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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadInternational Standard Bible Encyclopedia: God
Subjects in this Topic:
god (×להי×, 'ĕloÌ„hı̄m, ×ל, 'eÌ„l, עליון, ‛elyoÌ„n, ש×דּי, shaddaÌ„y, יהוה, yahweh; ΘεοÌÏ‚, theoÌs):
I. Introduction to the General Idea
1. The Idea in Experience and in Thought
2. Definition of the Idea
3. The Knowledge of God
4. Ethnic Ideas of God
(1) Animism
(2) Fetishism
(3) Idolatry
(4) Polytheism
(5) Henotheism
(6) Pantheism
(7) Deism
(8) Semitic Monolatry
(9) Monotheism
II. The Idea of God in the Old Testament
1. The Course of Its Development
2. Forms of Its Manifestation
(1) The Face or Countenance of God
(2) The Voice and Word of God
(3) The Glory of God
(4) The Angel of God
(5) The Spirit of God
(6) The Name of God
(7) Occasional Forms
3. The Names of God
(1) Generic
(2) Attributive
(3) Yahweh (Jehovah)
4. Pre-prophetic Conceptions of God
(1) Yahweh Alone Is the God of Israel
(a) His Early Worship
(b) Popular Religion
(c) Polytheistic Tendencies
(i) Coordination
(ii) Assimilation
(iii) Disintegration
(d) No Hebrew Goddesses
(e) Human Sacrifices
(2) Nature and Character of Yahweh
(a) A God of War
(b) His Relation to Nature
(3) Most Distinctive Characteristics of Yahweh
(a) Personality
(b) Law and Judgment
5. The Idea of God in the Prophetic Period
(1) Righteousness
(2) Holiness
(3) Universality
(4) Unity
(5) Creator and Lord
(6) Compassion and Love
6. The Idea of God in Post-exilic Judaism
(1) New Conditions
(2) Divine Attributes
(3) Surviving Limitations
(a) Disappearing Anthropomorphism
(b) Localization
(c) Favoritism
(d) Ceremonial Legalism
(4) Tendencies to Abstractness
(a) Transcendence
(b) Skepticism
(c) Immanence
(5) Logos, Memra), and Angels
III. The Idea of God in the New Testament
1. Dependence on the Old Testament
2. Gentile Influence
3. Absence of Theistic Proofs
4. Fatherhood of God
(1) In the Teaching of Jesus Christ
(a) Its Relation to Himself
(b) To Believers
(c) To All Men
(2) In Apostolic Teaching
(a) Father of Jesus Christ
(b) Our Father
(c) Universal Father
5. God Is King
(1) The Kingdom of God
(2) Its King
(a) God
(b) Christ
(c) Their Relation
(3) Apostolic Teaching
6. Moral Attributes
(1) Personality
(2) Love
(3) Righteousness and Holiness
7. Metaphysical Attributes
8. The Unity of God
(1) The Divinity of Christ
(2) The Holy Spirit
(3) The Church's Problem
Literature
I. Introduction to the General Idea
1. The Idea in Experience and in Thought
Religion gives the idea of God, theology construes and organizes its content, and philosophy establishes its relation to the whole of man's experience. The logical order of treating it might appear to be, first, to establish its truth by philosophical proofs; secondly, to develop its content into theological propositions; and finally, to observe its development and action in religion. Such has been the more usual order of treatment. But the actual history of the idea has been quite the reverse. Men had the idea of God, and it had proved a creative factor in history, long before reflection upon it issued in its systematic expression as a doctrine. Moreover, men had enunciated the doctrine before they attempted or even felt any need to define its relation to reality. And the logic of history is the truer philosophy. To arrive at the truth of any idea, man must begin with some portion of experience, define its content, relate it to the whole of experience, and so determine its degree of reality.
Religion is as universal as man, and every religion involves some idea of God. Of the various philosophical ideas of God, each has its counterpart and antecedent in some actual religion. Pantheism is the philosophy of the religious consciousness of India. Deism had prevailed for centuries as an actual attitude of men to God, in China, in Judaism and in Islam, before it found expression as a rational theory in the philosophy of the 18th century. Theism is but the attempt to define in general terms the Christian conception of God, and of His relation to the world. If pluralism claims a place among the systems of philosophy, it can appeal to the religious consciousness of that large portion of mankind that has hitherto adhered to polytheism.
But all religions do not issue in speculative reconstructions of their content. It is true in a sense that all religion is an unconscious philosophy, because it is the reaction of the whole mind, including the intellect, upon the world of its experience, and, therefore, every idea of God involves some kind of an explanation of the world. But conscious reflection upon their own content emerges only in a few of the more highly developed religions. Brahmanism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam and Christianity are the only religions that have produced great systems of thought, exhibiting their content in a speculative and rational form. The religions of Greece and Rome were unable to survive the reflective period. They produced no theology which could ally itself to a philosophy, and Greek philosophy was from the beginning to a great extent the denial and supersession of Greek religion.
