17:44 Speaker 00 Leave the gun. Um, and pull down the altar of Baal that belongs to your father and cut down the sacred pole. And, 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. And take the second bowl offered as a burnt offering. And he does it at night, just so he doesn't catch the attention and, and catch any hands.
18:06 Speaker 01 He sneaks it.
18:07 Speaker 00 Yeah.
18:07 Speaker 01 He's a sneak.
18:08 Speaker 00 Yeah, but, but this is interesting because we've got, we're getting altars to, to Adonai all over the place. This is prior to the, uh, 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.
18:42 Speaker 01 So first we gotta, first we gotta take down Baal and, uh, and, and Asherah's.
18:47 Speaker 00 Right, so, so we, we take them down. The next day, everybody wakes up and they're like, huh? Pourquoi? And who hath 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. And pull down the altar, that, yeah, pull down the altar of Baal that belongs to your father.
19:21 Speaker 01 Okay.
19:22 Speaker 00 So it's Joash's stuff, but Joash is, is just kind of like, well, you gotta do what you gotta do. And, uh, and just lets it go. Uh, Joash said, will you contend for Baal? 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, and this is the story, um, cause the name Jerubal means Baal contends.
19:49 Speaker 01 Right.
19:50 Speaker 00 But, and, and this seems to probably have been Gideon's original name.
19:55 Speaker 01 Okay.
19:56 Speaker 00 But why, why is the hero of the story, um, named after Baal?
20:01 Speaker 01 Right.
20:02 Speaker 00 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.
20:12 Speaker 01 Right, or contend against ball or something like that.
20:16 Speaker 00 Or something like that, yeah.
20:17 Speaker 01 There is, because we've heard names that mean ex-God contends before.
20:26 Speaker 00 Well, that's what Israel probably means.
20:28 Speaker 01 Right, exactly.
20:30 Speaker 00 Is L contends.
20:32 Speaker 01 So, yeah, so it's interesting to hear it in this context now. But with a different God as the, as the sort of the subject.
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23:21 Speaker 00 So Dan, you've heard me talk ad nauseam about the fact that we've got construction going on at the house.
23:26 Speaker 01 We are I've heard the construction.
23:28 Speaker 00 Yeah, you heard the construction too. We're finishing our basement. We're actually adding on to the house. We're doing some stuff in the backyard. And I was thinking the other day about how nice it was to be able to do this. Cause we, I wanted to get a new car and I wanted to do these, these improvements to the house, but we had to pay off our old car and that took actual planning, which you know I hate. And so I really had to shift my thinking quite a bit when it came to my finances. And we had to set dates and we had to create a budget. And it was so satisfying to actually make a plan.
24:10 Speaker 00 And then even though it took some discipline and there were some bumps in the road, we actually succeeded and we're able to pay off a car, got a brand new car. And it feels so relieving to know that if we actually set these goals and plan for them and stick to them, it goes from, oh, this will never end, actually feeling like you have control over stuff. And that has made a huge difference to me and to my family.
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26:13 Speaker 00 I have forgotten all of it.
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28:08 Speaker 00 And so verse 32 says, therefore, on that day Gideon was called Jerubal. That is to say, let Baal contend against him because he pulled down his altar. So you know, that's, is what you do when somebody destroys an altar to a deity. You name them after that deity, but, but in a way that sticks it to the deity. That makes tons of sense.
28:31 Speaker 01 Yeah. So the, the more likely theory that you're espousing is that his name was Jerubal.
28:38 Speaker 01 Because he probably worshipped Baal.
28:41 Speaker 00 Well, yeah.
28:42 Speaker 01 And so he had a name, or he was part of a group that worshipped Baal. So it made sense to give him a theophoric, is that right?
28:51 Speaker 00 That's right. Yeah.
28:52 Speaker 01 Good work. See, I learned, I learned some things, but it makes sense to give him a theophoric name with Baal in the name, uh, because, because that would have just been natural.
29:03 Speaker 00 Yeah. And, and Baal just means lord or master.
29:06 Speaker 01 Right.
29:07 Speaker 00 Or husband. Um, we're gonna, we're gonna just slide right on by that.
29:13 Speaker 00 And, uh, when we get to Hosea, we can talk more about that, but, uh, so it could be a, a title for Adonai. For all we know, he was, was given this, this, uh, name and named after Adonai. But I, and, and here's what, what I think gives away the story. In chapter seven, it says, then Jerubal.
