God Orders Ezekiel to Eat Shit and Lay Siege to a Clay Tablet

September 5, 2012
By

God orders Ezekiel to lie on his side for 390 days and eat bread baked in human feces as he engages in a mock siege against a clay map of Jerusalem.

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Eze&c=4&v=1&t=NIV

When I first found this hidden treasure of comedy, I didn’t immediately recognize the full nature of just how hilarious it was.  I just thought it was crazy babel.  However, after taking some of my friends medicine, I have come to the conclusion that this story is probably the funniest god damn thing to ever be written in the entire course of human history.

God is telling a man to eat shit and lay siege to a clay tablet… and people believe it actually happened.

I feel absolutely compelled to make a video reading of this passage in order that it may rightfully receive the public attention that it deserves.

1 Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and pourtray upon it the city, even Jerusalem:

2 And lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mount against it; set the camp also against it, and set battering rams against it round about.

3 Moreover take thou unto thee an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city: and set thy face against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.

4 Lie thou also upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it thou shalt bear their iniquity.

5 For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.

6 And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.

7 Therefore thou shalt set thy face toward the siege of Jerusalem, and thine arm shall be uncovered, and thou shalt prophesy against it.

8 And, behold, I will lay bands upon thee, and thou shalt not turn thee from one side to another, till thou hast ended the days of thy siege.

9 Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.

10 And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it.

11 Thou shalt drink also water by measure, the sixth part of an hin: from time to time shalt thou drink.

12 And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.

13 And the LORD said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them.

14 Then said I, Ah Lord GOD! behold, my soul hath not been polluted: for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself, or is torn in pieces; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth.

15 Then he said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow’s dung for man’s dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.

16 Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care; and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment:

17 That they may want bread and water, and be astonied one with another, and consume away for their iniquity.

For some additional laughs, I found this web page where “scholars” are debating the finer points of Ezekiel’s shit eating.

http://markhaughwout.com/Bible/Ezekiel_on_his_side.htm

  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Yahoo! Buzz
  • Twitter
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Current
  • NewsVine
  • Wikio
  • Reddit
  • Slashdot
  • Tumblr
  • PDF
  • Print

This entry was posted on September 5, 2012 at 11:12 pm and is filed under Anti-Fascist Agitprop. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

  • http://www.skylerjcollins.com/ Skyler J. Collins

    Is this what this site’s becoming?

    • http://www.libertariannews.org/ Michael Suede

      I don’t know. Right now I’m just throwing out whatever illogical nonsense I run into. I’ve stopped watching the news, so most of my stuff from here out is not going to be focused on current events, but rather on more timeless issues that I feel will benefit people. Questioning religious dogma opens up new doors of self-discovery and spiritualism that are not confined to centuries old doctrine.

  • http://www.facebook.com/jjaech Jonathan Jaech

    What’s the point of mocking ancient writings or religion under the banner of Libertarian News? Save it for reddit r/atheism or r/debatereligion, please.

  • http://www.facebook.com/Michael.Allen.Ellis Michael Ellis

    The trouble with the bible is that people take it literally. This is much wisdom in the bible as there is in many ancient texts. The key thing to understand is that the events in the bible never happened in reality. That one misunderstanding among believers is what is at the root of the corruption of what is otherwise a pretty solid philosophical text. My understanding of the bible was transformed when I listened to New Thought author and teacher Neville Goddard. It is his contention that the bible is a work of inspired visionary fiction. That the events never happened anywhere but the imagination of the authors. The point of the bible was to illustrate certain ideas by having the reader identify with the main character in whatever particular story you are reading. The real story of the bible is that we are all part of God. God even indicates this in the bible. God even goes as far as to tell know what his name is. I AM that I AM was the name God gave to Moses. So if you are calling God by name you are calling on the power of I AM. What a tragedy it is that so many are willing to read those visionary stories and feel they must attribute the power and responsibility for life on a separate and distant god of judgement. Imagine how different the world would be if people read the bible with the idea that it is a document that tells us about the god that dwells within all of us. I choose to believe and accept myself as I AM. I all people did that as well and claimed their true godlike power, no one would feel the need to have a government anymore. I feel that at this time, more and more people are waking up to their innate power to create the world. For the world is as we each believe it to be, both individually in our personal lives and collectively in events that impact the entire earth. When enough people wake up, the state will crumble. I look forward to that day. It is coming soon.