Biblical literature nearly all represents the spontaneous experience of religion, and contains comparatively little reflection upon that experience. In the Old Testament it is only in Second Isaiah, in the Wisdom literature and in a few Psalms that the human mind may be seen turning back upon itself to ask the meaning of its practical feelings and beliefs. Even here nothing appears of the nature of a philosophy of Theism or of religion, no theology, no organic definition and no ideal reconstruction of the idea of God. It never occurred to any Old Testament writer to offer a proof of the existence of God, or that anyone should need it. Their concern was to bring men to a right relation with God, and they propounded right views of God only in so far as it was necessary for their practical purpose. Even the fool who “hath said in his heart, There is no God†(; ), and the wicked nations “that forget God†() are no theoretical atheists, but wicked and corrupt men, who, in conduct and life, neglect or reject the presence of God.
The New Testament contains more theology, more reflection upon the inward content of the idea of God, and upon its cosmic significance; but here also, no system appears, no coherent and rounded-off doctrine, still less any philosophical construction of the idea on the basis of experience as a whole. The task of exhibiting the Biblical idea of God is, therefore, not that of setting together a number of texts, or of writing the history of a theology, but rather of interpreting the central factor in the life of the Hebrew and Christian communities.
2. Definition of the Idea
Logically and historically the Biblical idea stands related to a number of other ideas. Attempts have been made to find a definition of so general a nature as to comprehend them all. The older theologians assumed the Christian standpoint, and put into their definitions the conclusions of Christian doctrine and philosophy. Thus, Melanchthon: “God is a spiritual essence, intelligent, eternal, true, good, pure, just, merciful, most free and of infinite power and wisdom.†Thomasius more briefly defines God as “the absolute personality.†These definitions take no account of the existence of lower religions and ideas of God, nor do they convey much of the concreteness and nearness of God revealed in Christ. A similar recent definition, put forward, however, avowedly of the Christian conception, is that of Professor W. N. Clarke: “God is the personal Spirit, perfectly good, who in holy love creates, sustains and orders all†(Outline of Christian Theology, 66). The rise of comparative religion has shown that “while all religions involve a conscious relation to a being called God, the Divine Being is in different religions conceived in the most different ways; as one and as many, as natural and as spiritual, as like to and manifested in almost every object in the heavens above or earth beneath, in mountains and trees, in animals and men; or, on the contrary, as being incapable of being represented by any finite image whatsoever; and, again, as the God of a family, of a nation, or of humanity†(E. Caird, Evolution of Religion, I, 62). Attempts have therefore been made to find a new kind of definition, such as would include under one category all the ideas of God possessed by the human race. A typical instance of this kind of definition is that of Professor W. Adams Brown: “A god in the religious sense is an unseen being, real or supposed, to whom an individual or a social group is united by voluntary ties of reverence and service†(Christian Theology in Outline, 30). Many similar definitions are given: “A supersensible being or beings†(Lotze, Asia Minor Fairbairn); “a higher power†(Allan Menzies); “spiritual beings†(E.B. Tylor); “a power not ourselves making for righteousness†(Matthew Arnold). This class of definition suffers from a twofold defect. It says too much to include the ideas of the lower religions, and too little to suggest those of the higher. It is not all gods that are “unseen†or “supersensible,†or “making for righteousness,†but all these qualities may be shared by other beings than gods, and they do not connote that which is essential in the higher ideas of God. Dr. E. Caird, looking for a definition in a germinative principle of the genesis of religion, defines God “as the unity which is presupposed in the difference of the self and not-self, and within which they act and re-act on each other†(op. cit., I, 40, 64). This principle admittedly finds its full realization only in the highest religion, and it may be doubted whether it does justice to the transcendent personality and the love of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. In the lower religions it appears only in fragmentary forms, and it can only be detected in them at all after it has been revealed in the absolute religion. Although this definition may be neither adequate nor true, its method recognizes that there can be only one true idea and definition of God, and yet that all other ideas are more or less true elements of it and approximations to it. The Biblical idea does not stand alone like an island in mid-ocean, but is rather the center of light which radiates out in other religions with varying degrees of purity.
It is not the purpose of this article to deal with the problem of the philosophy of religion, but to give an account of the idea of God at certain stages of its development, and within a limited area of thought. The absence of a final definition will present no practical difficulty, because the denotation of the term God is clear enough; it includes everything that is or has been an object of worship; it is its connotation that remains a problem for speculation.
