EZEKIEL 23:20 - flow like the flow of stallions

 

Ah, the Book of Ezekiel. The biblical prophet best known nowadays for having seen flying heavenly wheels in the sky that may or may not have been UFOs. (Et oui, I subscribe to the UFO hypothesis.)

But what if I told you that Ezekiel had seen even weirder things than wheels in the sky? And what has the horse in the picture above got to do with it? Consider that Anglophone nursery rhyme that is so insufficient for teaching the skeletal system to six-year-olds:

The toe bone's connected to the foot bone,

the foot bone's connected to the ankle bone,

And so forth. As if we only had ONE bone on each toe, ONE bone on each foot, ONE bone on each ankle, and the list goes on!!! See WHY this song is insufficient for teaching the skeletal system?

That came also from a vision of Ezekiel's. He found himself in a dry valley full of human bones and all of a sudden the bones gradually connected at their joints, like puzzle pieces falling into place, until standing before Ezekiel there was a large army of human skeletons. Then things got even scarier as the skeletons were gradually covered in organs, muscle, skin, hair, and clothing, and a full horde of zombies began to march across the Holy Land.

All right, that was one creepy vision, but where does the horse fit in?

In Chapter 23, which is (along with the Song of Songs) one of the finest pieces of Biblical erotica. There is lusting after military officers in brightly-coloured uniform (fetishism: check), bosoms fondled and nipples squeezed till they're bruised blue, a whore has her tits, ears, and nose cut off as punishment (or maybe to keep an STD from spreading?), but if you want Chapter and Verse for the most lurid detail, Ezekiel 23:20 has you covered!

Ezekiel 23:20 Which reads: "There (in Egypt) she (Judah) lusted after her lovers (in Hebrew pilageshim פִּֽלַגְשֵׁיהֶ֑ם, can be used of either male or female lovers, translated "paramours" in the King James Version), whose genitals (besar or basar בְּשַׂר־, literally flesh or physical body, translated "flesh" in the KJV) were like those of donkeys and whose emission (zirmat וְזִרְמַ֥ת, literally flow of liquid or downpour, translated "issue" in the KJV) was like that of horses." This passage gets amused reactions from non-religious readers for how easily it's taken it out-of-context.

23:20

NASB, NKJV,
NRSV"paramours"
TEV"oversexed men"
NJB"big-membered"
NIV Interlinear"genitals"
Peshitta"male organs"
REB"members"

Though it is crude to modern standards Ezekiel is suggesting

1. large penis

2. strong ejaculation

The NIV translation captures the sense well! These sexual metaphors are meant to shock and nauseate the Chosen People about their idolatry (i.e., foreign alliances). Here Ezekiel is referring, on one hand, both to political alliances between Pharaonic Egypt and the Southern Kingdom of Judah; on the other, to worship of Egyptian gods in the Southern Kingdom. Using zoophilia as a metaphor for added shock value... Often the sexual metaphors are also literal because the fertility gods of the Ancient Near East are the national gods.

Wycliffe "as the membris of horsis ben the membris of hem."

NASB, NKJV"issue of horses"

NRSV"emission of stallions"

NJB"ejaculating as violently as stallions"

CJB "who ejaculate like stallions"

LXX"members of horses"

Peshitta"whose privates are like those of horses"

JPSOA"whose organs were like those of stallions"

USCCB "whose thrusts are like those of stallions"

LSV "And the emission of horses—their emission."

MSG: "more virile, vulgar, and violent lovers - stallions obsessive in their lust."

She remembered her lover with the penis like a donkey and a flood of semen like a horse. 

This term (BDB 281, zirmat וְזִרְמַ֥ת in Hebrew) refers either to a sexually ready male organ or a powerful ejaculation. It occurs only here in the Bible. It is a hapax legomenon.

In ancient cultures, male donkeys and horses were renowned for their sexual drive in heat. As a result, they became a metaphor in that time and culture for hyperactive sexual lust. Ezekiel, or Yahweh, is using that same association, that was common in that culture, to condemn Judah's out-of-control appetite (for idolatry, for power). So he says Judah pursued Egypt's gods and/or alliances with Egypt with as much zeal as a male donkey or stallion would pursue a mate. And they lusted after Egypt's gods and/or alliances with Egypt like following a horse's issue (of semen, winkwink!). Now, that may sound worse than it is to some, because the Hebrew word for "issue" here is a feminine word for "issue" (zirmat) which refers to (this critic, Stephen Armstrong, interprets it as) the female's bodily fluid, not the male's; the mare's, the female horse's discharge of bodily fluid while in heat. And why is he referring to that? Because that is what attracts the male (the pheromones), the stallion, the male horse. This discharge that tells a male that the female of the species is in heat and ready to mate! Okay? So what the LORD is describing in Judah's case here is saying that Judah was calling as if it were to the Egyptian gods, to come her way, to come mate with her as it were, as if she were a mare in heat trying to attract a stud horse.

And in that culture they understood a stud horse to have the strongest sexual desire they'd ever seen; they'd go crazy trying to mate.