29:34 Speaker 01 Parenthetically, that is Gideon.
29:37 Speaker 00 The narrator is kind of like, um, now remember, remember this is the other guy. Um, when, when he's telling the story that, uh, that is talking about Jeru Baal. And so what I think happened is the, the editors have this story about Jeru Baal. And they're like, well, we, we got this Gideon guy, let's, let's fold him in.
29:58 Speaker 01 Yeah.
29:58 Speaker 00 You just fold him in. And then, uh, you know, every time it's calls him Jerubal, you just say, that mean, that's a reference to Gideon. And then we'll tell a story about why Gideon had this secondary name added to him. You know, which happens to everybody. Every time somebody does something cool, they didn't give you that other name. That occasionally is the only name they know for you. So, so I think that's probably part of the editorial layering going on here.
30:28 Speaker 00 And, and so, uh, now we have, uh, Gideon, who's been commissioned by God. You'll recall, he did the zzz fingers, uh, and he's got to go against the Midianites. And, uh, we've got a couple of ways that Gideon is, is going to figure out how to do this. First, Gideon is like, I need some signs, man.
30:49 Speaker 01 Yeah, this was, this was a little baffling to me because he call, he says to God, I mean, he met the guy. He saw the magic rock flames trick.
31:00 Speaker 00 Yeah.
31:01 Speaker 01 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 I, before we get to the fleece, aren't there places in the Bible that specifically say, don't ask for signs?
31:22 Speaker 00 Yes, yes. And, and this is probably because they, the, the notion developed that you should have enough faith to not ask God to prove it to you.
31:32 Speaker 01 Right.
31:32 Speaker 00 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. And, um, and here we have-
31:42 Speaker 01 There's no, no, no, there's 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.
31:50 Speaker 00 Yeah.
31:51 Speaker 01 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.
31:58 Speaker 00 Yeah.
31:59 Speaker 01 Because he, cause, cause, and so what he has, he does just quickly is that he, he lays a fleece of wool on the threshing floor.
32:07 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm.
32:09 Speaker 01 Uh, because the, uh, I guess the, uh, the wine press was not available at the time. Uh, 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, uh, that you're gonna deliver Israel as you have said, blah, blah, blah. And that happens. He, he, there, there's no dew on the ground. There's, he squeezes a full bowl of water out of the fleece.
32:36 Speaker 00 Yep.
32:37 Speaker 01 And then he's like, okay, but like, let's do it again, only reverse it. And this time, no dew in the, in the fleece and dew all over the ground. And then, then I'll definitely believe you. So-
32:50 Speaker 01 Calling for two signs, that just seems like it's pure balls at this point.
32:55 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah. And he's being humble about it. He's like, please don't be mad at me. Just, your humble and obedient servant would like you to do another sign.
33:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
33:06 Speaker 00 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. But God is-
33:19 Speaker 01 Look, I've never known, it's not obvious to me because I've never known like, I've always been confused about the numbers of people. I always imagined that these are smallish villages and whatever.
33:30 Speaker 00 Yeah.
33:31 Speaker 01 But then you see numbers like 30,000 troops and you're like, oh, that's way bigger than I thought it was.
33:37 Speaker 00 Yeah.
33:38 Speaker 01 But, but, but that's probably not right then, is what you're saying?
33:42 Speaker 00 Correct.
33:43 Speaker 01 Okay.
33:44 Speaker 00 Yeah. It's, uh, it's gonna be, uh, a lot smaller than that. These are little villages, uh, for the most part.
33:51 Speaker 01 I've always been so confused about that. You've got these huge numbers and it just sounds so wrong.
33:58 Speaker 00 Yeah. Um, and so, uh, the Lord says to Gideon, "The troops with, 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 gonna rout them just by pure numbers alone and then they're not gonna attribute the victory to me. They're gonna say, yeah, we just had the numbers.
34:23 Speaker 01 Right, right.
34:24 Speaker 00 You know, and, uh, and so God's like, send some of them home. And so Gideon is like, if you're afraid, you can go home. And 20,000 men, uh, are like, thanks, dude.
34:38 Speaker 01 Great, thanks. All right, I'm outta here.
34:41 Speaker 00 And so there are 10,000 left and God is like, still too many. And so
34:46 Speaker 01 Which is crazy, but yeah, okay. God, I mean, God, God really wants to pare this down.
