Good Book

by David Plotz

  CHAPTER 14

  Ezekiel is truly the prophet of redemption, a more merciful and forgiving messenger than his predecessors. At the beginning of the chapter, several Israelite elders request a meeting with him. The prophet is dubious, because these elders are notorious idolaters. But, in a Nixon-goes-to-China moment, God tells Ezekiel he of course must minister to these heretics. Ezekiel reminds them that they can still be saved if they reject idols and abominations. Ezekiel is always willing to offer a second chance, always holding out the possibility of grace. This puts him much more in line with modern religious practice than unbending Isaiah and Jeremiah were.

  CHAPTER 15

  This just slows us down on the way to my new favorite biblical chapter, Ezekiel 16.

  CHAPTER 16

  First of all, read this chapter yourself. Come on, just go read it. Right now. It’s so good that you won’t begrudge the five minutes.

  You’re back! How did you like it? Wasn’t it as good as I said it was? You think it’s a little bawdy? A little rude? Maybe, but doesn’t it sound true?

  Ezekiel 16 is the story of the world’s most dreadful marriage, as narrated by the wronged husband. The husband is God. The wife is Jerusalem. They meet cute in the desert when she’s just a baby. He mentors her. She grows up into a raving beauty. What hair! What a figure!

  Soon the mentor becomes a lover. (Isn’t it always that way?) “I passed by you again and looked on you; you were at the age for love.” The Lord marries her: “You became Mine.” It’s all wine and roses for a few years. He buys her “fine linen…and rich fabric,” hand-tooled shoes, and incredible jewelry. She even gets a nose ring: “I put…a ring on your nose.”) Men all around the world hear about the Lord’s bride and what a hottie she is.

  But—there is always a “but” in these stories—everything soon sours. “You trusted in your beauty, and played the whore because of your fame, and lavished your whorings on any passerby.” She makes male idols and plays with them. She’s a nymphomaniac—“insatiable.” She prostitutes herself to the Egyptians and Assyrians, but that isn’t enough. “You multiplied your whoring” with the Babylonians.

  At this point the divorce lawyers should have been called, and restraining orders should have been issued, but instead the fight continues. Imagine the worst marital fight you’ve ever heard, and multiply by a thousand. It’s a conjugal Armageddon. (It’s as though every husband in the universe suddenly said, “You’re just like your mother,” and every wife said, “That’s no way to load a dishwasher.”)

  “How sick is your heart, says the Lord God, you did all these things, the deeds of a brazen whore.” Then He realizes she’s even worse than a whore, because at least a whore gets paid. She does it for free.

  God invites all her lovers to visit her. They strip her naked and set a mob on her to cut her to pieces. At last, God’s rage is exhausted. At the end of Ezekiel 16, He promises to remarry her—but only if she shuts up: “I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, in order that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I forgive you all that you have done.”

  This chapter is like the bad parts of Portrait of a Lady, Madame Bovary, and Married with Children rolled up into a ball of rage. It’s the first story to correctly understand that the psychological relationship between God and His people is not parent and child, but spouses. For most of the Bible, God is a furious father, disappointed in his faithless children. But in this chapter He is a jealous husband, a role that is much more terrifying and persuasive. “Jilted husband” makes more sense as a role for God than “angry dad.” Parents are disappointed and frustrated with their kids, but rarely so furious with them that they kill them, banish them, or humiliate them. Husbands and wives do this to each other all the time, and God has been doing it to His people throughout most of the Bible. Sexual jealousy is the greatest crazy maker we have. What is God’s fury at our idolatry if not sexual jealousy? We have found other deities to satisfy our deepest needs. He’s so enraged at our betrayal that He wants to kill us.

  Ezekiel 16 is unsettling in its violent misogyny and sexist in its depiction of marriage. But it’s psychologically penetrating like few other chapters in the Bible. I can’t get it out of my head.

