Weird Stuff in the Bible

Skubala My Bible Says: Are there Cuss Words and Scatological Language in the Scriptures?
Ezekiel 16

Introduction
Are you ever reading through your bible and then you come across a word that your mama used to tell you not to say?
That might happen especially if you’re reading the King James Version. It has quite a few verses that can have you doing a double-take. But every version of the Bible has some shockingly crude or maybe even vulgar statements that don’t sound like they should be coming out of the Holy Scriptures.
So I hate to put a content restriction on today’s episode and I’m not going to say any curse words, but you might not want little ears to hear some of the things we’re going to study in Isaiah or Ezekiel today. But let me just say: I’m assuming Ezekiel’s grandma wasn’t in the audience when he used some of his sexual metaphors.
And Paul himself in the New Testament said a few things that may have gotten the bar of soap put in his mouth. If you don’t believe me, there’s a sweet little verse in Philippians 3 where Paul is talking about how nothing we we do can measure up to the work of Christ when it comes to our salvation.
In Philippians 3:8, he says
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ
OK. That’s a nice pleasant verse to hammer home the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice…in the English.
But in the Greek, the word “rubbish” right there is a little stronger. It’s the Greek word “Skubala,” which doesn’t mean rubbish, but actually means poop. And not just any poop. One of the strongest words in the Greek language for poop.
We have some strong words for poop in our language, too. Words I won’t say here on this podcast- especially because my grandma might be listening.
But Philippians did say it. Am I listening to Howard Stern here, or am I reading the Apostle Paul?
I find this to be weird, and I’d like to explore why it’s in the Bible.
Turn to Ezekiel 6, and let’s get weird.
[theme music]