34:52 Speaker 00 Yeah. And so here we have this weird thing and, and we're not sure, we're still not sure exactly what's going on here. But God is like, hey, uh, take them down to the water. Uh, I want to show you something and
35:03 Speaker 01 Tell everybody to go get a drink.
35:05 Speaker 00 Yeah, get a drink. And if they just slurp the water straight out of the, uh, of the, the lake, the whatever, the river, uh, 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, uh, knelt down to drink.
35:33 Speaker 01 I think you got it backwards. I think the, the hand people are the ones who stay.
35:38 Speaker 00 With the
35:39 Speaker 01 All those who
35:40 Speaker 00 No, no, no. 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, usually put to the other side. Um, and then the Lord said to Gideon, with the 300 who lapped, I will deliver you and give the Midianites into your hand.
35:57 Speaker 01 Right. Okay.
35:58 Speaker 00 Yeah.
35:58 Speaker 01 Yeah. I, I got confused. It's a confused, like though, it's a very confusing test.
36:03 Speaker 00 Yes. And we're not sure exactly what it's supposed to indicate.
36:07 Speaker 01 Yeah. Apparently lapping is a, lapping water like a dog is a good sign for a soldier.
36:12 Speaker 00 Yeah. So there are 300 who lapped. And so we've whittled it down from 30,000 to 300. So we've got 10%. Uh, or excuse me, uh, a lot less than that. Uh, uh, I don't know where my math went.
36:28 Speaker 01 Don't worry about it.
36:28 Speaker 00 Okay. And, um, and we're going to play a trick on the Midianites.
36:33 Speaker 01 Yeah.
36:33 Speaker 00 Uh, but, but first Gideon's got to sneak down to the camp. Uh, the Midianites and the Amalekites, uh, they were, uh, thick as locusts and their camels were without number. Countless is the sand on the seashore. And so he, uh, he sneaks down and he hears a man telling a dream to his comrade. He said, comrade. I had a dream and ended a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came to the tent and struck it so that it fell. It turned upside down and the tent collapsed. Um, and his comrade answered, this is no other than the sword of Gideon, son of Joash, a man of Israel. Into his hand, God has given Midian and all the army. So Gideon's like, yes.
37:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, that is a very weird thing for the Midianites to say.
37:22 Speaker 00 Yeah.
37:22 Speaker 01 Like, that is, that is, it like, how do they know that Gideon is the one that's gonna be coming against them? This seems like it's a new thing, but I guess word has gotten back about the lapping soldiers or whatever, the famous lapping soldiers of Gideon. It just, it all seems very weird, but okay, sure. They, they had, apparently Gideon has some tough bread that knocks tents down.
37:53 Speaker 00 Well, I, yeah, I think the idea is that the barley bread is supposed to represent Israel because they were, uh, they were, you know, big on barley.
38:01 Speaker 01 They're big barley dudes.
38:03 Speaker 00 Yeah.
38:03 Speaker 01 They love them some barley.
38:05 Speaker 00 Yeah. Um, and so what Gideon's idea is, okay, everybody get a trumpet and a jar.
38:14 Speaker 00 Here's your trumpet, here's your jar.
38:15 Speaker 01 So, all 300 of the guys, nobody grab a sword. Everybody just grab a trumpet and a jar and then a, a lantern.
38:25 Speaker 00 Yeah.
38:25 Speaker 01 Or something.
38:26 Speaker 00 And he splits them into three companies of 100 each and they, and they basically are scattered around the, the Midianite camp. And at Gideon's signal, uh,
38:37 Speaker 01 This is at night, by the way. So presumably everybody's asleep and they just sneak in and infiltrate the camp.
38:44 Speaker 00 Yeah. And so, uh, when Gideon blows his trumpet, they're all going to blow their trumpets 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.
39:01 Speaker 01 Right.
39:01 Speaker 00 Uh, the idea being, you know, you only have one trumpeter per 10, 50, 100 soldiers or whatever. And so if you suddenly hear 300 trumpets,
39:11 Speaker 01 Right.
39:11 Speaker 00 That's a butt load of soldiers.
39:13 Speaker 01 Right.
39:13 Speaker 00 And then the smashing of the jar, I guess, is supposed to make a really creepy sound that that is supposed to freak them out.
39:19 Speaker 01 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 while they came in.