  CHAPTER 23

  Several male friends—with nudges and winks—recommended this chapter to me as the sexual high point of the Bible. They hinted that it was a chapter to which they had paid, um, special attention as teenage boys, if you catch my drift. I confess that I’m a little disappointed. Ezekiel 23 is just a sluttier version of 16. It’s Chapter 16, but with twins. The gist is this. There are two sisters, Oholah and Oholibah. Oholah is Samaria, and Oholibah is Jerusalem. Both of them get married to the Lord. They proceed to put the “ho” back in Oholah and Oholibah. It turns out that they were prostitutes in Egypt before they married God, and they haven’t mended their ways. After the wedding, they turn tricks with Assyrians. I suspect boys like this chapter because the language is cruder than that of Ezekiel 16: men “fondled [Oholah’s] virgin bosom and poured out their lust upon her”; men “whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose emission was like that of stallions.” But the message is the same: the Israelites betrayed God with other gods and bad allies. As in Ezekiel 16, they are cut to pieces for their “wanton whoring.”

  I can see why Ezekiel 23 catches the eye of fifteen-year-old boys—especially since many translations render “bosom” as “nipples”—but it doesn’t move me as much as Chapter 16. Ezekiel 16 is a more sophisticated, passionate, and dramatic version of the same story: it is God’s failed marriage, as told in the New Yorker. Ezekiel 23 is God’s failed marriage, as told in Hustler.

  CHAPTER 24

  Unlike Jeremiah, who was celibate by God’s order (or, more likely, because no woman could stand him), Ezekiel is a family man. That is why this chapter is so sad. Ezekiel’s wife dies during the siege of Jerusalem. God forbids him to mourn or weep. All Ezekiel may do, God says, is “sigh, but not aloud.” God immediately dispatches the widower to preach to the Jerusalemites, and Ezekiel obediently does it. If you’re searching for a pleasant interpretation of the story, tell yourself that Ezekiel is a workaholic and he found solace in returning immediately to prophecy. In any case, this episode is a reminder of what a mensch Ezekiel is. Unlike the icy, vengeful Jeremiah and Isaiah, Ezekiel is fully human, and thus a much more tragic figure. This is why I’ve cut Isaiah and Jeremiah from my list of acceptable Bible names for kids, and added Ezekiel.

  CHAPTER 25

  Once again, the Lord vows revenge against the Edomites, Moabites, Philistines, and Ammonites. This wouldn’t be especially interesting, except that Ezekiel 25 plays a minor but spectacular role in the history of American pop culture. It’s a key source for Pulp Fiction. In an unforgettable scene, Jules Winnfield, the hit man played by Samuel L. Jackson, says:

  There’s this passage I got memorized. Ezekiel 25:17. “The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you.” I been sayin’ that shit for years. And if you heard it, that meant your ass. I never gave much thought to what it meant. I just thought it was some cold-blooded shit to say to a motherfucker before I popped a cap in his ass. But I saw some shit this mornin’ made me think twice. See, now I’m thinkin’, maybe it means you’re the evil man, and I’m the righteous man. And Mr. 9 mm here, he’s the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or, it could mean you’re the righteous man and I’m the shepherd and it’s the world that’s evil and selfish. I’d like that. But that shit ain’t the trut
h. The truth is you’re the weak. And I’m the tyranny of evil men. But I’m tryin’, Ringo. I’m tryin’ real hard to be the shepherd.

  Not to be pedantic here, but I feel obliged to point out that most of the quotation is spurious. Only parts of two sentences (“lay my vengeance”) actually come from Ezekiel.

  CHAPTERS 26-27

  This episode, the Babylonian sack of Tyre, is unusual for public policy reasons: It is one of the few Bible stories to celebrate capitalism. According to these chapters, Tyre was the Shanghai or New York of its day, a port city that was the economic engine of the world around it. In mourning Tyre’s destruction, Ezekiel offers an economist’s-eye view of the city, listing all its trading partners, detailing the various kinds of products it exports and imports, applauding its magnificent harbor and clever merchants. It’s a very enthusiastic and emphatic litany, written by someone who truly seems to admire the free market.

  CHAPTER 28

  Whoops! I spoke too soon. This chapter reverses all the Adam Smithery of Chapter 27. Mercantile success, Ezekiel declares, made the king of Tyre “haughty” and idolatrous. Tyre’s grand commercial achievements produced only “lawlessness.” That’s why it deserved to fall.