Ezekiel’s potty humor
Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. This is Luke Taylor, and today we’re going to be talking about scatological language in the Scriptures. Or another way to say that is: dirty words in the Bible.
We’ll come back to Paul and Philippians later on, but I want to start today with the most scatological prophet in the Bible, Ezekiel.
Scatological language means words that refer to bodily waste, filth, or excrement-related imagery. And it’s common throughout your Bible, even though our English translations tend to soften a lot of these verses.
Look, I’m not a guy who goes for a lot of what’s called “bathroom humor.” I’m not going to sit here and say that my sense of humor is always 100% sanctified, but I will say that jokes about bodily functions don’t always land with me.
In fact, a couple years ago, I decided I did not want to tell my young son- who was probably four at the time- about the word “fart.” I just realized that once I gave him that word and its definition, it would probably become the only word he ever said. What I did not anticipate, though, was that he would come up with his own word for fart.
So he started to use the words “buttnoise” and “buttsmell” to refer to the phenomenon that happened after we ate Mexican for dinner. And frankly, after hearing him confusingly tell me that he made buttnoise and buttsmell a half-dozen times, I felt like that was worse than just saying the word “fart,” so I went ahead and told him the real word for that.
Perhaps my four-year-old was channeling Ezekiel, who came up with a rather interesting word to describe idolatry in chapter 6 of his book. He refers to them as the crapgods.
Now, I apologize if that sounds a little profane on a bible study podcast, but I’m actually toning it down. God has Ezekiel say to the people in
Ezekiel 6:4-5
4 Your altars shall become desolate, and your incense altars shall be broken, and I will cast down your slain before your idols. 5 And I will lay the dead bodies of the people of Israel before their idols, and I will scatter your bones around your altars.
The word for the idols on the high places here is “gullilim.” This is a word he made up to refer to idols. It means sheep poop idols. When Ezekiel refers to the high places, he often uses a word that’s synonymous with sheep poop. He’s name-calling here, he’s trying to be a little gross. It’s meant to reflect God’s disposition toward the idols.
Not only that, Ezekiel is using a strong and contemptuous word in Hebrew for poop when he refers to the idols. Our Bible translators would never render these words as literally as Ezekiel is saying them, because if we used our corresponding strong word for poop when translating this passage, we’d be using a word that- again, hi grandma! I’ll stick with crapgods.
(I don’t think my grandma actually knows about this podcast but just in case)
Ezekiel used some very strong and sometimes graphic language to express God’s displeasure with idolatry. What he said here was: “I will cast down your slain before your crapgods. And I will lay the dead bodies of the people of Israel before their crapgods, and I will scatter your bones around your altars.” And that’s just the PG version of it.
Now let’s get R-rated. If you flip over a few chapters to Ezekiel 23, he tells a story of two sisters who went into sexual promiscuity- the word Ezekiel uses for it is whoredom. He tells this story to demonstrate how disgusted God is with the idolatry of Israel. One of the sisters represented the northern Kingdom of Israel, the other sister the southern Kingdom of Judah.
This is graphically sexual. Again, not an episode for little ears this time.
Ezekiel 23:7-8
7 She bestowed her whoring upon them, the choicest men of Assyria all of them, and she defiled herself with all the idols of everyone after whom she lusted. 8 She did not give up her whoring that she had begun in Egypt; for in her youth men had lain with her and handled her virgin bosom and poured out their whoring lust upon her.
There’s a lot of talk of handling bosoms and body parts in this chapter. One of the most shocking lines comes when it talks about the other sister, representing the southern kingdom, and it speaks of how she desired these false gods.
Verses 19-21
19 Yet she increased her whoring, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt 20 and lusted after her lovers there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose issue was like that of horses. 21 Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians handled your bosom and pressed your young breasts.”
So when it says “members” right there, it’s referring to the male sexual organs. And when it says “issue” there, it’s talking about the fluids that come out of those organs. And so it is talking about how the woman desired those bodily organs of the Egyptian men, and this is a metaphor for how the Israelites of Judah had chased after the false gods of the Egyptians.
Idolatry is often compared to adultery in the Bible, as if you’re cheating on God. Very intimate sexual metaphors in some places.
Ezekiel 16:25 says
At the head of every street you built your lofty place and made your beauty an abomination, offering yourself to any passerby and multiplying your whoring.
And that’s what it says in our tamed-down English translations. But in the Hebrew, it’s more blunt. Here’s
Ezekiel 16:25 in Young’s Literal Translation:
At every head of the way thou hast built thy high place, And thou dost make thy beauty abominable, And dost open wide thy feet to every passer by, And dost multiply thy whoredoms,
Young’s translation is a little harder to read, but it really gets down to the brass tacks of a verse. For example, instead of saying “offering yourself to any passerby,” it says “open wide thy feet to every passer by.” That means to spread your legs for them.
Ezekiel, I am putting you in time out for that one. Let’s go to another prophet after this. But I want to make a point as to why I’m doing an episode on this subject. You say, “Luke, this is kind of an edgy episode.” Yes it sure is. The Bible can be an edgy book. But I’m not trying to be a shock jock; there’s a part of me that’s even kind of embarrassed to be talking about these things today, but I already teased that this episode is coming, so I’m kind of locked in to it now.
There are two things that cause God to become very graphic and blunt in His Word, and one of them is idolatry. God uses some of His strongest and grossest language to denounce idolatry, and I think that should reveal something of the heart of the Father.
Ezekiel is a prophet who really expresses what it does to the sinner when they engage in idolatry, how it spiritually taints you. The book of Hosea really teaches what it does to God’s heart when someone does that.