39:33 Speaker 00 Broke the jars, holding in their left hands, the torches, and in their right hands, the trumpets to blow.
39:38 Speaker 01 So, so that suddenly it's bright in the camp or something?
39:41 Speaker 00 Well, well, they see all the, they, if, if that's what's going on, they would see all of the, the lights.
39:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:47 Speaker 00 And that would give them the impression of they're surrounded by, by thousands and thousands of, of men. In other words, that they had the numbers they originally had.
39:57 Speaker 01 Right.
39:58 Speaker 00 Um, that's, that's the impression that they want to give the, uh, the Midianites.
40:02 Speaker 01 Although what's great is that instead of having actually those numbers with swords, they have 300 guys with no swords.
40:11 Speaker 00 Yeah.
40:11 Speaker 01 Blowing trumpets. It just seems, it just seems, it's an interesting plan that the Lord has come up with for, for Gideon and his 300.
40:22 Speaker 00 And then, uh, they cried, uh, or he cries out a sword for the Lord and for Gideon. And everybody cries out and the Midianites, uh, run away.
40:34 Speaker 01 They, and then, and they cry out, God for Harry. And St. George or something. Yeah. So they, uh, so yeah, they, they all, they basically just startle them into losing the battle.
40:49 Speaker 00 Yeah. And it doesn't, I, the, the text doesn't say that God, I, I, I don't think it says that God gave Gideon the idea. Gideon hears the telling of the dream and its interpretation. He returned to the camp of Israel and said, get up for the Lord has given the army of Midian into your hand. And then he divides the company and does all this. So it's not clear from the text that, that God was like, okay, Gideon, get this, we're gonna freak them out. Um, it, it sounds like it was just Gideon's idea.
41:20 Speaker 01 Right.
41:21 Speaker 00 Which, which makes me wonder if God was so upset about the, the soldiers not giving the credit to God because of their numbers. It sounds like Gideon could boast that it was really his ideal all along.
41:33 Speaker 01 Well, yeah, although in
41:35 Speaker 00 Except for the dream, the dream that was given to the, the Midianite morons.
41:39 Speaker 01 In verse 22, it does say that, uh, the, the, the Midianites, is it the Midianites? Is that who we're talking about?
41:47 Speaker 00 Yeah.
41:47 Speaker 01 I, I got confused there for a second.
41:49 Speaker 00 Oh, the, yeah, the Lord said every man sword against his fellow and against all the army.
41:53 Speaker 01 Right. So, so they all just started fighting each other instead of fighting Gideon's troops, which I think is pretty funny.
42:02 Speaker 00 So he is playing a role.
42:03 Speaker 01 Gideon basically just said, you guys go in there, scream a bunch, play your trumpets, and then stand there like torchbearers.
42:10 Speaker 00 Yeah.
42:11 Speaker 01 And they'll all just kill each other and, and you just be like, I'm just, I'm just the guy with the torch. Don't kill me.
42:19 Speaker 00 And then we have, we have Gideon in the 300. They, they're pursuing them. They came to the Jordan. They cross over the Jordan. Uh, and then they, they're looking for some help. They asked the people of Sukkot, give us some loaves of bread. They're exhausted. I'm pursuing the kings of Midian, Zebah and Zalmunah. And the people in Sukkot were like, you don't look that hungry.
42:40 Speaker 01 I don't know about this.
42:41 Speaker 00 Yeah.
42:42 Speaker 01 I'll get, they'll get mad. If you guys lose, they're gonna get mad at us if we give you bread.
42:47 Speaker 00 Yeah. And, and Gideon is like, ooh, you're gonna get it when we get back. Um, and then
42:53 Speaker 01 I'm gonna mess you up.
42:54 Speaker 00 Yep. Uh, once we get some bread in us, man, it's over. We just need some carbs. So they're, they, they continue along these, these routes and there's, uh, they catch up with Zebah and Zalmunah, uh, and, and they give them what for. And then they come back and obviously kill all the people who were, uh, who were not nice to them.
43:15 Speaker 01 Who, who didn't, who didn't give them bread.
43:17 Speaker 00 Didn't help them out. Didn't do them a solid.
43:20 Speaker 01 There's no, the, it's fascinating because now we're, we're in chapter seven now and in
43:25 Speaker 00 We're in chapter eight now.
43:26 Speaker 01 Oh, chapter eight. That's right.
43:28 Speaker 00 Yeah.