3. The Knowledge of God
A third class of definition demands some attention, because it raises a new question, that of the knowledge or truth of any idea whatsoever. Herbert Spencer's definition may be taken as representative: God is the unknown and unknowable cause of the universe, “an inscrutable power manifested to us through all phenomena†(First Principles, V, 31). This means that there can be no definition of the idea of God, because we can have no idea of Him, no knowledge “in the strict sense of knowing.†For the present purpose it might suffice for an answer that ideas of God actually exist; that they can be defined and are more definable, because fuller and more complex, the higher they rise in the scale of religions; that they can be gathered from the folklore and traditions of the lower races, and from the sacred books and creeds of the higher religions. But Spencer's view means that, in so far as the ideas are definable, they are not true. The more we define, the more fictitious becomes our subject-matter. While nothing is more certain than that God exists, His being is to human thought utterly mysterious and inscrutable. The variety of ideas might seem to support this view. But variety of ideas has been held of every subject that is known, as witness the progress of science. The variety proves nothing.
And the complete abstraction of thought from existence cannot be maintained. Spencer himself does not succeed in doing it. He says a great many things about the “unknowable†which implies an extensive knowledge of Him. The traditional proofs of the “existence†of God have misled the Agnostics. But existence is meaningless except for thought, and a noumenon or first cause that lies hidden in impenetrable mystery behind phenomena cannot be conceived even as a fiction. Spencer's idea of the Infinite and Absolute are contradictory and unthinkable. An Infinite that stood outside all that is known would not be infinite, and an Absolute out of all relation could not even be imagined. If there is any truth at all in the idea of the Absolute, it must be true to human experience and thought; and the true Infinite must include within itself every possible and actual perfection. In truth, every idea of God that has lived in religion refutes Agnosticism, because they all qualify and interpret experience, and the only question is as to the degree of their adequacy and truth.
A brief enumeration of the leading ideas of God that have lived in religion will serve to place the Biblical idea in its true perspective.
4. Ethnic Ideas of God
(1) Animism
Animism is the name of a theory which explains the lowest (and perhaps the earliest) forms of religion, and also the principle of all religion, as the belief in the universal presence of spiritual beings which “are held to affect or control the events of the material world, and man's life here and hereafter; and, it being considered that they hold intercourse with men, and receive pleasure or displeasure from human actions, the belief in their existence leads naturally, and, it might almost be said, inevitably, sooner or later, to active reverence and propitiation†(E.B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, I, 426-27). According to this view, the world is full of disembodied spirits, regarded as similar to man's soul, and any or all of these may be treated as gods.
(2) Fetishism
Fetishism is sometimes used in a general sense for “the view that the fruits of the earth and things in general are divine, or animated by powerful spirits†(J.G. Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 234); or it may be used in a more particular sense of the belief that spirits “take up their abode, either temporarily or permanently, in some object.... and this object, as endowed with higher power, is then worshipped†(Tiele, Outlines of the History of Religion, 9).
(3) Idolatry
Idolatry is a term of still more definite significance. It means that the object is at least selected, as being the permanent habitation or symbol of the deity; and, generally, it is marked by some degree of human workmanship, designed to enable it the more adequately to represent the deity. It is not to be supposed that men ever worship mere “stocks and stones,†but they address their worship to objects, whether fetishes or idols, as being the abodes or images of their god. It is a natural and common idea that the spirit has a form similar to the visible object in which it dwells. Paul reflected the heathen idea accurately when he said, “We ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and device of man†().
(4) Polytheism
The belief in many gods, and the worship of them, is an attitude of soul compatible with Animism, Fetishism, and Idolatry, or it may be independent of them all. The term Polytheism is more usually employed to designate the worship of a limited number of well-defined deities, whether regarded as pure disembodied spirits, or as residing in the greater objects of Nature, such as planets or mountains, or as symbolized by images “graven by art and device of man.†In ancient Greece or modern India the great gods are well defined, named and numerable, and it is clearly understood that, though they may be symbolized by images, they dwell apart in a spiritual realm above the rest of the world.
(5) Henotheism
There is, however, a tendency, both in individuals and in communities, even where many gods are believed to exist, to set one god above the others, and consequently to confine worship to that god alone. “The monotheistic tendency exists among all peoples, after they have reached a certain level of culture. There is a difference in the degree in which this tendency is emphasized, but whether we turn to Babylonia, Egypt, India, China, or Greece, there are distinct traces of a trend toward concentrating the varied manifestations of Divine powers in a single source†(Jastrow, The Study of Religion, 76). This attitude of mind has been called Henotheism or Monolatry - the worship of one God combined with the belief in the existence of many. This tendency may be governed by metaphysical, or by ethical and personal motives, either by the monistic demands of reason, or by personal attachment to one political or moral rule.