The LORD is mocking Judah, obviously, making them appear as debased as they truly were by using graphic sexual language, which has a potent impact on the listener. It's shocking. It's provocative.

"... lusted after her paramours there (in Egypt), whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose emission was like that of stallions." (Ezekiel 23:20).

“Members,” as used above, are a euphemism for penises. Concerning the seminal emission or ejaculating imagery, it is noteworthy to mention that the horse was the hieroglyph that Egyptians used for a lustful person. Verse 23:20, in the Complete Jewish Bible, states, “Yes, she lusted after their male prostitutes, whose members [genitals] are like those of donkeys and who ejaculate like stallions,” (Ezekiel 23:20, CJB).

20 She ·wanted men [lusted after lovers] ·who behaved like animals in their sexual desire [or whose genitals/L flesh were the size/L flesh of donkeys and seminal emission like that of horses]

She remembered her lover with the penis like a donkey and a flood of semen like a horse. 

Vulgate by Saint Jerome: Et insanivit libidine super concubitum eorum, quorum carnes sunt ut carnes asinorum, et sicut fluxus equorum fluxus eorum.

Hesekiel 23:20, Bibel 2000

20

och hon upptändes av begär efter vällustingarna där med kön som åsnor och säd som hingstar.

Liten förklaring: "vällustingar": älskare / "där": i Egypten / "kön": storlek på penis / "säd": mängd utlösning: en hingst har upp till 300 milliliter, tillräckligt för att fylla en genomsnittlig ölburk

Shmoop

Oholibah continues to step up her "whorings," remembering (and hold on, because this gets way gross and way disturbing) how her lovers in Egypt had penises like donkeys and ejaculations like horses.

Donkey penises??

Anyway, back to our story…

Janis Nelson

... and lusted after her paramours there (in Egypt) ("paramours" are lovers, especially the illicit partner of a married person), whose members were like those of donkeys (you're talking about a penis 14 to 18 inches in length and 5 to 10 inches in diameter; that's large!), and whose emission was like that of stallions (that is a normal ejaculation volume of 25 to 100 milliliters, but may be as great as 300 ml. Convert milliliters to ounces and that would be more than 12 oz. of semen. My goodness!). Remember In Ezekiel Chapter 16 Verse 26 Judah loved the Egyptians, her former slaveholders, who were known for their physical endowment, meaning their large penises. In Chapter 23 Ezekiel's language is coarse, but the coarse language is used to shock and to reflect Yahweh's own disgust with sin.

Now this quote by Janis Nelson about Ezekiel 16:26 in comparison actually sent me down a rabbit hole to look that passage up. There are more spots where Ezekiel 23 echoes Ezekiel 16, not only in exaggerating the penis size of Egyptians for shock value, and he even uses the same word! 

The expression used in Ezekiel 16:26 of the Egyptians is usually translated "great of flesh", including in the KJV. More modern versions have "with the great sexual organs" or "with the great genitals," "big-membered" or "well-endowed" or more freely "lustful" or "very fleshly." In the original Hebrew it is "gidley-basar" גִּדְלֵ֣י יבְּשַׂר the latter part of the term being the same euphemism we have met before for the penis in our discussions of Ezekiel 23:20, besar or basar בְּשַׂר־, literally flesh or physical body, literally translated "flesh" like in the other passage in the KJV, but with the same sense of "penis." Apparently Ezekiel used "basar"/"besar" בְּשַׂר־, as a recurring word for "penis" and the King James translators always translated this literally as "flesh".

Bibel 2000 Hesekiel 16:26

egypterna (sic), ... med stor lem, 

Biblias castellanas Ezequiel 16:26

Oso y Reina-Valera 

"los egipcios ... de cuerpos robustos" (eufemismo)

Biblias castellanas Ezequiel 23:20

Oso y Reina-Valera 

Y enamoróse de sus rufianes (los de Egipto), cuya carne es como carne de asnos; y cuyo fluxo, como fluxo de cauallos.

(La palabra aquí traducida "carne" es la que se tradujo "cuerpo" en el pasaje anterior para referirse literalmente al pene en el texto origen en ambos casos).

12 ounces/300 milliliters is enough to fill your standard aluminium can! Imagine a can like that filled with you-know-what, from a horse or human I don't care!

This passage also conjures up imagery of the "lovers" or "paramours" in question as powerful centaurs, humanoid from the waist upwards and equine from the waist downwards. Sure enough, lots of warrior centaurs appear in this period in both Mesopotamian boundary stones, steles that marked the limits of provinces, and Greek mythology, where the average male centaur is, with a few exceptions (I am looking at you, Chiron), a potent creature driven by basic instincts like an intense thirst for strong drink and an intense sexual drive for human maidens, barely able to control these instinctive impulses (which led to, for instance, the infamous Centauromachy). Riding in and of itself is an act not bereft of sexual innuendo either ("monter" in French, "montar" or "cabalgar" in Spanish, "at ride" in Danish... can mean either to ride or to have sexual intercourse). 

Also, the horses or jackasses are referred to as the powerful forces as well as the military of the kingdoms of Egypt and Assyria.