  CHAPTER 34

  A long, wonderful analogy compares the kings of Israel to shepherds and the Israelites to sheep. The shepherds have neglected their flock, exposed them to wild animals, failed to feed them, and never culled the bad animals from the herd. So God is firing the shepherds and doing the job Himself. “I will look for the lost, and I will bring back the strayed; I will bandage the injured, and I will sustain the weak.” This is among the most loving depictions of God in the Bible. Isn’t that what you want God to be, a kind, nurturing shepherd, protecting poor dumb us from harm?

  CHAPTER 37

  Ezekiel 37 features one of the Bible’s most famous images, especially beloved by Christians. God leads Ezekiel to a valley filled with desiccated bones. (It’s the source for “Dem Dry Bones.”) God tells him to summon the bones back to life. At the prophet’s words, the bones sew themselves back together, and flesh and skin cover them. Then Ezekiel orders breath into them, and the corpses come alive, a mass reincarnation that symbolizes the restoration of Israel. The valley of dry bones is also an emphatic tribute to the power of scripture: God’s words are so powerful that they bring dead men back to life.

  The remainder of Ezekiel is pretty dull. Even so, I’m going to miss this warmhearted, whole-grain, hippie prophet.

  SIXTEEN

  The Minor Prophets

  All Those Books You’ve Never Heard Of, Plus Jonah and the Whale

  In which a dozen prophets predict catastrophe for the Jews; Jonah is swallowed by a whale and preaches in Nineveh; Amos quotes Martin Luther King Jr. (or maybe vice versa); Satan makes his first appearance.

  THE BOOK OF HOSEA

  Again with the prostitutes. God’s first instruction to Hosea is: Go find yourself a whore and marry her. Hosea picks up a streetwalker named Gomer—ancient Hebrew for “Candee,” I guess—and they quickly have a son, whom Hosea names Jezreel. (Remember that Jezreel is where Ahab and Jezebel committed one of the Bible’s most loathsome crimes, in 1 Kings.) Hosea names their other kids “Not Accepted” and “Not My People,” to symbolize God’s rejection of the Israelites. (Why couldn’t he just name them “Brianna” and “Madison” like everyone else?)

  The hooker wife, Gomer, represents the faithlessness of the Israelites, which is the main theme of Hosea. It may be theologically illuminating to have a metaphor for a spouse, but it must make life around the house unbearable. In Chapter 2, for example, Hosea unloads on Gomer for her harlotry, then threatens to leave her in the wilderness to die of thirst. The squabble between Hosea and his wife resembles Ezekiel 16, when God has a similar fight with His wife, Jerusalem. I find the version in Hosea much more unpleasant. The fight in Ezekiel was between God and a city. But in Hosea, the wife is the putatively real prostitute Gomer, and the husband is the real prophet Hosea. That lends it a note of genuine domestic horror that the story in Ezekiel lacks. Still, Hosea eventually persuades Gomer to stop sleeping around with other gods. So it’s a happy ending, of a sort.

  There’s a curious proto-Christian moment midway through the book, the first of many in the minor prophets. Hosea instructs the Israelites to return to the Lord, telling them, “On the third day He will raise us up, and we shall be whole by His favor.” Am I crazy to think this has overtones of the resurrection of Christ?

  The closing lines of Hosea are the best in the whole book.

  He who is wise will consider these words, He who is prudent will take note of them, For the paths of the Lord are smooth; The righteous can walk on them, while sinners stumble on them.

  I like those verses for their measured tone. There is none of the maniacal rage of Jeremiah here, none of the trying-too-hard threats of Deuteronomy. Hosea sounds like a prosecutor calmly summing up his case. He is speaking from a position of quiet confidence: If you’re smart, you’ll listen to me. This straightforward appeal to rational self-interest—as opposed to love, fear, hate, anxiety—is rare in the Bible, and surprisingly refreshing.

  THE BOOK OF JOEL

  Joel is the prophet of green. His brief (four-chapter) book glows with images of nature—as destroyer and redeemer. It’s astonishingly beautiful. In the first two chapters, Joel depicts an invasion of locusts that is followed by widespread natural calamity: the fig trees droop, “the seeds shrivel,” and—in a spookily brilliant image—“even the flocks of sheep are dazed.” The natural destruction signals human disaster: “joy withers away.”