(6) Pantheism
Where the former principle predominates, Polytheism merges into Pantheism, as is the case in India, where Brahma is not only the supreme, but the sole, being, and all other gods are but forms of his manifestation. But, in India, the vanquished gods have had a very complete revenge upon their vanquisher, for Brahma has become so abstract and remote that worship is mainly given to the other gods, who are forms of his manifestation. Monolatry has been reversed, and modern Hinduism were better described as the belief in one God accompanied by the worship of many.
(7) Deism
The monistic tendency, by a less thorough application of it, may take the opposite turn toward Deism, and yet produce similar religious conditions. The Supreme Being, who is the ultimate reality and power of the universe, may be conceived in so vague and abstract a manner, may be so remote from the world, that it becomes a practical necessity to interpose between Him and men a number of subordinate and nearer beings as objects of worship. In ancient Greece, Necessity, in China, Tien or Heaven, were the Supreme Beings; but a multiplicity of lower gods were the actual objects of worship. The angels of Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Islam and the saints of Romanism illustrate the same tendency. Pantheism and Deism, though they have had considerable vogue as philosophical theories, have proved unstable and impossible as religions, for they have invariably reverted to some kind of polytheism and idolatry, which seems to indicate that they are false processes of the monistic tendency.
(8) Semitic Monolatry
The monistic tendency of reason may enlist in its aid many minor causes, such as tribal isolation or national aggrandizement. It is held that many Sere tribes were monolatrists for either or both of these reasons; but the exigencies of intertribal relations in war and commerce soon neutralized their effects, and merged the tribal gods into a territorial pantheon.
(9) Monotheism
Monotheism, ethical and personal: One further principle may combine with Monism so as to bring about a stable Monotheism, that is the conception of God as standing in moral relations with man. Whenever man reflects upon conduct as moral, he recognizes that there can be only one moral standard and authority, and when God is identified with that moral authority, He inevitably comes to be recognized as supreme and unique. The belief in the existence of other beings called gods may survive for a while; but they are divested of all the attributes of deity when they are seen to be inferior or opposed to the God who rules in conscience. Not only are they not worshipped, but their worship by others comes to be regarded as immoral and wicked. The ethical factor in the monistic conception of God safeguards it from diverging into Pantheism or Deism and thus reverting into Polytheism. For the ethical idea of God necessarily involves His personality, His transcendence as distinct from the world and above it, and also His intimate and permanent relation with man. If He rules in conscience, He can neither be merged in dead nature or abstract being, nor be removed beyond the heavens and the angel host. A thoroughly moralized conception of God emerges first in the Old Testament where it is the prevailing type of thought.
II. The Idea of God in the Old Testament
1. Course of Its Development
Any attempt to write the whole history of the idea of God in the Old Testament would require a preliminary study of the literary and historical character of the documents, which lies beyond the scope of this article and the province of the writer. Yet the Old Testament contains no systematic statement of the doctrine of God, or even a series of statements that need only to be collected into a consistent conception. The Old Testament is the record of a rich and varied life, extending over more than a thousand years, and the ideas that ruled and inspired that life must be largely inferred from the deeds and institutions in which it was realized; nor was it stationary or all at one level. Nothing is more obvious than that revelation in the Old Testament has been progressive, and that the idea of God it conveys has undergone a development. Certain well-marked stages of the development can be easily recognized, without entering upon any detailed criticism. There can be no serious question that the age of the Exodus, as centering around the personality of Moses, witnessed an important new departure in Hebrew religion. The most ancient traditions declare (perhaps not unanimously) that God was then first known to Israel under the personal name Jehovah (Yahweh (YHWH) is the correct form of the word, Jehovah being a composite of the consonants of Yahweh and the vowels of 'ădhōnāy, or lord. Yahweh is retained here as the more familiar form). The Hebrew people came to regard Him as their Deliverer from Egypt, as their war god who assured them the conquest of Canaan, and He, therefore, became their king, who ruled over their destinies in their new heritage. But the settlement of Yahweh in Canaan, like that of His people, was challenged by the native gods and their peoples. In the 9th century we see the war against Yahweh carried into His own camp, and Baal-worship attempting to set itself up within Israel. His prophets therefore assert the sole right of Yahweh to the worship of His people, and the great prophets of the 8th century base that right upon His moral transcendence. Thus they at once reveal new depths of His moral nature, and set His uniqueness and supremacy on higher grounds. During the exile and afterward, Israel's outlook broadens by contact with the greater world, and it draws out the logical implications of ethical monotheism into a theology at once more universalistic and abstract. Three fairly well-defined periods thus emerge, corresponding to three stages in the development of the Old Testament idea of God: the pre-prophetic period governed by the Mosaic conception, the prophetic period during which ethical monotheism is firmly established, and the post-exilic period with the rise of abstract monotheism. But even in taking these large and obvious divisions, it is necessary to bear in mind the philosopher's maxim, that “things are not cut off with a hatchet.†The most characteristic ideas of each period may be described within their period; but it should not be assumed that they are altogether absent from other periods; and, in particular, it should not be supposed that ideas, and the life they represent, did not exist before they emerged in the clear witness of history. Mosaism had undoubtedly its antecedents in the life of Israel; but any attempt to define them leads straight into a very morass of conjectures and hypotheses, archaeological, critical and philosophical; and any results that are thus obtained are contributions to comparative religion rather than to theology.
