There’s no sex in your violence: Patriarchal translation in Ezekiel 16 and 23

Ezekiel 16 and 23 describe shocking scenes of sexual debauchery and gendered violence, which the prophet uses to personify God’s judgment of Jerusalem and Samaria. In turning these chapters into Scripture, translators have filtered out offensive terminology as much as possible, but they have amplified the patriarchal bias within the text. They have chosen patriarchal language for sexually active women (“whore!” “harlot!” “slut!”) and preserved the pornographic presentation of God’s humiliation—violent and sexual—of his faithless wife, which is a troubling revenge fantasy. This softening and reframing of the biblical text makes our theological reading more natural, and our critical resistance to the text more difficult. If we consider Ezekiel 16 and 23 to be pornographic and violent—and unacceptable as an image of God’s dealings with humanity—we must interpret these oracles carefully, perhaps reading against the text in order to resist this damaging subtext and reading with those whom the text abuses and silences.