43:28 Speaker 01 Uh, and, uh, in verse 10, it's, they catch up with Zebah and Zalmunah and their army about 15,000 men. And here. There's no, there's no like real telling of how-
43:47 Speaker 00 The element of surprise has vaporized.
43:50 Speaker 01 The 300 dudes managed, like, the first trick worked pretty good, but there's no, there's no knowledge of like how the 300 guys then handled the, the remaining, even though it's a, it's a smaller number than it was before, 15,000 is still a lot of dudes.
44:08 Speaker 00 Yeah, and it says 120,000 men bearing arms had fallen.
44:13 Speaker 01 120,000.
44:16 Speaker 00 Yeah.
44:17 Speaker 01 These, these, these guys were worse swordsmen than stormtroopers are shots.
44:23 Speaker 00 Yeah, significantly inflated.
44:26 Speaker 01 Yeah, these guys, these guys are forever killing each other and themselves rather than-
44:33 Speaker 00 Yeah, and so Sukot and then Penuel, or Pennyel, they, they both say, no, we're not gonna help you, and Gideon says to both of them, ooh, if I had a sword, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get you so bad. And so they, they go and they successfully defeat everybody and come back and then obviously destroy the people of Sukot and Penuel.
44:59 Speaker 01 Obviously, because what else would you do?
45:01 Speaker 00 Yeah.
45:01 Speaker 01 Show mercy to them?
45:04 Speaker 00 And then the Israelites said to Gideon, rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also, for you have delivered us out of the hand of Midian. And, and Gideon, the, as humble as he is, says, I will not rule over you and my son will not rule over you, the Lord will rule over you. And we will just be the representation.
45:22 Speaker 01 Right, yeah, that's a cute little turn of phrase, but, but also-
45:28 Speaker 00 I don't own all of these houses, God owns the houses.
45:32 Speaker 01 Right.
45:33 Speaker 00 I'm just the steward.
45:34 Speaker 01 Little Dave Ramsey throwback, good. Okay, so then-
45:39 Speaker 01 Uh.
45:40 Speaker 00 But, but.
45:41 Speaker 01 But Gideon's not done.
45:42 Speaker 00 He's not done.
45:43 Speaker 01 Like, his little, his little bout of hum- of humility does not last long because the very next thing he does is like, "But by the way, give me like, all the gold."
45:54 Speaker 00 Yeah. Uh, "Let me make a request of you. Each of you give me an earring he has taken as spoil," which is not, not asking a ton. They're, they're plundering the, uh, everybody that they're defeating. And he's like, "Just, just an earring. Doesn't even have to be..."
46:09 Speaker 01 Yeah. I mean, presumably, these are the earrings of the warriors that they just defeated.
46:13 Speaker 00 Yes.
46:14 Speaker 01 And, uh, and that means that there were hundreds of thousands of them. So, yeah. If every man just gives one earring, it's not gonna be that big of a deal.
46:23 Speaker 00 Yeah. Uh, they've got quite, uh, quite a lot of booty. Uh, and so it adds up to 1,700 shekels of gold. And then there's a little parenthetical remark at the end of verse 26. "Apart from the crescents and the pendants and the purple garments worn by the kings of Midian and the collars that were on the necks of their camels." So, yeah, they, they picked them clean.
46:45 Speaker 01 They got some good booty there. They got some stuff. Those camel collars alone are worth a fortune.
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47:53 Speaker 00 Um, and, and then Gideon takes that and makes an ephod out of it and put it in his town in Ophra. Uh, so an ephod... In Exodus, the ephod is like a priestly vestment, like a vest, a thing that goes over the tunic, that is supposed to carry like 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,
48:37 Speaker 00 because it seems like there's a pouch, and the yurim and thumim 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.
49:04 Speaker 01 But this can't be that. I mean, you can't have 1,700 shekels' worth of gold in an ephod and wear that.
49:12 Speaker 00 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 Ophrah, and all Israel prostituted themselves to it there. I'm gonna look up what the word translated prostituted there is.
49:38 Speaker 01 Yeah, cuz that was, I saw that and was like, I don't know what we're talking about now. Cuz 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.
49:57 Speaker 01 For what Israel is doing with this Ephod.
50:00 Speaker 00 It it seems like the the season finale of a TV show where the hero in the very last scene, you're like going behind the into his private time and and then, you know, the out of the shadows comes some kind of evil that is associated with with your hero. Uh, so the the verb is zana, which um, which just means to be a sex worker, to engage in sex work.
