Special thanks to a new friend who saw the video about the Vision of Ezekiel published on August 31, 2017, and wrote to ask about some other passages in Ezekiel.
One of the episodes he asked about is described in Ezekiel 4, in which the prophet is instructed to lay a siege against a tile representing the city of Jerusalem, and to lie on his left side for three hundred ninety days. This period of time, my friend noted, is half of the average synodic period of the planet Mars.
That observation appeared to me to be very significant, because it recalls a blog post I published back in February of 2013, discussing the planetary positions which were then prevailing in the predawn sky, in which Mercury and Mars were visible above the horizon prior to sunrise, with Mercury actually a little bit higher than Mars.
In that post, I noted that if the arguments presented in Hamlet's Mill (1969) were correct, then we should be able to find a myth related to such a situation -- perhaps a myth in which Mercury (or Hermes) takes on a superior role in some way to Mars (Ares). As it turns out, just such a story is related in the text of the Iliad, when Ares is imprisoned in a brazen jar by two giant brothers named Otus and Ephialtes, and Hermes must come rescue Ares before he wastes away altogether.
As it turns out, the backdrop of stars at the very time of the writing of that blog, through which the planets Mars and Mercury were passing from the perspective of an observer on Earth, was the constellation Aquarius -- and in that 2013 blog post as well as in an early video about the same myth which I made about a year and a half later, I argue that the story of Ares being imprisoned in the jar probably has to do with the passage of the planet Mars through the zodiac constellation of Aquarius.
In addition, I noted that the text of the Iliad explains that Ares was imprisoned in the brazen jar for thirteen months -- half of the synodic period of the planet Mars -- which is why the question about Ezekiel 4, and the fact that the prophet is instructed to lie on one side for three hundred ninety days, reminded me of that passage from the Iliad and the story of Ares and the giants.
Three hundred ninety days, of course, corresponds to thirteen months -- if you take thirty days as a month, and multiply thirty times thirteen, you will get three hundred ninety.
This connection between the Iliad and the events in chapter 4 of the book of Ezekiel, and the mutual connection to the cycle of the orbit of Mars and its position relative to Earth, appears to me to be very significant.
Because the mechanics of synodic cycles, and the explanation of the myth of Ares and the giants as it relates to the motions of the planets through the constellation Aquarius, can be somewhat complicated, I made this new video entitled "Mars connection between Ezekiel and the Iliad" in order to show the celestial mechanics and correspondences a little more visually.
Before you argue that months on earth are not always exactly thirty days long, and that therefore any argument about a connection between the Ares story in the Iliad and the siege of Ezekiel in Ezekiel chapter 4 is tenuous at best, please have a look at all the evidence discussed in the video. As the video explains, the actual synodic period of Mars and Earth varies somewhat due to the mechanics of their orbits, but the average is 25.6 months -- so 26 months is actually a "rounded" number to begin with. However, there are plenty of other instances in the myths in which numbers are rounded in order to encode them in myth more readily -- the most notable of these being the precessional constant itself, which is 71.6 years but which is encoded in ancient myth using the precessional number 72 and various multiples thereof.
These connections between ancient myths and scriptures from cultures spread literally across the entire globe has serious ramifications for our understanding of humanity's ancient history. It appears quite likely that the world-wide system of celestial metaphor which informs the ancient myths may have come from a culture of great antiquity, even predating the earliest civilizations known to conventional historians -- earlier than the cultures of ancient Egypt, ancient Mesopotamia, ancient China, or the ancient Indus-Saraswati civilization.
Further, this ancient system demonstrates an understanding of concepts which are not well understood even by modern physics -- including the impact which the relative positions of the planets can have on measurable phenomena here on our planet. See, for example, the discussion in this previous post entitled "The gods are real," which is mentioned in this new video as well.
I hope you enjoy this new video about the connection between the Iliad and the book of Ezekiel, and the evidence that both of them were demonstrate an awareness of the importance of the motions of other planets relative to our own. And thank you to everyone who interacts with the things I've written or posted in videos -- all of your comments and insights are helpful to me and to the process of trying to understand the ancient language of celestial metaphor which the world's precious myths and sacred traditions are speaking, so that we can hear their message today and apply it to our lives.
image: Wikimedia commons (link).
The image above is from the early 10th century AD, circa AD 920.
The name "Ezekiel" is clearly indicated in the artwork itself.
The video above discusses the clear celestial references contained in this illustration to the constellations Virgo, Bootes, and Coma Berenices. Those familiar with the constellations of the night sky may also find other celestial connections in the artwork, including a possible reference to the constellation Crater, which is located close to Virgo in the sky.