TL:DR: The Genesis Question part twenty-one

Hi, Everybody!

What do we do on Sundays?

Father's Day 2014

Dear Troy (Happy Father's Day, Troy!) and Mia, David and Marie:

I very seldom see a fly here at the Off-White House, particularly the last few years which have been unusually cold in the summer, at night, and therefore seem to keep the insect population to a minimum.  Ordinarily I would start writing these commentaries after 6:30 pm, having slept the rest of the day, in between my ten chapters from the Torah and ten chapters from the Evangel.

(I strongly believe that the instruction about a Sabbath observance -- No Work -- Friday for Muslims, Saturday for Jews and Sunday for Christians, is an "owner manual" thing: this unit will function at optimum efficiency if you rest it COMPLETELY one day out of every seven. That's certainly been my experience) 

But, I came awake at 5:30 and heard a large fly buzzing around my room. 

The room isn't very big, so I just stood and listened for it, then heard it on one of the north-facing windows behind the blinds.  Pulled the blind and there it was.  Dull-witted as flies tend to be in the fall. Like I say, the cold weather here at night.  Got a tissue and grabbed it, crushed it and threw it in the toilet. 

No sooner I had done so than I heard another fly.

Listened for it.  This time it was in the bathroom.  Again, on the window.  But, I was just IN the bathroom.  Never mind.  Pulled the blind aside and there it was. (How did both of them manage to get behind the blind onto the window direct from flight?). Got another tissue, Grabbed it, crushed it and dropped it in the toilet. 

No sooner had I done so than I heard another fly.

Listened for it and it was, this time, on the other north-facing window.  Looked down and it was crawling out from behind the blind.  Tiny little thing.  Got another tissue, missed it as it flew back behind the blind.  Pulled the blind and there it was. 

As well as a much larger fly.  Got a couple of tissues, grabbed the first one  and crushed it and dropped it in the toilet then went back and grabbed the second one, crushed it and dropped it in the toilet. 

No sooner had I done so than I heard another fly. 

This one was in the walk-in closet.  This one was a little livelier and took a bit of cornering, but I finally gave up on "direct tissue assault" and got a rolled up section of the newspaper.  Got it.  Picked it up in the tissue and threw it in the toilet.

Sat down and started writing this.  Got as far as the third fly and there's another fly crawling on the bedclothes.  Baff. Got this one by hand. 

It's now 6:16. 

Okay, chapter 8, the Big Reveal:

2:  Then I beheld, and lo, a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of his loins even downward, fire: and from his loins even upward, as the appearance of brightness as the colour of amber.

I think it's pretty obvious who this is from the "fire" description.  As contrasted with:

 3: And He put forth the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my head, and the spirit lift me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem to the door of the inner gate, that looketh toward the North, where the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy.

This, it seems to me, prefigures and is directly analogous to the experience of the Apostle John, on the isle of Patmos, in Revelations.  There are definitely variations -- I assume progress was made in the six hundred years between Ezekiel's prophethood and John's exile to Patmos which was roughly six hundred years before the institution of the Muslim Caliphate after the death of Muhammad in 632. Arguably, it also prefigures Muhammad's "Night Journey" when he was transported, as well, to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and from there taken on a tour of the seven heavens. 

It seems to me a natural "hatching out" of the corruption of YHWH worship and that this is what God is demonstrating to Ezekiel.  The YHWH is, indeed, provoked to jealousy by the "image of jealousy" which seems to me disingenuous in the extreme since the construction of the Tabernacle (which becomes the model for the Temple) is based on Egyptian idolatry and was constructed from the finery -- precious metals and furs and tapestries -- that the Hebrew people "borrowed" from the Egyptians, on the instruction of the YHWH, prior to the Exodus.

Excuse me, another fly just turned up.

Okay, that one was like the millipede last week.  I must have hit it a dozen times before it finally died on the window sill.  Turned away to get a tissue and thought, no, that was too easy.  Came back and, sure enough, it was back to life and buzzing on the window.  Nailed it.  Or thought I did.  And it disappeared.

Came back and started typing this and there's another fly.

Turned out to be four of them.  Two little ones and two big ones.

Now here's another one. Excuse me.

Another big one.

Where was I?  Exodus 12:36:

And the YHWH gave the people favour in the

Excuse me. Another fly. 

And the YHWH gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things as they required: and they spoiled the Egyptians.

Now, I say that this is disingenuous for a couple of reasons:  first of all, the Hebrew people had been in Egypt for some time so they knew what idolatrous worship looked like and they also would have known what "loot" they could "borrow" with which they would be able to construct their own variation on it.  And, pretty clearly, that was what they chose to "borrow". 