50:26 Speaker 01 Okay.
50:27 Speaker 00 To to ply your sexy wares.
50:30 Speaker 01 Sure.
50:31 Speaker 00 Uh, the King James Version has all Israel went thither a-horing after it.
50:40 Speaker 01 I love the KJV so much.
50:44 Speaker 00 We're gonna go a-horing, thither and yon.
50:46 Speaker 01 Yeah. Hey, good, let's go thither and and a-whore.
50:52 Speaker 01 All right.
50:53 Speaker 00 Have you been beating your wheat? No, I swear, I've been a-horing.
50:56 Speaker 01 I've been a-whoring, uh, by the Ephod.
51:00 Speaker 00 Yeah.
51:00 Speaker 01 So, okay, so Israel prostituted themselves to the Ephod.
51:06 Speaker 00 Yeah.
51:06 Speaker 01 And.
51:07 Speaker 00 And it became a snare.
51:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, to Gideon and to his family.
51:11 Speaker 00 Yes.
51:11 Speaker 01 So Midian was subdued before the Israelites and they lifted us. So it doesn't say much after that, like it's.
51:18 Speaker 00 Yeah.
51:18 Speaker 01 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 about it. And, uh, the end.
51:30 Speaker 00 Uh, yeah, this is, what have we got? And then we get the the very next story. So the land had rest forty years in the days of Gideon. And then we get the death of Gideon.
51:40 Speaker 01 Yeah. So like, so like, God doesn't punish anybody for this prostituting before the Ephod. Uh, he just, he did, they, he's gonna let him have it. They had a hard time with the with this battle, so might as well just let him have the little bit of.
51:56 Speaker 00 And we and we get in verse twenty nine, it goes back to calling him Jeroboam. So Jeroboam, son of Joash, went to live in his own house. Now Gideon had seventy sons, his own offspring, for he had many wives. His 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 gotta, that's gotta be shuv. It's just gotta be returned.
52:34 Speaker 01 Yeah.
52:35 Speaker 00 Um, yep, shuv, they returned and the, um, and prostituted themselves with the Baals, um, making Baal Berit their god, uh, or Baal of the covenant, lord of the covenant. The Israelite 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 Jerubbaal. By the way, that's Gideon.
52:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
52:56 Speaker 00 In return for all the good that he had done to Israel. So.
52:59 Speaker 01 Oh, man.
53:00 Speaker 00 You, you ungrateful punks.
53:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
53:04 Speaker 00 Get off my lawn.
53:06 Speaker 01 That, yeah, you know, there's a line in a very, in a poem that I love by E. E. Cummings called.
53:14 Speaker 00 Is that, uh, something about, uh, here I sit all brokenhearted?
53:17 Speaker 01 No, no, no.
53:18 Speaker 00 A different one?
53:19 Speaker 01 I, I believe that one's Robert Frost. But Cummings wrote something, it, it, it, the poem's Humanity, I Love You. And the very last stanza says something, this is a paraphrase, but it's something along the lines of, humanity, I love you because you are continually finding the secret of life, putting it in your back pocket and sitting down on it. Uh, which is kind of.
53:45 Speaker 00 He didn't capitalize any of the letters in that.
53:47 Speaker 01 That's right. That's right. It, it does, it does feel a little like the, uh, the Israelites are continually figuring out the secret of life.
53:55 Speaker 00 Yeah.
53:55 Speaker 01 Uh, and then just 40 years later, they put it in their back pocket.
53:59 Speaker 00 Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna nail it into a crate and we're gonna stuff it into a big, uh, a big warehouse and forget about it.
54:07 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
54:08 Speaker 00 All right. And thus endeth the story of Gideon.
54:12 Speaker 01 Yes. All right. Well, uh, I don't know that we learned anything, uh, useful, except, uh, there was a guy named either Gideon or not, uh, who did some stuff. All right, let's move on to twisted scripture.
54:32 Speaker 01 Oh, and there are a few of our listeners who have been waiting for this one since we teased it a few weeks ago, but we are getting to, so we are in Ezekiel 16,
54:45 Speaker 01 which you have mentioned a few times on our show because sort of towards the bottom of it is where we learn that Sodom and Gomorrah were not destroyed. Sodom and, sorry, and how is it pronounced?
