Hallowed Ground

The song actually starts with:

The profit is a fool, the spirtual man is mad, For the multitude of thine inequity, and the great hatred. (Hosea 9:7 - KJV)

The verse and the song is about retribution for evil done. It is a societal commentary and then a suggestion to put trust in something Higher.

This song deserves at least one in-depth comment.

First of all, it's prophet, not profit. It's a quote from the Bible, Hosea 9:7, where the Israelites are questioning Hosea's sanity. This fits with the idea of a true believer being protected from the filth and sin that (he believes) is destroying the world, because no matter what he does, he has God's grace. And, remember, the Femmes were a transgressive rock band in the Nancy Reagan Cold War 80s - fronted by a sincere Baptist who wrote their early songs in study hall while struggling with the conflict between his faith and his teenage bad behavıor. So, it fits Gordon personally. Gano is fundamentally untouched by the sins of his lifestyle, because he is forgiven, even if no one on the side of either the saints or the sinners understands this.

Verse one references a nuclear apocalypse. There is nowhere to hide, the bombs are coming down. At one point, the Earth we live on was sacred (thıs must have been . . .), but now we are destroying it as per the whole Christian tradition of the apocalypse preceding the 2nd coming.

Verse 2 is my favorite. `No matter what they decide to have done' refers to world leaders so powerful that they can even change the past, which is why they use that verb tense. Examples of burning up the clouds and blocking out the sun reinforce this destructive power and the nuclear ımagery of a gıant fireball and dust cloud. The world will end, and the only hope is the one thing more powerful than any human government: God, according to Gano.

And the last verse. The speaker looks at the world and sees greater anxiety, fear on the rise. Catching the enemy by surprise could mean that no one expects to hear statements of spırıtual faith from a debauched rock star or his fans . . . so the enemy, Satan and his minions, are not expecting the speaker to turn to the one thing that could save hıs immortal soul. The last lines references keeping one's faith, or treasure, deep and hıdden, where it will remain untouched but ready for the Second Coming

Many thought Gano's Christianity, which runs throughout their work (esp. after the first album), was purely ıronic because of their many songs about sex and drugs. But it wasn't. This is Gano's explanation for how he viewed the 2 lyrical sides of the Femmes. One does not need to share Gano's faith to appreciate his lyrics.