Your Big Question

This is how the question came in.

 

If the bible is the word of God delivered through man why did God need to go into such detail in the following extract from the bible?

“Yet she increased her whorings, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt and lusted after her paramours whose members were like those of donkeys and whose emissions was like that of stallions.”
[Ezekiel 23:20]

 

This could be a tough question, but it is also a great one, and certainly ranks on the list of “absolute gifts”. This is a question that is not asked often enough, and should certainly be asked by Christians pretty much every time they open their bible.  Unfortunately, such passages are sometimes ignored, on grounds that they really can’t be that wholesome or edifying.

 

At root, this is a problem that Christianity has had from the beginning and was identified by Jesus himself: ‘John came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say “He has a demon” The son of man comes eating and drinking and you say “look, a glutton and a drunkard”’ (Lk 7:33-34). In the same way, when looking at the bible, people often complain that God is “gentle, meek and mild”, and write Christianity off because it does not connect to the gritty reality of today. But when you point out where the bible really rolls up its sleeves and shows some passion, they blush and wish it was censored. The point is that Jesus was right: both He and John showed aspects of the Kingdom of God, and to appreciate that Kingdom’s fullness, both He and John had to be considered. Equally, far from shying away from the explicit passages of the bible, these show an important aspect of God’s character, that should be considered as much as passages such as “let the little children come to me” (Lk 18:16).

 

So given that the bible is the word of God, why did He go into so much detail? This is the question that is not asked often enough, for at root this question asks “What is God like?”

 

First, look at who God is talking about (and, indeed, to). He is addressing Israel. And in Ezk 23 God lays out in plain language what His grievance is: “In you one man commits a detestable offense with his neighbour’s wife, another shamefully defiles his daughter-in-law, and another violates his sister, his own father’s daughter. In you, men accept bribes to shed blood; you take excessive interest and make unjust gain from your neighbours by extortion. And you have forgotten me, declares the Sovereign LORD.” (In fact, it continues for 30 verses, but you get the idea.) God simply lays out that there are certain things he will not accept: just because the neighbouring tribes sacrifice their children, it does not mean Israel should; just because neighbouring tribes kill and rape and plunder and screw each other over, it does not mean that Israel should. This is the visceral, base, balls-to-bone context into which God speaks.

 

Now throughout the bible, there is the picture of God as a husband, and Israel (and later the church) as a wife. And at this point in Israel’s history, Israel is not the best of wives. In the allegory of Ezk 24, God portrays Himself as the husband who loved his wives, and gave them the very best. Israel (and Samaria) by contrast threw it back in his face. “Samaria engaged in prostitution while she was still mine; and she lusted after her lovers, the Assyrians-warriors.” (v5) “Israel saw this, yet in her lust and prostitution she was more depraved than her sister.” (v11). This is the introduction to the quote in question. So let us suggest a bible passage God might inspire:

 

“It has been brought to my attention that my ‘wives’ have not fully complied with my wishes, which I clearly outlined through earlier prophets (but which, for the sake of decency I shall not enumerate here). I should be much obliged if you would desist from such practices.”

 

Now come on! If my spouse caught me playing away and did anything less than hit the roof, I would start to wonder if I was really that important to her. A God that leaves a politely worded note is clearly a God who is not that interested anyway. If God was an old man sitting on a cloud with a long beard, and he sometimes looked at what humans did, then he would write a nice polite note. And atheists often think that this is what God is like; maybe because they never see the less-politely worded parts of the bible.

 

But thank God, God is a god who loves us! One who is not distant, but rather intimate; who wants to be our Lover. Who cares deeply for our well-being, and who is upset deeply when we screw ourselves over. This is a God who sees our actions and screams with all the might in his lungs “But I LOVE you! I gave you it all! And you went after him just because he has a big chariot and an even bigger DICK!?” There are times when reserve is not appropriate, and when God addressed Israel here, this was one such time.  To sanitise the base quality of God’s metaphor is to lose an important aspect of the depth of feeling behind God’s message.

 

So finally, if God is portrayed in Ch 23 as the spurned lover, the question “why did he say this?” cannot be fully answered without reading the rest of the book. We have seen he was upset, but why, and to what end?

 

The opening vision in Ezekiel (Ch 4-32) God addresses the people’s rebellion against Himself. It was big and bold and explicit: it was personal, and aimed to shock and to shame. But it was not an end in itself. In chapter 36 God apparently performs an abrupt turn, and His tone changes once again to the lover who encourages and restores. “I will make a covenant of peace with them. I will establish them… I will dwell with them; indeed, I will be their God, and they will be my people.” (37:26-27). The earlier judgement then serves as the necessary foundation on which God builds His blessing.

 

God loved Israel, and wanted to restore them. As long as Israel held the image of a cute cuddly God, who didn’t really mind when they ignored and insulted Him, there was nothing he could do to help them. The details of Ezk 23:20 are deliberately blunt, to make Israel realise that God is not uninterested in them, but rather cares passionately for them. Moreover, he knows their failings thoroughly, and still He loves them. Only once He has got this through to them can He bring them out of the mess that they have got themselves into, and restore them to the fullness of relationship with him.

 

This is what God is like, and this is why He goes into detail.

 

Response by Michael Brownnutt