55:00 Speaker 00 Gomorrah.
55:01 Speaker 01 What was it?
55:02 Speaker 00 Gomorrah.
55:03 Speaker 01 Okay.
55:03 Speaker 00 It's pronounced however you want to pronounce it.
55:05 Speaker 01 However, okay. I want to pronounce it Boston.
55:10 Speaker 01 Anyway, Sodom and its sister city were destroyed, not because of homosexuality, but rather because, what was it? What, it's, I'm looking at verse 40.
55:27 Speaker 00 Your sister Sodom, pride was in her and she had an overabundance of bread and prosperous ease, but she did not strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy and did abominations before me.
55:44 Speaker 01 Yeah. So, so yeah, the, the sin of Sodom is not helping the poor and needy.
55:50 Speaker 00 Yes.
55:51 Speaker 01 And being haughty.
55:52 Speaker 00 Haughty.
55:53 Speaker 01 They don't like haughtiness.
55:54 Speaker 00 No, which by the way, refers to being high in the sense of exalting yourself, cocky, arrogance.
56:06 Speaker 01 Yeah. So, anyone, yeah. So that's one thing about this, but there's a very, there's a much more fun thing about this particular chapter. The chapter starts with the Lord coming to our, who, who's, who is the Lord coming to? Who's writing this theoretically? It says, "The Lord came to me."
56:32 Speaker 00 Well, this is Ezekiel.
56:34 Speaker 01 This is, 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.
56:47 Speaker 00 Yes. God is fond of metaphors.
56:51 Speaker 01 Yes, and it's a metaphor about Jerusalem. 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.
57:29 Speaker 00 Yeah.
57:29 Speaker 01 And this seems to just overtly confirm that. Is that, is that what this is doing? Or is that, is it, or is that, am I, am I being too literal in metaphor land?
57:41 Speaker 00 Well, it says, "Your birth were in the land of the Canaanites." It says, "Your father was an Amorite." And, and, and that might have reference to
57:52 Speaker 00 the notion that Abraham was an Amorite.
57:54 Speaker 01 Oh, okay.
57:55 Speaker 00 And then your mother, a Hittite. I'm curious about that. Because they don't, they don't say a lot about the Hittites. But let me, "You are the daughter of your mother who loathed her husband and her children. And you are the sister of your sisters who loathe their husbands and their children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite." Okay, why are you saying this?
58:19 Speaker 01 Your mother was, yeah, was a hamster. And your father smelled of elderberries.
58:25 Speaker 00 Yes.
58:27 Speaker 00 Let me see, one other passage.
58:32 Speaker 00 Yeah, I think that it might just be saying that's
58:36 Speaker 00 bad mouthing.
58:38 Speaker 01 Okay.
58:38 Speaker 00 Israel's, there's probably something there. I have just not looked into it.
58:42 Speaker 01 Okay, so anyway, you're so we know the parentage. As for your birth, on the day you were born, it basically just says, you popped out, nobody, nobody took care of you as a baby, nobody, nobody did all of the birth things, and then they just plopped you in a field.
59:02 Speaker 00 Yeah. You were abhorred on the day you were born.
59:06 Speaker 01 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, do you live and grow up like a plant of the field? So anyway, Jerusalem grows tall and arrives at full womanhood.
59:30 Speaker 01 It gets very explicit here, your breasts were formed and your hair had grown and you were, yet you were naked and bare. It's all very sexy and it's about to get sexier. But, but anyway, the Lord clothes Jerusalem. 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. And I clothed you with embroidered cloth and with sandals of fine leather. I bound you in fine linen and covered you with rich fabric.
1:00:13 Speaker 01 Rich, in this case, I assume means actually very expensive fabric.
1:00:18 Speaker 00 Yeah, it looks like it might, it looks like the word is silk.
1:00:22 Speaker 01 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. You are adorned, so, so she is richly adorned.
1:00:43 Speaker 01 She's got embroidered cloth, it just goes on and on and on. You had your, you had choice flour and honey and oil for food. You grew exceedingly beautiful, fit to be a queen. Everybody loved you, you're hot, blah, blah, blah.
1:01:02 Speaker 01 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
1:01:44 Speaker 01 yourself. Now, I'm going to guess that you're pausing me on that.
1:01:49 Speaker 00 Yes. This is a, 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 selam, the image probably refers to a divine image. So this would be some kind of cultic object, but it's, but it's male. So maybe it's anthropomorphic or maybe it is an image of the male member.