Our Righteousness is as What?!
There is one other subject that causes God to suddenly become very graphic and frank with his language- or what we might call scatological- and that is the subject of our own righteousness.
When we try to justify ourselves or stand on our own accomplishments or think that our own works could earn our way into heaven. And that is so far from the truth that the Bible starts to get pretty gross as it describes how far our own righteous acts can actually get us.
The mayor of New York several years ago, Michael Bloomberg- who ran for president in 2020 and lost in the primaries, but he got pretty far- he said in 2014, “I am telling you if there is a god, when I get to heaven, I’m not stopping to be interviewed. I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.” That is pride, ladies and gentlemen. When he says he’s not stopping to be interviewed, meaning, I’m pretty sure, he’s not waiting around to see if God or an angel is going to judge him or look up his name in the Lamb’s book of life. No, he’s just strutting right in, according to Michael Bloomberg. That’s the epitome of pride to think you have your spot in heaven earned. You can’t earn it. You can’t even come close.
Listen: apart from the righteousness of Christ, we could never ever ever ever ever measure up. But no matter how many times I say the word “ever,” I don’t think that word quite gets the job done as well as Isaiah did in
Isaiah 64:6
We have all become like one who is unclean,
    and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
This is what Isaiah means: on your best day, on your most righteous day before the Lord, me at my peak when it comes to my personal achievements, how righteous does God see me?
My best most righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. Polluted garment is another kind of tamed-down bible verse. The Hebrew word for polluted garment is “iddah beged,” and it refers to menstrual cloths. The cloths that a woman would put in her undergarments during her time of the month.
Now, that brings to mind images that we don’t want to dwell on, and this isn’t meant to shame women for their normal bodily function. But what do we do with those cloths or products after they’re used? They are thrown away. We don’t save those kinds of things. They don’t have a secondary purpose. They are only to be disposed of.
And our righteous acts- you on your best day- Luke on his best day- is so far from the righteousness and holiness of God that those acts are like menstrual rags in comparison.
It means this: if we all walked around with signs that said our greatest acts and works, our greatest- most good- accomplishments we had ever done, we would all be congratulating each other, high-fiving each other. We humans are so impressed with ourselves. We think we are so cool.
But if you took that sign of your best accomplishments and tried to cash that in as a ticket to heaven, guess what God would say? He’d say, “I see that as a dirty tampon. It’s not good for anything but to be thrown away.”
Now, that sounds harsh. But I say that because we need that wake-up call. We need to assess ourselves honestly and realistically. We fall so short of the righteousness and holiness of God.
Zechariah has a vision in chapter 3 of his book- one of my favorite stories in the Bible. You all are probably familiar with the ritual of the great high priest and how once a year he’d scrub himself clean and wear all-white garments and purify himself before entering the place of the Temple called the Holy of Holies.
Well the high priest at the time of Zechariah was a man named Joshua, and Zechariah was given a peek behind the spiritual veil of what Joshua looked like as he presented himself before the Lord. And after all that work to purify himself and present himself to God, here is what it says.
Zechariah 3:3
Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments.
And when it says filthy garments, this is the word “tso beḡeḏ,” and it means “covered in excrement.” OK. Poop. On our best day, when we’re feeling our purest before the Lord, we are no better than covered with poop.
If any of you know Michael Bloomberg, please send him this episode. You can become mayor of the biggest city in the world and build a media empire and earn a billion dollars as a spectacular business man, feed and house every homeless person on the planet…but that is all poop in comparison to God’s holy standard.

Shock Jock Paul
Paul has some things to say on this subject as well. The Galatian church had a theological problem; they were debating whether they needed to add to the work of Jesus in order to earn their way into heaven. They were trying to figure out if Jesus’ death on the cross was sufficient to get us into heaven, or if we needed to do some of our own good works in addition to that.
And Paul’s response to this is: are you guys stupid? Are you bewitched? There is nothing any human being could do to earn their way into heaven. It’s not Jesus plus my good works. It’s not Jesus plus following the law or this and that commandment. It’s Jesus plus nothing.
The good work that they wanted to add to the Gospel was circumcision. They wanted to say you had to believe the gospel- plus get circumcised. Paul says to them- and this will be a little crass, but I want you to understand what the Bible says- Paul tells them, if you think cutting off a little bit of skin on the end of your penis would help Jesus get you to heaven, then why stop there? Why not just cut the whole thing off. That’s what he is literally saying in
Galatians 5:12
I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!
Our Bible translators don’t want to offend us and our grandmas when we’re reading our bibles, so they tone a lot of this down. But that’s what Paul means here when he says to emasculate yourself. He says, “if you think the Son of God was beaten to a pulp and crucified on a cross to pay the price for your sins, but now circumcising yourself will help him out on getting you into heaven, you better just cut the whole thing off to be safe.”
Now that’s some hard preaching. That’s a little sarcastic and some would say vulgar. If your pastor got up and said something like that from the pulpit at your church and if he didn’t say he was quoting Galatians, then there would be people calling for him to resign by the next Sunday. Protestia would be posting videos about him on twitter. “That is not sanitary language appropriate for the Holy Church.” Except it’s in your Holy Bible.
Now did Paul say rough things like this regularly? No, but there’s a particular topic that always brought out his teeth in the New Testament, and that’s the simplicity of the Gospel. It’s Jesus plus nothing. And to bring it back to where we began today, let’s finally take a look at Paul’s words in:
Philippians 3:2-9
2 Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers,
(If you get my rabbit trails newsletter, I just recently sent one out explaining how those who try to come up with multiple ways to heaven are called dogs. Alternative ways to heaven like messing with the Gospel. Contrary to the Disney movie, all dogs DON’T go to heaven. Let’s keep reading. Paul is going to discuss circumcision again here and say, ‘if anyone had a way to boast in their works and earning their way to heaven, it would have been me')
look out for those who mutilate the flesh. 3 For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh— 4 though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. 7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—
He says, “no one worked harder than I did to earn heaven. Nobody was more zealous for God and the Old Testament commands and keeping the rituals and trying to live a holy life. I was all-in.” But then he says, “I cast all my righteous deeds to the side and I have confidence in none of them when it comes to my standing before God.”
He says, “nothing I ever did or accomplished in my whole life means anything- it means zero- in comparison to knowing Christ and His sacrifice.
In fact, Paul says, “I count them as rubbish” in verse 8. Once again, a recurring theme in this episode: your Bible translators have, in my opinion, done us a great disservice by sanitizing the language here. What Paul is really saying is: “I consider them no more than skubala.” Now, “skubala” is a greek word that means crap. If I said poop, it just wouldn’t do it justice. He’s being frank here. This is probably the closest Paul ever comes to a profanity.
Now, he’s actually using a form of the work “skubala” here which is “skubalon,” and there’s a little bit of controversy over this word and whether Paul was literally cussing right here. Some translations might call it dung- I definitely don’t think rubbish is accurate- but some suggest that this would be equivalent to a particular four-letter-word in our English translations of the Bible.
Here’s what I think is true: Paul is probably not using what we would call a profanity, because in Ephesians he tells Christians not to use profane speech.
But I do think this is the strongest word that Paul uses in any of his writings, and I think he’s trying to be a little bit shocking here. Not exaggerating. But to make people wake up and realize the seriousness of what he’s saying. Just like God was using some pretty blunt and crude language to make a point about idolatry in the Old Testament, Paul was doing something similar in his letters to address how no one should mess with the Gospel.
Don’t try to bring your accomplishments to God and act like you are on your way to heaven and that Jesus just gets you over the finish line. No, here’s the equation: Jesus plus nothing gets you everything.