Second of all, the golden calf that Aaron and his followers constructed in Moshe's absence was pretty clearly a capstone to the tabernacle and all that the destruction of the golden calf served to accomplish, as I see it, was to leave a theological hole in the tabernacle -- and the Temple which was constructed on its design -- a theological hole that, again, I'll say, pretty clearly was going to get filled with something idolatrous.  If you have a physical altar, you're going to want to put something physical ON that altar and as soon as you do, you're worshipping an idol.  And that seems to me to be true whether it's a golden calf or a giant statue or painting of the crucified or resurrected Jesus.  

And this was, again, pretty clearly the YHWH's own idea.  Otherwise why instruct the Hebrew people to "borrow" idolatrous "loot" from the Egyptians?  What else could it be used for? 

I'm not sure what the explanation is -- that would be known only to God -- but it seems to me that it's part and parcel of the YHWH's many-levelled layers of self-deception.  That is, there are surface aspects to the YHWH that just looked at the situation per se -- these people need a means of worshipping me and the Egyptians seem to have a good model for that, so I'll just steal the model and instruct the Hebrew people to build roughly the same thing the Egyptians had and that will work fine -- and adopted it. 

At a much deeper level, I assume that the YHWH -- the core of YHWH -- knew that this was just blasphemy against God and was, consequently, also viewed as a good idea.  Anything that blasphemed against God was to the YHWH's benefit in an either-or context. O, what a tangled web...

But it does mean that there is a certain "built in" dissociative nature to the YHWH which acknowledges some things and denies others and that this, it seems to me, is what is in evidence in the Book of Ezekiel.  The fact that "the spirit lifted me [Ezekiel] up and took me away in bitter, in the hot anger of my spirit…to them of the captivity at Tel-Abib".  No wonder Ezekiel "remained there astonished among them seven days":  there was nothing there to be bitter or in a hot anger about. Just a bunch of Jewish captives.  Of course, to the YHWH, that was always the point: the Jewish people and their disobedience of the YHWH and the YHWH's laws.

It isn't until (as I read it) God's spirit takes a hand that we get to the "in bitter, in the hot anger of my spirit" stuff:  

4.  And behold the glory of the God of Israel there according to the vision that I saw in the plain. 

5.  Then said He unto me, Son of man, lift up thine eyes now the way towards the North: so I lift up mine eyes the way toward the North, and behold Northward at the gate of the altar, this image of jealousy in the entry.

6.  He said furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they do?  The great abomination that the house of Israel commiteth here, that I should go far from my sanctuary?  But turn thee yet again, thou shalt see greater abominations.

That is, God is willing to be in contention with the YHWH and to share a single sanctuary, confident that ultimately He will prevail and the YHWH will capitulate.  But, I'm pretty sure, He also knew that the Temple would become completely idolatrous.  Arguably any house of worship becomes a place of idolatry because it exists physically.  Why would you need a PLACE of worship when God is omnipresent?  Dating back to the first church -- Jacob's stone that he used as a pillow, reportedly Scotland's the Stone of Scone -- it was always at the behest, insistence and instruction of the YHWH.  I think it cuts both ways.  For some people a place of worship and gathering of like-minded worshippers is -- or is perceived to be -- a necessity.  How many people that's true for is obviously known only to God.  It might be a case where it would be far more advantageous for my soul to go to any synagogue or church or mosque and worship there than to worship on my own.  It's my soul at stake and I think whatever advantage I would derive from attending a house of worship would be lost in having, implicitly, rejected the other two faiths in doing so.  I'll find out how that comes out in the wash on Judgement Day.

Anyway, back to the Big Reveal:

7.  And He brought me to the door of the court, and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall.

8.  Then said He unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall, and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door. 

9.  And he said unto me, Go in and behold the wicked abominations that they do here. 

10.  So I went in and saw and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel portrayed upon the wall round about. 

11. And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Iaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand, and a thick cloud of incense went up.

12.  Then said He unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery?  for they say the YHWH seeth us not, the YHWH hath forsaken the earth. 

13.  He said also unto me, turn thee yet again, thou shalt see greater abominations that they do.

14.  Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the YHWH's house which towards the North, and behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.

The Tammuz cult, according to my NEW BIBLE DICTIONARY, " is little known and it is by no means certain that mourning for this god was made in the fourth month of the Babylonian calendar which was named after him." and "Tammuz was a predeluvian Sumerian shepherd and ruler who married the goddess Ishtar."