    • Mark

      Like so many who have never studied the Bible, but would rather listen to someone TELL them what the Bible is, I can only feel sadness for this kind of ignorance born of fear. Fear that there is a God, fear of being accountable, fear of the Bible itself and what it holds and the standards it puts forth. I know some people are genuinely seeking, and sometimes end up at places like this “visionary” interpretation, but hopefully won’t stay there. But those who won’t let fear and egoism stop them will find the Bible is a love story, and it is very, very real. The main reason for people seeing God as angry and judgmental is simple: narcissism. People stuck in the “everything revolves around me” mode of thinking are angry when things go wrong, are inconvenient, or any of the ills of this life occur. They want to blame “someone”, and who is better to blame than someone outside the self, someone more powerful and “removed” from the self? Or, for atheists, etc., we have the ever popular mantra:”if there is a God, how could he let such bad things happen?” In other words, if there is a God, he should make our lives nothing but ease and comfort. The immaturity in that statement is easily discerned if we compare it to a child telling their parent: “If you’re my Dad, why don’t you everything for me and make sure I never have to work, suffer, sacrifice or share? And why do I have to believe you’re my Dad anyway? How do I know you’re my Dad, and even if you are, why do I have to do anything you say?” God made us, loves us, and lets us experience whatever it takes to become strong, mature, caring, loving human beings. It is not His fault if we decide to reject the notion of growth, and He respects us too much to turn us into mindless robots that do whatever He wants. There are consequences when we do wrong, mistreat others, mistreat the earth He gave us, because, guess what? He loves everyone, not just you, not just me, so there are consequences in place when we are selfish, short-sited and focused only on our own interests. We are hurting others, others that GOD LOVES TOO. He wants us to LEARN. Would you force a child of yours to do only your bidding? The child would never learn to love you because love requires free will, and free will requires RESPONSIBILITY. Or do you give your child everything they want and make sure they never have to face failure, or work toward a goal, or care for their siblings? What happens when we do that to a child? We are not the I AM-we can’t create life, we did nothing to create this beautiful world that has enough for everyone if people weren’t so busy grabbing what they want and ignoring their brother or sister in need. We are not at the center of the universe, and never will be. When we believe in God and obey His laws-which, as Jesus said, amount to loving God and loving our neighbor-then we DO become one with God and we are able to live lives based on God. And tragedies occur-earthquakes, hurricanes, etc., but those are opportunities for us to come together and help one another. Many, if not most, tragedies are man-made. And death? Death is when we are set free, it is nothing to fear if you are part of God, Who is eternal. Anyone who actually reads the Bible with an honest seeking heart will see all this, and not rely on hearsay and piecemeal readings to form a faulty picture of a loving Creator, Who does punish when He sees us hurting each other and misusing what He gave us. It’s so we’ll learn and do better, and those who refuse to accept this have missed the big picture.

      • pin

        I protect my child. Idon’t throw him to the wolves. There is no need for cancer,and all the other diseases in this god damn world. God is a sadistic bastard. If I allowed these things to happen to my child, I would be put in jail. Earthquakes, hurricanes are opportunities to help each other? Maybe you would feel different if your child was the one drowning ,and could not be saved. Take your la la world and shove it up your and gods ass!!!

  • tonybinca

    Where does it say anything about eating shit? If you are referring to fitches, this is a type of cumin. What kind of an idiot are you?

    • Christian

      He ate cow dung in his bread. God made Ezekiel suffer for Israels sins. God wanted him to eat human dung but Ezekiel didn’t want to.

      Gods ways are not man’s ways. I guess god has creators problems which are worse/different than ours.

  • JeramyT

    Might want to check your facts before you post a blog that is incorrect. The feces you are referring to isn’t eaten but used as fuel for fire to cook the food. As was common among people who live in Ezekiels time. He questions God about using human feces because to do so was considered defiling oneself. They would commonly use animal feces.

    • Christian

      Your explanation makes a lot more sense. Many things in the bible can be confusing.

  • africkinamerican

    I’ll agree that this whole story seems a bit unusual. However, as others have said, the “dung” was for fuel, not an ingredient (a fact which can be obscured by the word choice “with” rather than “over” or the like). The actual bread sounds like pretty healthy stuff.

    Why would God order Ezekiel to use human feces in the first place, and then change it after Ezekiel protests? All I know is, the Bible contains many stories where God tests people, or allows them to be tested — especially the prophets. After all, the prophets had to rebuke entire nations, and kings, so they had better have their, erm, crap together. A similar story is in Acts, where Peter has a vision in which a voice from heaven tells him to eat unclean animals, such as swine. Peter protests, (paraphrasing) “NO WAY! I have never eaten any unclean thing.” Then the vision goes away. Within the context, the vision was revealed as a symbolic vision referring to men, not animals. Peter was being shown that he should no longer discriminate against non-Jews, which was contrary to the Law anyway.

    Why the mock siege? The prophets often were inspired to do strange, arresting “performance art.” Sometimes, it takes more than just words to get a message across. Been to a street protest lately? This was the original “Occupy”!

    By the way, was that “medicine” green and leafy and did you smoke it? ;)

  • Chris

    What is so foolish is people going out of their way to make fun of something they don’t understand. That is the height of ignorance and immaturity. No scholar would take a small passage out of any ancient writing and declare it to be nonsense because he doesn’t understand it-only bigoted and willfuly ignorant people do that. Someone with integrity would study, not just read, the ENTIRE body of work. That’s the only way you can get context, which is crucial to interpretation. And, for the record, Ezekiel used cow dung to cook the food, not to eat, which people in other countries do TO THIS DAY. And God allowed Ezekiel to do that after he pleaded with God that he didn’t want to defile himself (human feces is much more poisonous that cow feces-people still use cow feces on their lawns!). Do some research and use some intelligence, if you have any. You sound like a bigot and the kind of person who would snicker at a handicapped person.