The reader understands that Yahweh hated the weakness of the Israelites so much that He chose to use gross imagery along with a metaphorical description to highlight their disgrace and their idol worship.

Ezekiel Chapter 23 is not commonly used in churches. Hence remains unknown to most Christians. A few literary devices used in Ezekiel 23:20 are given below.

Imagery – The verse uses extensive and lewd imagery to describe a woman doing an illicit act with a male whose body parts are compared to a donkey and a horse.

Metaphor – The verse is also a good example of metaphor as the prophet Ezekiel compares male intimate body parts with a donkey’s "flesh." (winkwink)

Daniel Block: The strength of Yahweh’s passion over Oholibah’s conduct is reflected in the shocking portrayal of the third phase of her whoredoms. Now she has come full circle. As she recalls her youth in Egypt, the mature woman’s addiction takes her back to where it all began, only with intensified energy. The obscenity of the description accords with the unrestrained prurience of Oholibah’s actions.

Constable: She lusted after the Egyptians that pursued her like donkeys and horses in heat (cf. Jer. 2:24; 5:8; 13:27). Donkeys and horses were proverbial for their strong sexual drive (cf. Jer. 2:24; 5:8; 13:27), and the Lord used these animals as a figure for the Egyptians’ potency that attracted the Israelites.1 Judah returned to her old lover, namely, Egypt.

Lamar Cooper: Judah’s political prostitution was presented in explicit sexual terminology. This idolatry produced the same revulsion by the Judaeo-Christian God that prompted him to annihilate their forefathers in the wilderness (Sinai Desert) for the worship of the gods of Egypt (v. 21; Exod 32:11–18). Judah lusted for her lovers whose “genitals were like those of donkeys, and whose emission was like that of horses” (v. 20). These proverbial phrases were intended to show divine contempt for those attracted by the military power portrayed by reference to sexual potency.

Leslie Allen: vv. 19-21 —The coarseness of the description in v 20 leaves no doubt that for Ezekiel and his God the political alliance stank.

The trope is exemplified in the TV Tropes page of Ezekiel as an example of Bigger is Better in Bed. As it contrasts foreign, darker, Othered pagan goyim's/nations' Egyptian gods' "flesh/member like that of donkeys and flow like that of horses" with Yahweh's smaller male member, it won't be hard to disagree that this is also an explicit example of Black is Bigger in Bed (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlackIsBiggerInBed), similar to Iago's portrayal's of Othello as a beastly "stud muffin" or mandingo (hypersexual black man) aggressively riding or tupping the pristine human Desdemona (Othello as "black ram" and "black Barbary horse"). Done right, portrayals of interracial relationships can be wonderful, like in the case of Othello and Desdemona (it is, after all, the villain Iago and his henchman Roderigo in whose mouths we can find all the racist ranting), but you have to tread a fine line in this balancing act. Or you might screw up like the creators of this Vogue cover, where a howling NBA superstar LeBron James, the first black man ever to grace the cover of Vogue, cradles blonde German Brazilian model Gisele Bündchen in a way so reminiscent of King Kong with Fay Wray that the magazine went viral. There you have the blonde bombshell held aloft by the brutish "ape," and even though Gisele is portrayed as having fun instead of terrified, the iconography of Hollywood about both the "stud muffin" stereotype and King Kong sends a crystal clear subject matter:

Should have been called APE ISSUE?

Or maybe... Read below! RAPE ISSUE?

Eighteenth-century Westerners believed that large male apes, whether orangutans on Borneo or gorillas in Sub-Saharan Africa, carried off native human maidens from their villages into the jungles and raped them, reproducing and giving rise to the next generation of apes; these apes, for generations, had human blood in their veins, in other words. This was long before Darwin, and people like Thomas Jefferson, infamous for having affairs and illegitimate half-blood children with female slaves of African descent that he owned, subscribed to this notorious ape-rape theory.

In the twentieth century, post-Darwin, we had chimp testicle implants into impotent human males' scrota (there were also goat testicle implants, that became a boom or bubble in the US), and even the theoretical possibility (still held by some) of the humanzee, a human-chimp hybrid.

Still today, this mag cover is a hot potato. Hope we have learned our lesson and shy away from such iconography in mass media nowadays and in the future.

PS. A Black is Bigger in Bed joke from the animated series Family Guy: On the right we see the white marble Washington Monument, famous real-life obelisk in Washington DC. On the left we see a fictional, non-existant but larger obelisk, the so-called Obama Monument, the same shape but way larger in size and made of black marble. The phallic innuendo is obvious.

PS II. Min, Priapus, and winged dick charms!

Only Egyptians are described as having genital and ejaculatory largesse.

Their “members (basar, בְּשַׂר־) were like those of donkeys” and their “emission

(zirmat, וְזִרְמַ֥ת) was like that of stallions” (23:20; cf. Ezekiel 16:26 "gidley-basar" גִּדְלֵ֣י יבְּשַׂר , with great penises/members, describing the Egyptians). A number of ancient texts credit members of the equine family with astonishing sexuality.