  This eco-catastrophe is a prelude to the Day of Judgment, which Joel also depicts as an environmental disaster. The Lord arrives as a thick, dark cloud and sends fiery warhorses to incinerate the land. (You’re worried about your carbon footprint? Blazing horse armies sent by God to set the world on fire—that’s global warming!) Earthquakes and solar and lunar eclipses follow.

  But our God is a recycling God, and His redemption is also depicted in environmental terms. His salvation of Israel is represented as a Greenpeace, complete with lush grasses, fruiting trees, and abundant rains. I suspect Joel is a favorite book of the budding religious environ-mentalist movement, Creation Care.

  THE BOOK OF AMOS

  Dentistry must not have been a divine priority. God lists all the suffering He has inflicted on His people. He says He blighted orchards, sent plagues, caused droughts, starved towns, destroyed cities, cleaned teeth—excuse me? Yes, the Lord, like the British government, considers white, cavity-free, periodontally sound chompers to be a punishment. “I…have given you cleanness of teeth in all your towns, and lack of food in all your settlements.”

  Actually, I suspect “clean teeth” is a version of “empty stomach.” It signifies hunger rather than hygiene.

  My goodness, Amos can write! He describes the Day of Judgment as a world in which terrors never end: “As if a man should run from a lion and be attacked by a bear; Or if he got indoors, should lean his hand on the wall, and be bitten by a snake!” Isn’t that creepy? The success of horror movies depends on their ability to tamper with our sense of relief: just when the heroine believes she has finally found a haven, evil strikes. That is exactly what this verse captures: you’ve finally escaped the bear and found shelter in the safety of home, but then a snake bites you.

  Even better, Amos delivers an invocation of justice so magnificent that Martin Luther King Jr. borrowed it for both the “I Have a Dream” and the “I Have Been to the Mountaintop” speeches: “Let justice well up like water, righteousness like an unfailing stream.”

  THE BOOK OF OBADIAH

  One chapter. Yup. The whole book is one measly chapter. It’s about Jacob and Esau. This nothing-burger rates inclusion in the Bible, yet the Hanukkah story doesn’t.

  THE BOOK OF JONAH

  At last, a minor prophet who’s not minor at all. It’s been seven books and a trip to Israel since I’ve read a Bible st
ory that I was familiar with. The last one was Solomon threatening to cut the baby in two, in 1 Kings. So, howdy, Jonah! Greetings, whale!

  It’s even better than I remember from Hebrew school. God orders Jonah to Nineveh (near what is now Mosul, Iraq) to warn that the Lord is going to brimstone the city for its sins. Like some folks recently, Jonah isn’t thrilled about his assignment in Iraq. So he goes AWOL, jumping a ship bound across the Mediterranean for Tarshish. The aggrieved Lord sends a mighty storm, and the sailors pray for rescue. But as the ship tosses, what does the prophet do? He heads belowdecks to take a nap! Jonah’s snoozing signals his deplorable tendency to flee from difficulty, to avoid trouble at all costs.

  It doesn’t work, of course. The captain wakes him up. The sailors cast lots to determine who caused their misfortune, and Jonah comes up snake eyes. At last, the prophet faces up to his duty. He offers to be chucked overboard to appease God. The sailors are reluctant—admirably reluctant—to toss him, and they try to row their way out of the storm. These sailors are the uncredited heroes of Jonah’s tale, brave, moral, careful. Finally, after pleading not to be held responsible, they throw him into the sea, and the storm lifts.

  The Lord “provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah.” The word “provided” is marvelous, with its echo of “providence.” That’s because the fish is not the punishment: the fish is the salvation. Jonah spends a long weekend in the big fish, praying the whole time. He thanks God for rescuing him from the edge of death. God commands the fish to spit Jonah up on the shore. This story gives biblical literalists fits—you can’t imagine the somersaults some perform trying to find a fish with the right specs—but I am not going to spend any time arguing with them about the truth or science of Jonah. I don’t believe a word of it. It’s impossible. But hey, that’s why they call them miracles.