Book of Ezekiel 16-48

In a certain sort of way, Ezekiel 16 kicks off with a funny and highly irreverent version of Jewish origins.  But there is other material later in the book that presents equally unique and not always easily-to-be-interpreted-as-funny versions of previous biblical lore.  I will have more to say about that a little later on.

Jews are compared to a brazen harlot, in an extended sequence.  The phrase, "like mother, like daughter" is used.  I'm sure you're more familiar with, "like father, like son."

There's an account of why Sodom was smited.  Ezekiel suggests a number of things, including that God had attempted to plant his faith in a number of other places (that may also be the point of Balaam, the prophet of little luck I obsessed over previously, at least according to this interpretation) but was rebuffed, and so he smited them.  Such the fate of Sodom, then, as Israel/Judah is smited in the exile era, which is what all these recent prophetic books have been obsessing over.

And so we reach Ezekiel 25.17, which is what Jules (that is, Samuel L. Jackson) draws from for some of his famous words he favors before a hit in Pulp Fiction.  In the movie he says, "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 I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you."  Obviously there will be differences of interpretation between different translations of the Bible.  But in this instance, perhaps there's a little more of Quentin Tarantino than strict translating here.  The version in my RSV Bible reads as follows: "I will execute great vengeance upon them with wrathful chastisements.  Then they will know that I am the Lord, when I lay my vengeance upon them."

It's worth noting that the latter phrase is used repeatedly in Ezekiel, almost as often as "son of man."

It may be worth noting further, for the purposes of one of the things I've been using as a biblical refrain in these commentaries, that the passage refers in part to the Philistines.  I guess it only figures.

38 and 39 reference Gog and Magog, which are classic names in biblical apocalyptic lore, although I have no idea why having read about them in Ezekiel.  Both names can be found in a number of DC comics, starting in 1996's Kingdom Come and in later iterations of the same story, such as "Thy Kingdom Come" from Justice Society of America.  Magog is specifically referenced in Ezekiel as being a place, but in these comics he's basically the anti-Superman.  Perhaps related to the concept of Antichrist from Revelation?  The Magog, meanwhile, are apocalyptic aliens in Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda.

Ezekiel ends with an elaborate plan for the new temple.  The whole book might almost be interpreted as a version of the Bible for those who didn't really have the Bible, an exile translation as it were, all its apocalyptic talk concerning the Babylonian era.