There may be a cross-cultural explanation for limiting genital endowment

to Egyptians. According to Gwendolyn Leick, Enki is the

only Mesopotamian deity with explicit phallic characteristics. Phallicism

never flourished in Mesopotamian culture the way it did after

the Aryan invasion of India, or even in Pharaonic Egypt or classical

antiquity. Archaeological remains of Mesopotamian phallic symbols

are rare, although they are present in Egypt and its colonies. In this

case the preoccupation with the size of Egyptian genitalia may allude

to the ithyphallic Egyptian god Min-Amun, or Min for short, who is often portrayed

with an erect penis. He is the Egyptian version of the Greek Priapus.

The ithyphallic god Min. I could not upload pictures of Priapus, so Google him up!

A Roman Priapus charm or fascinus (rather fascinating indeed), 

used to keep away spirits amd the evil eye.

Lawrence Stager discusses a number of Egyptian

artifacts of Min found at Ashkelon, a Philistine stronghold destroyed

by Nebuchadnezzar before his sack of Jerusalem. Among

these artifacts are seven ithyphallic-shaped situlae (bronze bottles), on

which Min is the most prominent deity represented. On one of the

situlae, Min is masturbating himself with his left hand while throwing

his right hand up in a gesture of sexual pleasure. Stager thinks

that these situlae may have contained semen or other liquids symbolizing

generative power. These artifacts corroborate the rhetorical

connection Ezekiel draws between the Egyptians and large, ejaculatory

penises.

Although the correlation between Min (and Priapus) and Ezekiel’s description of

sexually well-endowed Egyptians is conjectural, Ezekiel clearly makes

two points in his revisionist history regarding Oholibah’s return to her

Egyptians, with their tumescent phalli. First, these foreign men can

only provide erotic attraction to Oholibah; they cannot compete with

the military and political prowess of Mesopotamia. Egyptian military

assistance has been proven false historically at the times when

Judah needed it the most, particularly before its destruction in 587

B.C.E. Basically racialized stud-muffins for Oholibah, the Egyptians

can make only love, not war.

Second, Ezekiel concludes the promiscuous history of Oholibah

by returning to her origins in Egypt, following G*d's rejection of her.

Oholibah reverts back to the time and place before her marriage to

the deity, when she was groomed as a child in Egypt. Ezekiel makes a wordplay on zirmat (ejaculations, 23:20) with Oholibah’s longing for the zimmat (lewdness, 23:21) of her

youth, when Egyptians fondled her breasts and squeezed her young

nipples.

OWL HUSBANDS, REBECCA'S CAMELS, THE 7TH COMMANDMENT

 The title of this post has to do with errata that crop up in some editions of sacred texts, the Holy Books of Judaism and Christianity in particular. Wherever there have been printing presses, or keyboards in more recent times, you can be certain that the Typo Fairies and the literal printers' devil (as in, a small imp from Hell that causes typos and errata) Titivillus will seize that chance to make some mischief. Here are four major examples that have caught my attention:

OWL HUSBANDS?

Apparently zoophilia was condemned in the Old Testament but not in the New? 1 Peter 3:5, from a 1944 edition (WW2-era, printing presses were then still in use):

"For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their owl husbands."

Actually it's supposed to be "their OWN husbands." The error was caused by a damaged letter lower-case n in the printing press.

REBECCA'S CAMELS (OR ARE THEY DAMSELS?)

Genesis, 24:61, an 1823 edition (in between the Regency and Victorian era). Picture the scene: Eliezer, a manservant to Abraham and Sarah, comes to town looking for a bride for their son Isaac. He finds Rebecca, daughter of a local wealthy household, who, after quenching their thirst from their long journey, agrees to become Isaac's bride, scouted by the servant Eliezer for her kindness to him and his entourage. As the heiress she is, Rebecca travels from her hometown to her fiancé's nomadic campsite lock, stock, and barrel, with all her camels and damsels (handmaids). How does this nineteenth-century edition tell it?

"And Rebecca arose, and her camels, and they rode upon the camels, and followed the man (ie Eliezer): and the servant took Rebecca and went his way."

What a balancing act! It should have been "And Rebecca arose, and her DAMSELS, and they rode upon the camels..." But it could have been worse. It could have been the second "camels" that was replaced with "damsels" instead, yielding: "And Rebecca arose, and her damsels, and THEY RODE UPON THE DAMSELS," leaving readers to ponder if those poor damsels broke their spines or even straight out died at the end of the day.

SUBVERTING THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT

In 1631 King James editions known as Wicked Bibles, a crucial little word, ie NOT, is missing from the Seventh Commandment (Exodus 20:14), so that it appears as:

"Thou shalt commit adultery."

In other words: Cheating on your marital partner is encouraged by the Word and Law of the LORD.

The publishers/printers of the Wicked Bible lost their book-printing license to the British Crown for a lifetime due to this little critical blunder and the one below:

THE LORD HIMSELF... MOONING?

Speaking of the Creator, those same Wicked Bibles appear to have been messed up by Typo Fairies at a spot in Deuteronomy 5:24 where He shows up in His greatness, let the word "greatness" sink in, and replaced "greatness" with something far more ludicrous:

"the LORD our God hath shewed us His glory and His great-asse."