2. Forms of the Manifestation of God
Religious experience must always have had an inward and subjective aspect, but it is a long and difficult process to translate the objective language of ordinary life for the uses of subjective experience. “Men look outward before they look inward.†Hence, we find that men express their consciousness of God in the earliest periods in language borrowed from the visible and objective world. It does not follow that they thought of God in a sensuous way, because they speak of Him in the language of the senses, which alone was available for them. On the other hand, thought is never entirely independent of language, and the degree in which men using sensuous language may think of spiritual facts varies with different persons.
(1) The Face or Countenance of God
The face or countenance (paÌ„nı̄m) of God is a natural expression for His presence. The place where God is seen is called Peniel, the face of God (). The face of Yahweh is His people's blessing (). With His face (the Revised Version (British and American) “presenceâ€) He brought Israel out of Egypt, and His face (the Revised Version (British and American) “presenceâ€) goes with them to Canaan (). To be alienated from God is to be hid from His face (), or God hides His face (, ; ). In contrast with this idea it is said elsewhere that man cannot see the face of God and live (; compare ; ; ). In these later passages, “face†stands for the entire being of God, as distinguished from what man may know of Him. This phrase and its cognates enshrine also that fear of God, which shrinks from His majesty even while approaching Him, which enters into all worship.
(2) The Voice and Word of God
The voice (ḳōl) and word (dābhār) of God are forms under which His communion with man is conceived from the earliest days to the latest. The idea ranges from that of inarticulate utterance () to the declaration of the entire law of conduct (-24), to the message of the prophet (; ), and the personification of the whole counsel and action of God (; , ; ; ).
(3) The Glory of God
The glory (kābhōdh) of God is both a peculiar physical phenomenon and the manifestation of God in His works and providence. In certain passages in Exodus, ascribed to the Priestly Code, the glory is a bright light, “like devouring fire†(); it fills and consecrates the tabernacle (; , ); and it is reflected as beams of light in the face of Moses (). In Ezekiel, it is a frequent term for the prophet's vision, a brightness like the appearance of a rainbow (; ; ). In another place, it is identified with all the manifested goodness of God and is accompanied with the proclamation of His name (-23). Two passages in Isa seem to combine under this term the idea of a physical manifestation with that of God's effectual presence in the world (; ). God's presence in creation and history is often expressed in the Psalms as His glory (; , ; ; ). Many scholars hold that the idea is found in Isa in its earliest form, and that the physical meaning is quite late. It would, however, be contrary to all analogy, if such phenomena as rainbow and lightning had not first impressed-the primitive mind as manifestations of God. See GLORY.
(4) The Angel of God
The angel (mal'ākh) of God or of Yahweh is a frequent mode of God's manifestation of Himself in human form, and for occasional purposes. It is a primitive conception, and its exact relation to God, or its likeness to man, is nowhere fixed. In many passages, it is assumed that God and His angel are the same being, and the names are used synonymously (as in ; , ; , ; , ); in other passages the idea blurs into varying degrees of differentiation (Gen 18; ; ; , ; , ). But everywhere, it fully represents God as speaking or acting for the time being; and it is to be distinguished from the subordinate and intermediate beings of later angelology. Its identification with the Messiah and the Logos is only true in the sense that these later terms are more definite expressions of the idea of revelation, which the angel represented for primitive thought.
(5) The Spirit of God
The spirit (rūaḥ) of God in the earlier period is a form of His activity, as it moves warrior and prophet to act and to speak (; ; ), and it is in the prophetic period that it becomes the organ of the communication of God's thoughts to men. See HOLY SPIRIT.
(6) The Name of God
The name (shēm) of God is the most comprehensive and frequent expression in the Old Testament for His self-manifestation, for His person as it may be known to men. The name is something visible or audible which represents God to men, and which, therefore, may be said to do His deeds, and to stand in His place, in relation to men. God reveals Himself by making known or proclaiming His name (; ; , ). His servants derive their authority from His name (, ; ). To worship God is to call upon His name (; ; ; ; -26), to fear it (), to praise it (; ; ), to glorify it (). It is wickedness to take God's name in vain (), or to profane and blaspheme it (; ). God's dwelling-place is the place where He chooses “to cause his name to dwell†(; ; , ; -19; ; , ). God's name defends His people (; ). For His name's sake He will not forsake them (), and if they perish, His name cannot remain (). God is known by different names, as expressing various forms of His self-manifestation (; ; ; ). The name even confers its revelation-value upon the angel (-23). All God's names are, therefore, significant for the revelation of His being.
