A second paper in part of my writing plan for 2010 is complete – now called ‘The Patriarch’s Nuts’. You may have noticed a certain testicular theme in recent posts as I explored various hidden corners of a very earthily phallic Hebrew text. I am planning to send it either to the Catholic Biblical Quarterly or the Australian Biblical Review. Three more snippets:

Everyman his own stylo

The term that hangs lower, larger and dominates the scene is motnayim. I wish to stress, firstly, that these tallywags are the seat of courage and strength (Job 40:16; Nah 2:2; Prov 30:31; 1 QH 2:7; 8:33). Perhaps the greatest assertion of this power is not the sword that may hang over the vital region, but the spermatic spluttering pen. In a rare moment of scribal self-referentiality, we find in Ez 9: 2, 3 and 11 the curious phrase hasofer bemotnayw, usually rendered as something like ‘a writing case at his side’. But a sofer is a scribe, one who writes and numbers, participle of the verb sfr. In other words, what we have here is ‘the scribe upon his potatoes’; hasofer is nothing less than another term for this uber-scribe’s dong. Or, as Sir George Mansfield Cumming-Smith, the head of the British spy service (1909-26), said when he heard that semen is an excellent invisible ink, ‘every man his own stylo’.

Gonad Economy

The splattered supremacy the gonad economy of the Hebrew Bible shows up best in a particular usage, namely, the two phrases yatsa’ halatsayim and yots’e yerekh. The first of these (found in Gen 35:11; 1 Kgs 8:19 and 2 Chr 6:9) was once translated with a phrase that I still use in reference to my children, ‘fruit of one’s loins’, but the second (Gen 46:26; Ex 1:5; Judg 8:30) usually makes do with ‘offspring’. We can do much better than that, for yatsa’ halatsayim really means ‘the issue of his spunk holders’, while yots’e yerekh should be ‘those who going out of ye olde creamery’. For these terms evoke a very earthy, active image, much like the money shot in porn, the spermatic spurt in which a male can already see his descendants leaping forth from the end of his dick. Actually, we can come even close to the Hebrew, keeping in mind the alliteration of both yatsa’ halatsayim and yots’e yerekh: ball burst, or perhaps baby blast, or rather, given the linguistic logic, father lava.

On strapping up one’s doodads

All is not lost for those who see a rampant phallic economy in the Bible, for those squashy, wrinkled pouches also show some vulnerability, susceptible to crushing, trembling and even unwelcome burning feelings and the odd festering. Hence the overwhelming concern with ‘girding one’s loins’ in the Hebrew Bible. As we might expect by now, ‘girding’ is a euphemism for a much more specific act. What a man actually did was strap up or bind (hgr and the noun hagor) his punching bag as part of getting dressed and preparing to head off somewhere (Ex 12:10; 2 Sam 20:8; 1 Kgs 2:5; 20:32; 2 Kgs 4:29; 9:1; Dan 10:5; so also the hapax legomenon of shns in 1 Kgs 28:42), or more strongly capture and imprison them (’sr) as one did enemies (Job 12:18). Even more specifically, a man puts on the close-fitting loincloth (’zr and the noun ’ezur), a term that should really be rendered the ‘egg bag’ (2 Kgs 1:8; Isa 11:5; Jer 1:17; Ez 23:15). Or, in Jeremiah’s words, ‘the egg bag [ha’ezur] clings to [dhavaq] a man’s eggs’ (Jer 13:11).[1]

Precisely how a man strapped himself up said much about his toughness and/or importance. For instance, to wear a leather cock sack (’ezur ’or, 2 Kgs 1:8) was obviously a sign of the rugged wilderness and thereby the ruggedness of its wearer – as we find with Elijah (2 Kgs 1:8). On the other hand, if a man had done wrong and feared divine wrath, then rough and scratchy sackcloth would take the place of the loincloth (1 Kgs 20:31-2; Jer 48:37; Am 8:10), which suggests that the biblical mark of repentance was the act of scratching one’s crotch, obsessively. And of course one longed to take it off at the first opportunity (Isa 20:2).

Under normal circumstances a careful strapping of a man’s seeds would be done with a soft cloth so that they didn’t bounce about on a long trot (Jer 13:1-4). But if one happened to be a priest, then one took extra care. The deep importance of wrapping and strapping a man’s soft marshmallows is exhibited no better than in Ex 28:42 (see also Ez 44:18). We are on Mt. Sinai with Moses and Yahweh, with the latter holding forth on the interior decoration of the tabernacle and the priests garments (Exodus 25-31) in what turns out to be the main reason Yahweh called Moses to Sinai in the first place. In the text in question, Yahweh provides Moses with instructions as to the garments of the priests, especially the mikhnese-vad, which are to cover everything from motnayim we’adh yerekhayim. Usually one finds the first phrase rendered as ‘linen breeches’, which misses the soft, silky nature and high quality of what are really underpants – so ‘best quality linen undies’. And in the phrase motnayim we’adh yerekhayim we have not so much a zone of the body described – from ‘loins to thighs’ as most would have it – but an emphatic usage that stresses the importance of the priests’ nicknacks. Motnayim simply means balls, but it is worth noting that yarekh appears here in a rare dual form, yerekhayim. In that light, I would suggest that both words really refer to the same vulnerable sacks – so let me suggest ‘crystals and diamonds’, to enhance their value of course. In sum, these priests are to have ‘the finest linen underwear to cover their flesh, especially their vital diamonds’. They must be afraid of something if they need such protection, for no matter how much a man might try to protect them by binding a loincloth around his bijoux de famille, they remain exceedingly fragile.

[1] Dhvq also has the sense of sticking to something, which is always a risk with a soiled and smelly egg bag.