The thought of the LORD mooning at the Israelites, His Chosen Ones, is hilarious.

REVIEW: THE LIE TREE - FRANCES HARDINGE

• THE LIE TREE
• AUTHOR: FRANCES HARDINGE
• ILLUSTRATOR: CHRIS RIDDELL
• COSTA BOOK AWARD WINNER MMXV - FOR A GOOD REASON:

Victorian era, right as Darwinism is clashing with the Church and the creation account in Genesis.

Faith Sunderly (a maiden as clever and cold-blooded as a snake), her vicar father, her London-socialite-born-mother, and her sinistral little brother --whom their parents are trying to set right-- set sail --or rather relocate-- from their home shire in Kent to Vane, a small Channel island, ostensibly to take part in an excavation, since the Reverend is also an amateur paleontologist who has travelled a lot to tropical climates.
At first the locals raise an eyebrow at these strange mainlanders, and especially Faith, a spirited and dynamic young girl who questions organised religion (in spite of her father being a Protestant vicar), feels out of place. To add insult to injury, the real reason why the family left Kent --and the British mainland as a whole-- appears to be that the Reverend Sunderly got involved in a controversial religious scandal.

One-third across the novel, the vicar is found violently killed and his eldest daughter finds a sapling that breeds on lies (she's also been freeing little brother Howard's left arm from its stitched-onto-the-coat sleeve and encouraging his left-handedness). This titular plant bears a hallucinogenic fruit that Faith plans to use to find the one who killed her father.
However, revenge and gossip are not the best course of actions, and the little lies our "snake" tells before offering the people the "forbidden fruit" gradually snowball until more blood is shed in the collapsing local community and sinister strangers arrive... Lesbians coming out of the closet, revenge, a scientist's wife-assistant who is really the power behind her weak husband, and of course the snake and the fruit tree as a parallel to the Book of Genesis, transforming the island of Vane into the Garden of Eden and offering a feminist, Darwinist, queer, subversive Genesis narrative from the POV of the "serpent..."
The illustrations by Sir Christopher Riddle-of-the-Sphinx are the icing on this scrumptious fruit cake of historical fantasy, thriller, magical realism, twice-told tale, revenge drama... that I definitely recommend.

Published in Spain by Editorial Bambú, it costs about €13.

Hardinge gives us multiple female characters who do not fall silently into the roles expected of them – a natural scientist who has had to hide for decades behind a bumbling husband, a lesbian couple who must keep their relationship secret, Myrtle herself (Faith's mum), who is probably much more aware than her husband is of how to manage the unsaid rules of Victorian society, and of course Faith, the young girl who refuses to sit back meekly and not question her world."

GUNS CHANGED THE WORLD II: WINDOWS INTO WITHIN

In a previous post, published in July a few years ago, I wrote on how firearms (especially cannons) used by the Crown of European realms in the late Middle Ages brought on an epic wave of hinterland expansion and the early modern rebirth of the Flächenstaat (hinterland state/territorial state), with all the complex organization and military hierarchy that it needs to thrive:

"One (state) that is too large is capable of self-defence in what is necessary; but then it is a nation: for it will be very difficult to accommodate a form of government to it: for who would choose to be the general of such an unwieldy multitude, or who could be their herald but a stentor?"
Aristotle, unwisely objecting against the idea of Flächenstaat. Note the use of "nation": is he referring to a territorial state, to a large people bound by blood (instead of by a government) (id est, the concept of ethnos or ethnic group often translated as "nation", for instance in the KJV), or both? He is actually referring to a large people bound by blood, but not by government (the concept of ethnos), moreover, prone to anarchy due to lack of government. Just like the vernacular usage of "nation" as synonymous with hinterland state (territorial state) or Flächenstaat.

In the Middle Ages, Saint Thomas Aquinas weighed the pros and cons of the Flächenstaat, which he called "province" ("provincia"). He said that, on one hand, (agreeing with Aristotle), such a vast expanse of land would be very hard to rule. And that, on the flip side, a "province," the larger it was, the more difficult to be invaded by enemy armies (consider, for instance, the case of Russia, the largest state on Earth, 80% or 90% hinterland, which has successfully withstood Swedish, French, Japanese, and German invasions thanks to its redoubtable size among other factors). Long story short, he said the same things as Aristotle, but putting more emphasis on the military potential of the "nation"/"province" (difficulty to invade and capability of self-defense) than on the difficulties of ruling a large country with a numerous population. Was he being prophetic, even a little?

