Rape of the Sanctuary

From the beginning of the Bible, sanctuaries and buildings and other enclosed places are conceived of as feminine. Eve is “built” ( banah ) from the rib of Adam; the first “architecture” in the world is the woman.

Throughout the Torah, we find analogies between sanctuary and bed. Yahweh dwells behind curtains, and it is a dangerous sacrilege to penetrate the veil into His presence. Likewise, sexual sin is described as “uncovering the nakedness” of a woman (Leviticus 18), drawing back her covering, seeing her nakedness, and entering. Incest, Leviticus warns, will expel Israel from the land, as violations of Yahweh’s holy space expel Israel from Yahweh’s house.

This is in the background of Jeremiah’s descriptions of Jerusalem’s fall in Lamentations 1. Israel’s enemies see Jerusalem’s nakedness (1:8) as her unclean skirts are pulled off her (v. 9). The sexual imagery continues into verse 10. The enemy stretches out his “hand,” using a word that is a frequent euphemism for the penis. He places his hand on her “precious things” ( machmad ), literally a reference to plunder but poetically a reference to the delights of a woman’s body (a similar double entendre is perhaps found in 1 Kings 20:6; 2 Chronicles 36:19; for sexual use of the term, see Song of Songs 5:16).

In the secpnd half of verse 10, Jeremiah turns back to the literal fact of temple plundering (“she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary, the ones whom You commanded that they should not enter into Your congregation”), but the sexual imagery is still lingering in the background. It’s as if Zion looks on in detachment as she herself is gang-raped.