1:02:29 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:02:30 Speaker 00 Because it then says, and you prostituted yourself with them or as zanah. So you, KJV, didst commit hoardom 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 you.
1:02:58 Speaker 00 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.
1:03:09 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:03:10 Speaker 00 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.
1:03:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:03:22 Speaker 00 Um, so there are scholars who think this could be a reference to phallic images. And the idea is you, 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.
1:03:56 Speaker 01 Uh, right. Um, in, in the metaphor.
1:03:59 Speaker 00 In the metaphor.
1:04:00 Speaker 01 Okay. So that is, yeah, I mean, there's no, there's no part of this that isn't sort of a sexualized,
1:04:13 Speaker 01 naughtiness, like, like it, no matter whether it's a dildo or not, it's, uh, you're prostituting yourself.
1:04:22 Speaker 00 There's a sexual overtone, yeah.
1:04:23 Speaker 01 Right, yeah. So, so, I mean, you know, we're not, we don't need to split hairs too much on this, but it does seem very interesting. Uh, this, you made your, the fact that it specifically says male images, it doesn't say images of gods or of male gods or whatever, it says male images. Yeah, I don't know. I think that that's a very interesting possibility.
1:04:49 Speaker 00 I think it, and it could be toying with that ambiguity. It could be toying with the, um, the metaphor as qua metaphor, uh, but the imagery is, is what Ezekiel is, is, uh,
1:05:03 Speaker 01 Right.
1:05:03 Speaker 00 Perhaps getting off on, I don't know.
1:05:05 Speaker 01 I, I, yeah, I mean, he painted a pretty, a, a, a, a, a pretty elaborate picture before this, so it does seem like maybe he's. Really enjoying splashing around in this metaphor?
1:05:23 Speaker 00 He's, uh, yeah, he's having a good time.
1:05:26 Speaker 01 So, yes, uh, the, I, it's possible. He was very much enjoying the idea of these male images. This, this beautiful buxom woman that is Jerusalem.
1:05:39 Speaker 00 Yes. And it is a weird idea that God is like, hold up, there's a baby. That's my future ex-wife.
1:05:45 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:05:49 Speaker 01 Oh, man. All right. Well, there you go.
1:05:51 Speaker 00 It's problematic.
1:05:52 Speaker 01 It's, it's a little weird, but there's, there is the, and I frankly, I think that we need to make the phrase, the dildo of Ezekiel catch on. Uh, that just sounds fun.
1:06:04 Speaker 00 The, the sword of the Lord and of Gideon and the dildo of Ezekiel. Clang those together and scare off the Midianites.
1:06:12 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:06:15 Speaker 01 Put it under a pot and then break it right at the right moment and blow your trumpet and, uh, and all will be well. All right. Well, uh, there it is. We, the promised dildo, we, we, we actually followed through on something. So I think that that's great. Um, anything else we need to say about this dildo? Or, I mean, you could, we could go on with the metaphor, but it just.
1:06:40 Speaker 00 I think we, we might be beating this dead wheat.
1:06:45 Speaker 00 The wheat has been beat.
1:06:46 Speaker 01 Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Well, Ezekiel sounds like he's got to go off and beat some wheat later. Anyway, the, so that's it for the show today. Thanks everyone for joining us. If you would like to become a part of helping to make this show go, uh, you can be like so many other of your fellow listeners and become one of our patrons over on patreon.com slash data over dogma. It's what keeps us going. It's what, we are so grateful for all of our patrons and it is how we keep the lights on around here. So thank you so much. And please consider it if you're able, if you're not able, you can go and leave us a five star review
1:07:24 Speaker 01 over on, uh, wherever you, wherever you get your podcasts. Um, I was just looking through our reviews the other day and noted that there are a whole bunch of one star reviews that are mad that, that they think that we are just political hacks. And we're not, we don't ever actually talk about anything real or whatever. So. I'm hoping that even if you think that we're a four star show, you'll give us that extra star just to counteract all of the grumpy one star people. Cause they're not being fair. Anyway, that's, that's another thing, way that you can help us out. We really appreciate that. Subscribe over on YouTube if you want to, that all of those sorts of things. Thanks
1:08:08 Speaker 01 so much to Roger Goudy for editing the show and we will talk to you again next week.
1:08:14 Speaker 00 Bye, everybody.
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