Still in the Middle Ages, later on...
When a certain alchemist friar brought about a sudden, devastating explosion in his lab, little did he know about the revolution he had unleashed. Many decades later, Renaissance rulers, to reaffirm their power against defiant feudal lords, brought cannons against the walls of their insufficiently guarded castles, fortresses, and holdfasts. The triumph of the Crown in all those lands was both total and quite obvious, expanding the hinterland of the kingdoms to heights not seen since the Age of Empires, centuries ago (The same happened in Westeros, although, instead of cannons, for rule of cool, there were dragons... Well, actually, the first cannons in the West were dragon-shaped, both to scare the enemy and for rule of cool!).
In other words, cannons brought about the expansion of the state hinterland and the establishment of the Flächenstaat. As a result, confident royals could move their courts to the outskirts of their capitals, with larger palaces and elegant gardens; while the ends of the realm were secured by militarized and fortified (with star-shaped fortresses and lots of cannons) outpost communities: these were the world's Küstrins, the Saint-Jean-de-Luzes, the "frontier towns" so often heard of in fairytales. The establishment of a professional officer class (instead of mercenaries), with the rank system so familiar to us nowadays (ensign, lieutenant, captain, and so on), was as much in consonance with the spirit of warfare that pervaded the West as the rise of firearms, of the territorial state, and of outpost communities (the latter two, like the professional hierarchized officer class, had already existed in the empires of yore), as well as the rise of diplomacy and inter-realm alliances. Like the one who has seen the storm clouds from afar and puts on a raincoat and umbrella, every realm was all geared up for both offensive and defensive warfare. This panorama of militarism echoes the similar "armed calm before the storm" that preceded the World Wars during the Belle Époque. The realms of the West were, then, also preparing up to the teeth for the upcoming and all-pervading storm of war. For an all-pervading storm of war that would last Thirty Years, and that would shape the human geography of the world we now know.

For more information, I advise you to consult:

The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History, by Philip Bobbitt.

Recommended because of its exploration of developments in warfare and the early modern rebirth of the territorial state/nation/Flächenstaat as concepts that go hand in hand. 

This post will continue to deal with firearms and how they changed the face of the world during the Early Modern period. In this case, we will also cover hand-held guns, whether pistols, arquebuses, or flintlocks, as well as cannons. For we will see how gunshots opened windows into a realm which the Church had cursed and barred, and ultimately establish connections between these gunshots and the current Western rise of feminism, free love, and alternative lifestyles... (self-expression values already known and accepted in the first empires, but lost to the advent of monotheistic religions)...

HERE BE DRAGONS, it is written among writhing marine monsters, most of them reptilian, in the Atlantic Ocean of the maps of yore. These words and pictures are pretty much a testament of the medieval West's conservatism. The Mediterranean is secure (storms and pirates aside) and the hub of the former Roman Empire, mare nostrum. The Baltic fills the same slot of secure trade and travel waters up north. But the vast, endless ocean without any more land in sight for leagues is scary and uncanny, mysterious, dangerous. No surprise that Classical lore had Hercules chisel the following words on both sides of the Straits of Gibraltar: NON PLUS ULTRA, Not Beyond. An expression of preferring security to risk-taking comparable to the dragons on the maps.
Metaphorically, we could also say that the view of every person was as determined by constraints and fear of the unknown, the potentially dangerous, as the view of Earth itself: the words NON PLUS ULTRA branded with fire on our skin, and beyond, far deeper, HERE BE DRAGONS. Ever since the twilight of empires, the fanatical powerhouses of monotheistic religion, whether Seljuks or bishops (a zealot by any other name remains a zealot), condemned the flesh and the physical body, in all of its senses (sensualism, indulgence, erotism, beauty, and the existence of the organism), as sinful and cursed. And thus, countless interdictions arose and self-expression values were lost: this was the dawn of dark ages of patriarchy, machismo, heterosexism, fear of research, and... sexuality for pleasure and dissection for anatomical research were considered both crimes by the Crown and sins by the Church. There were dragons within us, like there were dragons in the vast ocean, did the authorities want us to believe. Stay within the limits and you will be safe; venture outside, beyond those limits, and you will never return alive...

It took firearms to banish all of those fears and take the NON out of NON PLUS ULTRA.
Nowadays (and slightly ironically), the motto of Spain is still PLUS ULTRA, "Beyond." It was the first reigning Habsburg, Charles V, who set this updated retelling of the Gibraltar inscription in stone. As a young archduke, he was advised by the court physician, Luigi Marliano, as soon as Charles had come of age, to pick such an encouraging and then subversive motto. PLUS ULTRA referred at first to Charles V's endeavour to expand the Habsburg reach both through New World colonialism and struggle against other European powers (France being the foremost). The realm's hinterland had to expand beyond its established limits, PLUS ULTRA, a call of conquest for vital space, of defiance and subversion, of daring to confront the establishment.
These were days when not only the Habsburgs were defying the establishment, but also many others: Francis I Valois with his excessive bon vivant mentality and reluctance to deny himself every pleasure, Henry VIII Tudor with his defiance of the Church's views on divorce and breakup with Catholicism, Martin Luther in his crusade against indulgences and pardons whose actual purpose was to sponsor the orgies of the Curia... Even the then-active generation of writers like Rabelais, Cervantes, and Shakespeare, whose characters (unlike the "children" of their predecessors) are the first ones (since the twilight of empires) in Western literature to be so life-like that every reader across the centuries, me included, falls head over heels for the illusion that they're real people, who have lived and planned and thought and felt and fought and loved and suffered and been pleased in real life (by the way, these authors also break the fourth wall). Or the Mannerist artists who were first in centuries to paint Venus in the nude, without hiding her sensual curves in her hair or in her limbs: leaving the formal, emotionless, ice-cold, beautiful yet uncannily non-human rationality of the Renaissance... for a more organic, emotional, appealing, throbbing streak of art, one that feels, breathes, twinkles, writhes, throbs, is ecstatic, reaches out across the fourth wall. PLUS ULTRA.