I picture the YHWH watching God doing the Big Reveal and thinking, "Oh, right. This."  Well, yes, Oh, right. This. This is where I see that dissociative quality in the YHWH.  On the one hand, focussed on Israel's disobedience, on the other hand seemingly quite happy to be worshipped as YHWH or Baal or Tammuz or Ishtar -- or at least to allow those forms of worship to gut monotheism if it reinforces the Anyone But God form of theology that the YHWH is in favour of.  Heads I win, tails you lose.  Anything besides worship of God plays in the YHWH's favour.

15.  Then said He unto me, Hast thou seen, O son of man?  Turn thee yet again, thou shalt see greater abominations than these.

16.  And he brought me into the inner court of the YHWH's house, and behold at the door of the Temple of the YHWH, between the porch and the altar, about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the YHWH, and their faces towards the East, and they worshipped the sun towards the East. 

17. Then He said unto me, Hast thou seen, O son of man?  Is it a light thing to the house of Judah, that they commit the abominations, which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and lo, they put the branch to their nose. 

That is, as I read it, there comes a point where the YHWH's form of worship, which is -- at its foundation -- rife with the potential for abomination arrives at that point and the abominable becomes both inevitable and irrefutable.  God gives YHWH and YHWH worship every benefit of the doubt, every chance to prove its merit -- "the one coming after me is preferred before me" as John the Baptist put it, metaphorically -- but fully aware of what is happening in the hidden inner courts of the Temple even as the YHWH turns a blind eye to it at a surface level and actively encourages it at a deeper level with the intention of mocking God. 

 

18.  Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, will I not hear them.

It seems to me the point of the Babylonian Exile.  It takes thousands of years of YHWH directed worship to come to the point where God and YHWH are "on the same page" (literally in this case) in the Book of Ezekiel. But it requires God's intervention to lead the YHWH to the words expressed in chapter 18.  Finally, the YHWH is outraged about something worth being outraged about.

In today's reading, I noted that the meeting place between the two becomes that much more specific with the YHWH and Lord GOD (again, as opposed to LORD God, or YHWH God) alternating in their assertions which mirror one another.  I did note that the spelling changes in 14:20 from "Lord GOD" to "Lord God" but I don't know if that's just a typographical error on the part of the compositors of the 1611 King James. 

As to chapter 16 (which, you may recall, THE NEW BIBLE DICTIONARY noted was one of the reasons the Book of Ezekiel was withdrawn from public use in the beginning of the 2nd century):  "Some felt ch.16 too repugnant for public reading".  It's certainly repugnant in a way, but I read it as God addressing the YHWH here at this meeting place of their sensibilities and attempting to broaden the YHWH's --to me, clearly reluctant -- self-examination.  The chapter, in my reading, begins with the words of the YHWH and the YHWH's "thy father an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite" denunciation of Jerusalem and -- at that point, as I read it, -- God interrupts with:

And as for thy nativity in the day thou wast born, thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water when I looked upon thee: thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all.  None eye pitied thee to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee, but thou wast cast in the open field, to the loathing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born. 

You know, "as long as we're slinging mud, here, YHWH." 

And when I passed by thee and saw thee [polluted/trodden under foot] in thine own blood, I said to thee in thy blood, Live. Yea, I said unto thee in thy blood, Live.

The KJV interpolates "when thou wast".  That is, "I said to thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live."  But, in my reading, that misses the point.  That what God is discussing is "innermost realities" and "seminal realities".  Whoever the seminal YHWH was, pre-existent to the Big Bang, it was a rejected creation, rejected by everyone besides God.

Whether Jerusalem's mother was a Hittite and her father an Amorite misses the point of what Jerusalem in her essence IS -- that God knew YHWH when YHWH was first born -- and rejected and trodden under foot.  Knowing why that was and, I would guess, not exactly disagreeing with the assessment: if any being in the history of creation was probably better left in an open field to die in its own blood, it would have been the YHWH.  But, another example of God's undeserved kindness: that He would have compassion on this rejected creation and speak to that creation "in thy blood, Live." 

"In thy blood."  If you want to talk about innermost realities -- and I think that's the point that God is making here: that He is able to speak to His creations from inside their blood -- that's a lot more innermost than the YHWH is able to come up with.

I have made thee a million as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen great, and thou art come to ornaments of ornaments: breasts are fashioned, and thine hair is grown, whereas thou naked and bare.

The KJV interpolates "wast" -- "thou wast naked and bare" -- whereas, by my reading, that misses God's point: He has multiplied the YHWH from that first rejected YHWH that only He was willing to salvage from death in a metaphorical open field.  the Temple AND Jerusalem itself are ornaments -- ornaments of ornaments -- of the YHWH.  Metaphorically, breasts and long hair.  But to God, the YHWH, however ornamented, however physically matured, will always be naked and bare to Him. 