(7) Occasional Forms
In addition to these more or less fixed forms, God also appears in a variety of exceptional or occasional forms. In -8, it is said that Moses, unlike others, used to see the form (temūnāh) of Yahweh. Fire smoke and cloud are frequent forms or symbols of God's presence (e.g. ; -4; ; ),and notably “the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night†( f). According to later ideas, the cloud rested upon the tabernacle (), and in it God appeared upon the ark (). Extraordinary occurrences or miracles are, in the early period, frequent signs of the power of God (Ex 7ff; 1 Ki 17ff).
The questions of the objectivity of any or all of these forms, and of their relation to the whole Divine essence raise large problems. Old Testament thought had advanced beyond the naïve identification of God with natural phenomena, but we should not read into its figurative language the metaphysical distinctions of a Greek-Christian theology.
3. The Names of God
All the names of God were originally significant of His character, but the derivations, and therefore the original meanings, of several have been lost, and new meanings have been sought for them.
(1) Generic
One of the oldest and most widely distributed terms for Deity known to the human race is 'Ēl, with its derivations 'Ēlı̄m, 'Ĕlōhı̄m, and 'Ĕlōaȟ. Like theos, Deus and God, it is a generic term, including every member of the class deity. It may even denote a position of honor and authority among men. Moses was 'Ĕlōhı̄m to Pharaoh () and to Aaron (; compare ; ; , ; ; ; ). It is, therefore, a general term expressing majesty and authority, and it only came to be used as a proper name for Israel's God in the later period of abstract monotheism when the old proper name Yahweh was held to be too sacred to be uttered. The meaning of the root 'Ēl, and the exact relation to it, and to one another, of 'Ĕlōhı̄m and 'Ĕlōah, lie in complete obscurity. By far the most frequent form used by Old Testament writers is the plural 'Ĕlōhı̄m, but they use it regularly with singular verbs and adjectives to denote a singular idea. Several explanations have been offered of this usage of a plural term to denote a singular idea - that it expresses the fullness and manifoldness of the Divine nature, or that it is a plural of majesty used in the manner of royal persons, or even that it is an early intimation of the Trinity; other cognate expressions are found in ; ; f; . These theories are, perhaps, too ingenious to have occurred to the early Hebrew mind, and a more likely explanation is, that they are survivals in language of a polytheistic stage of thought. In the Old Testament they signify only the general notion of Deity.
(2) Attributive
To distinguish the God of Israel as supreme from others of the class 'Ĕlōhı̄m, certain qualifying appellations are often added. 'Ēl ‛Elyōn designates the God of Israel as the highest, the most high, among the 'Ĕlōhı̄m (-20); so do Yahweh ‛Elyōn () and ‛Elyōn alone, often in Psalms and in .
'EÌ„l ShaddaÌ„y, or ShaddaÌ„y alone, is a similar term which on the strength of some tradition is translated “God Almightyâ€; but its derivation and meaning are quite unknown. According to it was the usual name for God in patriarchal times, but other traditions in the Pentateuch seem to have no knowledge of this.
Another way of designating God was by His relation to His worshippers, as God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (; ), of Shem (), of the Hebrews (), and of Israel ().
Other names used to express the power and majesty of God are cuÌ„r, “Rock†(; ), 'ăbhı̄r (construct from 'aÌ„bhı̄r), “the Strong One†(; ; ); melekh, “Kingâ€; 'aÌ„dhoÌ„n, “lord,†and 'ădhoÌ„naÌ„y, “my lord†(; , ; ; ). Also ba‛al, “proprietor†or “master,†may be inferred as a designation once in use, from its appearance in such Hebrew proper names as Jerubbaal and Ishbaal. The last three names describe God as a Master to whom man stands in the relation of a servant, and they tended to fall into disuse as the necessity arose to differentiate the worship of Yahweh from that of the gods of surrounding nations.