In terms of sacred plastic art, which then also spread to the profane (and of literature, at least in the Catholic South), the Council of Trent (held in Trento, conveniently at an equal distance between Austria and the Papal States!), the starting gun of the Counter-Reformation, marks the watershed of the transition from uncannily beautiful characters to lifelike ones. One of the decisions reached at Trento was the use of sacred art as propaganda, and it was for this reason the characters pictured and described in words (first sacred, then profane as well) grew so true to life that sculptures from this era appear to be real people and paintings appear to be photos: even this era's depictions of supernatural characters like angels, demons, merfolk, centaurs, and reptilian humanoids appear to exist in real life. The same can be said about the written-word supernatural characters in the works of, for instance, Shakespeare.

THE IRON BEDSTEAD OF KING OG

Eglon was not the only enemy ruler with an inherently funny name in the Bible. Deuteronomy gives us the far shorter and easier to spell Og (pronounced as in Mike, Lu, & Og). The only thing Og is noted for is being in possession of a massive iron bed:

For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon (Ammonites)? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man.

Given that a cubit, as seen in my review of the Ehud and Eglon story, would equal half a meter in decimal measures, the bed would be 4.50 m long and 2 m wide. However, Deuteronomy does not mention the height of the bed of Og. Which I would need to get the whole big picture. Given the proportions, I can only estimate that the bed of Og would be 1.5 m, or three cubits, high.
In other words... what a big bed it would be!

DEBORAH'S SONG: SHEVET

Once more, we return to the Book of Judges and to a passage which has been variously translated across languages... does it refer to the pen of a writer or to an officer's bâton/staff of command?

Judges 5:14 KJB 

out of Zebulon they THAT HANDLE THE PEN OF THE WRITER."

Agreeing with the King James Bible's "they that handle the PEN OF THE WRITER" is Coverdale 1535, The Great Bible 1540, Matthew's Bible 1549, the Bishops' Bible 1568, the Geneva Bible - "of Zebulun they yt handle THE PEN OF THE WRITER.", the Lesser Bible 1853, Young's 1898, The Word of Yah 1993, The Third Millennium Bible 1998, God's First Truth 1999, the 2011 Orthodox Jewish Bible - "of Zevulun they that hold the shevet of the sofer (scribe).", the 2004 Judaica Press Tanach - "and out of Zebulun they that handle the pen of the scribe.", the Amplified Bible 1987 - "and out of Zebulun those who handle the pen or stylus of the writer.", the Bond Slave Version 2009,  the Hebraic Transliteration Scripture 2010, Jubilee Bible 2010, The Interlinear Hebrew-Greek Scriptures 2010 (Mebust), the Biblos Interlinear Bible 2011, and the BRG Bible 2012.

The Complete Apostle’s Bible 2005 - “and from Zebulun came those that draw with THE SCRIBE’S PEN OF RECORD.” 

Foreign Language Bibles that read "THE PEN OF THE WRITER" are the Spanish Reina Valera of 1909 - de Zebulón los que solían manejar punzón de escribiente.", the French Martin Bible of 1744 and the Ostervald of 1996 - "et de Zebulon ceux qui manient la plume du Scribe.", the Portuguese A Biblia Sagrada em Portugues and the Portuguese Almeida Corrigida E Fiel - "os que levaram a cana do escriba." and the Italian Diodati of 1649 - "con bacchette da scriba." 

“Zebulun, formerly known only for its experts with the ciphering-pencil, had now become a people courageous unto death” (J.P. Lange, A Commentary).

John Gill comments - "and out of Zebulun they that handle the pen of the writer; - which being a maritime tribe, and employed in trade and navigation, had many clerks famous for their readiness in handling the pen; but these through a zeal for the common cause dropped their pens, and took to the sword, in vindication of the rights and liberties of themselves and their brethren; for which they are justly commended."

But the NIV says: "from Zebulun those who bear A COMMANDER'S STAFF."

The ESV has: "those who bear THE LIEUTENANT'S STAFF."

The NASB reads: "from Zebulun those who WIELD THE STAFF OF OFFICE."

And the NKJV says: "And from Zebulun those who BEAR THE RECRUITER'S STAFF."

The International Standard Version 2014 - “…from Zebulun who carry A BADGE OF OFFICE.”

So what? Writer's pen or officer's bâton???

New International Version:

from Zebulun those who bear a commander's staff.

New Living Translation:

from Zebulun came those who carry a commander's staff.

English Standard Version:

from Zebulun those who bear the lieutenant’s staff;

New American Standard:

from Zebulun those who wield the staff of office.

King James:

out of Zebulun they that handle the pen of the writer.