Now when I passed by thee and looked upon thee, behold, thy time the time of love, and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I swear unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord GOD, and thou becamest mine.

It SOUNDS like betrothal and, at some level, I gather, it is.  God's compassion for the YHWH leads to a covenant with the YHWH -- again, I would speculate, pre-existent to the Big Bang.  I can see this passage aligning with my view that the "Father" is a separate creation from God, that the "Father" is, in this case, God's "skirt", His own ornament, external to Him.  As it says in the Koran of husbands and wives:  "You are their garment and they are your garment."

Then washed I thee with water: yea, I thoroughly washed away thy bloods from thee and I anointed thee with oil. 

Note -- "THEN I washed thee with water" -- long after the YHWH's birth. The reference to anointing with oil creates a troublesome interpretation that the YHWH is anointed by God in the same way that David was anointed King. 

I clothed thee also with embroidered work, & shod thee with badger's skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk.

These are all references to the adornments of the tabernacle and of the priests.  God's point being, I think, that this is why He made allowances for the idolatry in which direction it pointed and to which it would naturally lead: as it was happening He just took it at face value as the YHWH's natural disposition toward self-adornment.  That is, that God is always prepared to look favourably upon any choice that His creations make provided they keep within the boundaries of God in doing so.  You can't push God's undeserved kindness to the breaking point. Not without having to face the consequences of choosing to do so and choosing to persist in doing so. 

I decked thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands and a chain on thy neck.  And I put a jewel on thy forehead and earrings in thine ears and a beautiful crown upon thy head. 

This appears to refer to the courtship/dowry bestowal upon Rebekah by Abraham's servant on behalf of Isaac (Genesis 24:22).  Which is a good way of putting it, Rebekah being the archetype of the beautiful child bride.  It also reinforces the troublesome inference that God intended the YHWH to be a kind of Davidic King.

Thus wast thou decked with gold and silver, and thy raiment of fine linen & silk, and embroidered work, thou didst eat fine flour and honey and oil

At this point, the narrative segues from YHWH as creation to YHWH as being metaphorically represented and incarnated by and for Israel, Jerusalem and Judah:

and thou wast exceeding beautiful and thou didst prosper into a kingdom.  And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty, for it perfect through the comeliness which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord GOD

But then thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot, because of thy renown and powredest out thy fornications on every one that passed by: his it was.

And of thy garments thou diddest take, and deckedst thy high places with diverse colours, and playedst the harlot thereupon: things shall not come, neither shall it be. Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thy self images of a man and diddest commit whoredom with them, and tookest thy embroidered garments and coveredst them: and thou hast set mine oil and mine incense before them

This is very adroitly put.  It leaves aside the pagan idolatrous foundation of tabernacle/Temple worship and addresses, instead, the point when the YHWH took the trappings of the tabernacle -- to which God had turned a blind eye and was willing to view as the impulse towards self-adornment -- and used them to adorn the pagan "high places" and to build pagan idols.  God is illustrating that none of this was -- or is -- hidden from Him.  This was the thin end of the wedge which led to the idolatrous abominations that God led Ezekiel to discover.  All God is doing is recounting the history of the YHWH and her whoredoms, real metaphorical and allegorical.

My meat also which I gave thee, fine flour and oil and honey I fed thee, thou hast even set it before them for a savour of rest and it was, saith the Lord GOD.

Here referring to the Temple's sacrificial meats.

Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast born unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to devour: of thy whoredoms a small matter that thou has slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through for them? 

This comes to the nub of the matter:  that the YHWH has been unrestrained in all directions that involve worship even going so far as to institute human sacrifice, presumably as an intended means to greater power and influence.  God's point being that all children are His in a more real sense than they are anyone else's.

Okay.  At this rate it's going to take me forever to get through chapter 16, but I do think that it's important.  Important because I think we've come full circle as a civilization and it would be deemed as unsuitable for public reading today as it was deemed so in the second century.  And, I suspect for much the same reason:

The truth hurts.  No one wants to hear the terms harlot and whore used to describe anyone.  But if you don't call a spade a spade, the natural process of societal erosion is unimpeded and before you know it you're calling prostitutes "sex trade workers".  As if the only problem is getting them a strong enough union local to uphold their human right to be a professional whore.  And no one is allowed to express any kind of outrage at this.  You are allowed to capitulate to the view slowly or quickly, but that's all that you're allowed to do. 

I'll get back to that next week, God willing.

Best, 

Dave

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