A term of uncertain meaning is Yahweh or 'ĔloÌ„hı̄m cebhaÌ„'oÌ„th, “Yahweh†or “God of hosts.†In Hebrew usage “host†might mean an army of men, or the stars and the angels - which, apart or in conjunction, made up the host of heaven. God of Hosts in early times meant the war god who led the armies of Israel (; ). In this title stands in parallelism with “the God of the armies of Israel.†So all Israel is called the host of Yahweh (). In the Prophets, where the term has become a regular appellation, it stands in relation to every form of the power and majesty, physical and moral, of God (e.g. ; , ; , ). It stands in parallelism with Isaiah's peculiar title, the Holy One of Israel (, ). It has, therefore, been thought that it refers to the host of heaven. In the Prophets it is practically a proper name. Its original meaning may well have been forgotten or dropped, but it does not follow that a new special significance was attached to the word “hosts.†The general meaning of the whole term is well expressed by the Septuagint translation, kuÌrios pantokraÌtoÌ„r, “Lord Omnipotent.â€
(3) Yahweh (Jehovah)
This is the personal proper name par excellence of Israel's God, even as Chemosh was that of the god of Moab, and Dagon that of the god of the Philistines. The original meaning and derivation of the word are unknown. The variety of modern theories shows that, etymologically, several derivations are possible, but that the meanings attached to any one of them have to be imported and imposed upon the word. They add nothing to our knowledge. The Hebrews themselves connected the word with hāyāh, “to be.†In Yahweh is explained as equivalent to 'ehyeh, which is a short form of 'ehyeh 'ăsher 'ehyeh, translated in the Revised Version (British and American) “I am that I am.†This has been supposed to mean “self-existence,†and to represent God as the Absolute. Such an idea, however, would be a metaphysical abstraction, not only impossible to the time at which the name originated, but alien to the Hebrew mind at any time. And the imperfect 'ehyeh is more accurately translated “I will be what I will be,†a Semitic idiom meaning, “I will be all that is necessary as the occasion will arise,†a familiar Old Testament idea (compare , ; -6).
This name was in use from the earliest historical times till after the exile. It is found in the most ancient literature. According to f, and especially , , it was first introduced by Moses, and was the medium of a new revelation of the God of their fathers to the children of Israel. But in parts of Genesis it is represented as being in use from the earliest times. Theories that derive it from Egypt or Assyria, or that would connect it etymologically with Jove or Zeus, are supported by no evidence. We have to be content either to say that Yahweh was the tribal God of Israel from time immemorial, or to accept a theory that is practically identical with that of Exodus - that it was adopted through Moses from the Midianite tribe into which he married. The Kenites, the tribe of Midianites related to Moses, dwelt in the neighborhood of Sinai, and attached themselves to Israel (; ). A few passages suggest that Sinai was the original home of Yahweh (, ; ). But there is no direct evidence bearing upon the origin of the worship of Yahweh: to us He is known only as the God of Israel.
4. Pre-Prophetic Conceptions of Yahweh
(1) Yahweh Alone was the God of Israel
Hebrew theology consists essentially of the doctrine of Yahweh and its implications. The teachers and leaders of the people at all times worship and enjoin the worship of Yahweh alone. “It stands out as a prominent and incontrovertible fact, that down to the reign of Ahab ... no prominent man in Israel, with the doubtful exception of Solomon, known by name and held up for condemnation, worshipped any other god but Yahweh. In every national and tribal crisis, in all times of danger and of war, it is Yahweh and Yahweh alone who is invoked to give victory and deliverance†(Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures (3), 21). This is more evident in what is, without doubt, very early literature, even than in later writings (e.g. Jdg 5; Dt 33; 1 Sam 4 through 6). The isolation of the desert was more favorable to the integrity of Yahweh's sole worship than the neighborhood of powerful peoples who worshipped many other gods. Yet that early religion of Yahweh can be called monotheistic only in the light of the end it realized, for in the course of its development it had to overcome many limitations.
(A) His Early Worship
The early worship of Yahweh did not exclude belief in the existence of other gods. As other nations believed in the existence of Yahweh (; ), so Israel did not doubt the reality of other gods (; ; ). This limitation involved two others: Yahweh is the God of Israel only; with them alone He makes a COVENANT (which see) (; , ; , ), and their worship only He seeks (-37; ; ). Therefore, He works, and can be worshipped only within a certain geographical area. He may have been associated with His original home in Sinai long after the settlement in Canaan (; ; , ), but gradually His home and that of His people became identical (; ; , ). Even after the deportation of the ten tribes, Canaan remains Yahweh's land (-28). Early Israelites are, therefore, more properly described as Monolatrists or Henotheists than as Monotheists. It is characteristic of the religion of Israel (in contrast with, e.g. Greek thought) that it arrived at absolute Monotheism along the line of moral and religious experience, rather than that of rational inference. Even while they shared the common Semitic belief in the reality of other gods, Yahweh alone had for them “the value of God.â€
(B) Popular Religion
It is necessary to distinguish between the teaching of the religious leaders and the belief and practice of the people generally. The presence of a higher religion never wholly excludes superstitious practices. The use of Teraphim (; , ; ), Ephod (-20; , ; ), Urim and Thummim (; , Septuagint), for the purposes of magic and divination, to obtain oracles from Yahweh, was quite common in Israel. Necromancy was practiced early and late (; ; . 11 ). Sorcery and witchcraft were not unknown, but were condemned by the religious leaders (). The burial places of ancestors were held in great veneration (; ; ). But these facts do not prove that Hebrew religion was animistic and polytheistic, any more than similar phenomena in Christian lands would justify such an inference about Christianity.