Holman Christian Standard:

those who carry a marshal's staff came from Zebulun. 

International Standard Version:

some from Zebulun who carry a badge of office. 

NET Bible:

from Zebulun came the ones who march carrying an officer's staff. 

GOD'S WORD:

The officers from Zebulun also went.

JPS Tanakh:

out of Zebulun they that handle the marshal's staff.

New American Standard:

from Zebulun those who wield the staff of office.

Bible 2000:

from Zebulun, those that handle the pen of the writer.

King James 2000:

out of Zebulun they that handle the pen of the writer.

American Standard Version:

out of Zebulun they that handle the marshal's staff.

Douay-Rheims:

out of Zabulon they that led the army to fight.

Darby:

out of Zebulun they that handled the staff of the ruler.

English Revised Version

out of Zebulun they that handle the marshal's staff.

Webster

out of Zebulun they that handle the pen of the writer.

World English:

Those who handle the marshal's staff came out of Zebulun.

Young's Literal Translation:

out of Zebulun those drawing with the reed of a writer.

Pulpit Commentary:

out of Zebulun they that handle the baton of the commander, i.e. the military chiefs. 

Gill's Exposition:

and out of Zebulun they that handle the pen of the writer; which being a maritime tribe, and employed in trade and navigation, had many clerks famous for their readiness in handling the pen; but these through a zeal for the common cause dropped their pens, and took to the sword, in vindication of the rights and liberties of themselves and their brethren; for which they are justly commended. 

So, is this a military or literary reference???

Let us see what other languages' Bibles say about this verse:

Español:

Biblia de las Américas/Nueva Biblia de los Hispanos:

de Zabulón los que manejan vara de mando.

Reina Valera Gómez:

de Zabulón los que solían manejar punzón de escribiente.

Esperanto:

de Zebulun kondukantoj per princa bastono.

Suomen kieli:

Sebulonista kirjoittajat.

("Kirja": "book", so this surely means "writer" as well. Yes, "kirjoittaa" is "writer" in Finnish.)

Français:

Darby:

de Zabulon sont venus ceux qui tiennent le baton du commandant.

Louis Segond:

de Zabulon des commandants.

Martin:

de Zabulon ceux qui manient la plume du scribe.

Português:

King James:

de Zebulom, os que conduzem o bastão de comando.

La Bíblia:

de Zebulom os que levam o báculo do inspetor de tropas.  

Deutsch:

Luther:

von Sebulon, die den Führerstab hielten.

Textbibel:

von Sebulon, die mit dem Stabe des Ordners einherziehen,

Boarisch (Bayerischer Dialekt):

von Zebylon Gwäpplte gfeelnd nit.

Românâ:

din Zabulon cîrmuitorii.

(writers)

Italiano:

Riveduta:

da Zabulon quelli che portano il bastone del comando.

Giovanni Diodati:

da Zabulon, son discesi i rettori, Conducendo le loro schiere con bacchette da scriba.

Bahasa Indonesia:

dari Zebulon segala orang yang memegang tongkat orang pembilang.

Russky:

Synodal translation:

от Завулона владеющие тростью писца.

(again, writers)

Svenska:

från Sebulon män som buro anförarstav.

Tagalog:

sa Zabulon yaong nangaghahawak ng tungkod ng pagpupuno.

Latin (Vulgate):

de Zabulon qui exercitum ducerent ad bellandum

Lietuviu:

Zabulono raštininkai

(scribes, writers)

Maori:

i a Hepurona nga kaihapai i te tokotoko a te kaiwhakahaere.

Vietnamese:

Và những kẻ cầm cây phủ việt đến từ Sa-bu-lôn.

Turkish:

Başbuğ asasını taşıyanlar Zevulundan geldi.

Norsk:

av Sebulon de som drar frem med hærførerstav,

Dansk:

fra Zebulon de, der bar Herskerstav;

Nederlands:

uit Zebulon, trekkende door den staf des schrijvers.

Afrikaans:

vanaf Z’vulun dié wat skryf met die pen van ’n skrywer

Shqip:

nga Zabuloni ata që mbajnë shkopin e komandimit.

Bulgarian:

от Завулона ония, които държат жезъл на повелител.

Hrvatska:

Zebuluna oni što nose štap zapovjednički.

čeština:

z Zabulona písaři.

The Hebrew original says: מֹשְׁכִ֖ים בְּשֵׁ֥בֶט סֹפֵֽר׃ "moshekim beshevet soper." The keyword here is בְּשֵׁ֥בֶט "beshevet:" the rod, the staff, the club, the scepter. בְּ "Be" in English is "the," which we low out and proceed to the noun itself:

shebet  (shay'-bet) / shevet שֵׁ֥בֶט
a scion, i.e. (literally) a stick (for punishing, writing, fighting, ruling, walking, etc.) or (figuratively) a clan -- correction, dart, rod, sceptre, staff, tribe.

What is this elusive שֵׁ֥בֶט / shevet? A pen or a bâton? A stick can be anything thin and hard, used for practically anything... Therefore, translators must have a hard time deciding whether to picture it as a writer's implement or that of a military officer...

.