Closing Thoughts
Next time on this podcast, I might revisit an episode that I did early early early on in this podcast. I think I’d like to revisit Psalm 82 because I’ve learned a little more info since then on it. If you don’t know what’s weird about Psalm 82, you’ll be glad you tuned in next week. It’s going to get very very weird.
Make sure you’re subscribed so you can get it!
I don’t think I will have a newsletter this week. I don’t really have any additional comments I’d like to make about scatological language. But if you’d like to see past newsletters, or if you haven’t signed up for it and would like to be on the list for the future, there’s a link in the show notes for how you can do that. And to get in touch with me: weirdstuffinthebible@gmail.com
Mailbag: Brad feedback. Mike feedback. And sorry JACOB.

In closing today, I just want to make this point. Despite going through several verses of scatological language in the scripture, I wouldn’t say it’s something the Bible does frequently. As we’ve observed, there seem to be two subjects where the Bible starts getting graphic like this: 1, over the issue of idolatry, and how God sees it when we put other things above Him. 2, the issue of adding to the work of Christ, and how worthless our righteous acts are in comparison.
And these are good wake up calls. I think it’s important to have an honest assessment of ourselves and our good works. Sometimes we need that reminder that our greatest works are crap in comparison to the work of Christ.
And if that offends you for me to say that, then I don’t know how you made it so far into this episode!
I also think this is important to know for anyone out there who has kind of held God at arm’s length because you think your sins are so much worse than everyone else’s that you are not worthy of God’s love or forgiveness. Or that you could never measure up to quote-unquote “true Christians.”
You say, I have done things that put me so far from God compared to everyone else.
NO! None of us even come close.
I hope you realize that after today’s study. Nobody has any right to boast in their works. We should all have shame and guilt for our sins; but nobody can use that as an excuse to run away from God. He stands there with open arms ready to forgive any of us who come to him in faith and repentance.
And it might sound kind of weird for the Bible to dip into this crass language to discuss the realities of idolatry, or our own righteousness without Jesus.
The Bible is not weird. WE are weird, because we don’t always remember how far we are from God apart from the blood of Jesus. But now we do. Thanks for listening, God bless you for sticking around until the end, and we’ll see you next time on Weird Stuff in the Bible.