Ezekiel 23 And Its Dis­gust­ing Language

​“Does the Bible use lan­guage not fit­ting for God?”

This was the ques­tion that a mis­sion­ary rhetor­i­cal­ly posed to his read­ers in an amus­ing but vain attempt to ​“defend” the inap­pro­pri­ate and unnat­ur­al lan­guage of Ezekiel 23. The fun­ny thing that this author have noticed about his whole ​“defense” (and which also prompt­ed this author to write this short com­men­tary) is that even though he open­ly accuse Mus­lims of being ​“igno­rant” about the mat­ter, he reduced the whole pas­sage of Ezekiel 23 to a link and a short sum­ma­ry. Is the mis­sion­ary act­ing ​“prud­ish” in try­ing to dis­miss the whole issue away so casu­al­ly ? It cer­tain­ly seems so to this author.

Ezekiel 23 And Its Problems

We wish to set­tle the mat­ter once and for all by pub­lish­ing in full the scans from the whole chap­ter of Ezekiel 23 so as read­ers may under­stand the Mus­lim objec­tion to this pas­sage. Please be advised that we do not rec­om­mend any­one who have not yet reached the age of puber­ty to read this dis­gust­ing and sor­did pas­sage.

The mis­sion­ary has also made the accu­sa­tion that :

“[i]t is only igno­rance of the inspired scrip­tures that results in such out­ra­gious [sic] claim.” 

On the con­trary, we object to the pas­sage not because of its main mes­sage, but because of its erot­ic imagery and inap­pro­pri­ate lan­guage. Fur­ther­more, it is described as a his­tor­i­cal event and the read­er would uncon­scious­ly form imagery which is unwor­thy of being attrib­uted to God Almighty. 

We would like to ask the read­er : would it be appro­pri­ate for a par­ent to rent a porno­graph­ic video and show it to his chil­dren below 8 years old, while all the time say­ing, ​“Do not com­mit for­ni­ca­tion, it is an evil and a sin to do so”? Would any­one in their right mind do such a thing ? This is what the mis­sion­ary igno­rant­ly expects us to believe.

Mis­sion­ary Objec­tions And The Response 

He also expects us to swal­low the idea that the so-called ​“strong imagery” of the fol­low­ing verse of the Qur’an is as objec­tion­able as the erot­ic pas­sage of Ezekiel 23 :

“And do not spy, nei­ther back­bite one anoth­er ; would any of you like to eat the flesh of his broth­er dead?” (Qur’an, 49:12)

The Qur’an in this verse does not give a detailed imagery of how one eats the flesh of anoth­er. Rather, it sim­ply anal­o­gis­es back­bit­ing to the act of can­ni­bal­ism. It does not con­tain any objec­tion­able lan­guage, it does not describe how can­ni­bal­ism is attempt­ed in detail and most cer­tain­ly it does not emit erot­ic imagery not befit­ting of God Almighty.

In con­clu­sion, the Mus­lim objec­tion to Ezekiel 23 is a valid one. The Chris­t­ian mis­sion­ary should explain to his read­ers what ben­e­fit does the lan­guage of Ezekiel 23 offer, apart from incit­ing its read­ers to sub­mit to their erot­ic feel­ings to com­mit rape and fornication ?

Our Chal­lenge To The Missionary

It is also amus­ing that the mis­sion­ary decid­ed to quote the Prophet^(P) and then ​“con­ve­nient­ly” dis­par­age the late Sheikh Ahmed Dee­dat, the doyen of Mus­lim respons­es to Chris­t­ian mis­sion­ary attacks, of blas­phe­my. Our response to his alle­ga­tion is that we chal­lenge this mis­sion­ary to edu­cate his own chil­dren on the evils of for­ni­ca­tion by ask­ing them to act out the event live in a play or school dra­ma, word for word as per record­ed in Ezekiel 23. I would be most hap­py to lend a hand in writ­ing out such a script and will allow to let his own chil­dren to be the prin­ci­pal actors in such a play or school dra­ma for Sun­day school. Cer­tain­ly, this is not an ​“out­ra­geous” demand if the mis­sion­ary him­self does not con­sid­er this to be ​“blas­phe­my” or find any prob­lems with the text of Ezekiel 23. This chal­lenge is also open to his fel­low missionaries.

Until the mis­sion­ary or his cohorts have the courage to meet our above chal­lenge, we as Mus­lims will con­tin­ue to crit­i­cise the inap­pro­pri­ate and steamy lan­guage of Ezekiel 23, and object to its unnat­ur­al imagery. Such a pas­sage is most cer­tain­ly not ​“inspired” from God Almighty. 

And only God knows best ! 

Acknowl­edge­ments

The author would like to take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to thank Broth­er Shah Kir­it bin Kaku­lal Gov­in­ji for his input on the Chris­t­ian mis­sion­ary response to the Mus­lim crit­i­cism of Ezekiel 23.