(C) Polytheistic Tendencies
Yet the worship of Yahweh maintained and developed its monotheistic principle only by overcoming several hostile tendencies. The Baal-worship of the Canaanites and the cults of other neighboring tribes proved a strong attraction to the mass of Israelites (; ; ; ; ; ; , ; , ; Ezek 20; ; ; , ). Under the conditions of life in Canaan, the sole worship of Yahweh was in danger of modification by three tendencies, coördination, assimilation, and disintegration.
(i) Coordination
When the people had settled down in peaceful relations with their neighbors, and began to have commercial and diplomatic transactions with them, it was inevitable that they should render their neighbor's gods some degree of reverence and worship. Courtesy and friendship demanded as much (compare ). When Solomon had contracted many foreign alliances by marriage, he was also bound to admit foreign worship into Jerusalem (). But Ahab was the first king who tried to set up the worship of Baal, side by side with that of Yahweh, as the national religion (). Elijah's stand and Jehu's revolution gave its death blow to Baal-worship and vindicated the sole right of Yahweh to Israel's allegiance. The prophet was defending the old religion and Ahab was the innovator; but the conflict and its issue brought the monotheistic principle to a new and higher level. The supreme temptation and the choice transformed what had been a natural monolatry into a conscious and moral adherence to Yahweh alone (, ).
(ii) Assimilation
But to repudiate the name of Baal was not necessarily to be rid of the influence of Baal-worship. The ideas of the heathen religions survived in a more subtle way in the worship of Yahweh Himself. The change from the nomad life of the desert to the agricultural conditions of Canaan involved some change in religion. Yahweh, the God of flocks and wars, had to be recognized as the God of the vintage and the harvest. That this development occurred is manifest in the character of the great religious festivals. “Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep ... and the feast of harvest, the first-fruits of thy labors, which thou sowest in the field: and the feast of ingathering, at the end of the year, when thou gatherest in thy labors out of the field†(-16). The second and the third obviously, and the first probably, were agricultural feasts, which could have no meaning in the desert. Israel and Yahweh together took possession of Canaan. To doubt that would be to admit the claims of the Baal-worship; but to assert it also involved some danger, because it was to assert certain similarities between Yahweh and the Baalim. When those similarities were embodied in the national festivals, they loomed very large in the eyes and minds of the mass of the people (W.R. Smith, Prophets of Israel, 49-57). The danger was that Israel should regard Yahweh, like the Baals of the country, as a Nature-god, and, by local necessity, a national god, who gave His people the produce of the land and, protected them from their enemies, and in return received frown them such gifts and sacrifices as corresponded to His nature. From the appearance in Israel, and among Yahweh worshippers, of such names as Jerub-baal, Esh-baal (son of Saul) and Beeliada (son of David, ), it has been inferred that Yahweh was called Baal, and there is ample evidence that His worship was assimilated to that of the Canaanite Baalim. The bulls raised by Jeroboam () were symbols of Yahweh, and in Judah the Canaanite worship was imitated down to the time of Asa (-24; , ). Against this tendency above all, the great prophets of the 8th century contended. Israel worshipped Yahweh as if He were one of the Baalim, and Hosea calls it Baal-worship (, , ; compare ; -15).
(iii) Disintegration
And where Yahweh was conceived as one of the Baalim or Masters of the land, He became, like them, subject to disintegration into a number of local deities. This was probably the gravamen of Jeroboam's sin in the eyes of the “Deuteronomic†historian. In setting up separate sanctuaries, he divided the worship, and, in effect, the godhead of Yahweh. The localization and naturalization of Yahweh, as well as His assimilation to the Baals, all went together, so that we read that even in Judah the number of gods was according to its cities (; ). The vindication of Yahweh's moral supremacy and spiritual unity demanded, among other things, the unification of His worship in Jerusalem (2 Ki 23).
(D) No Hebrew Goddesses
In one respect the religion of Yahweh successfully resisted the influence of the heathen cults. At no time was Yahweh associated with a goddess. Although the corrupt sensual practices that formed a large part of heathen worship also entered into Israel's worship (see ASHERAH), it never penetrated so far as to modify in this respect the idea of Yahweh.
(E) Human Sacrifices
It is a difficult question how far human sacrifices at any time found place in the worship of Yahweh. The outstanding instance is that of Jephthah's daughter, which, though not condemned, is certainly regarded as exceptional (-40). Perhaps it is rightly regarded as a unique survival. Then the story of the sacrifice of Isaac, while reminiscent of an older practice, represents a more advanced view. Human sacrifice though not demanded, is not abhorrent to Yahweh (Gen 22). A further stage is represented where Ahaz' sacrifice of his son is condemned as an “abomination of the nations†(). The sacrifice of children is emphatically condemned by the prophets as a late and foreign innovation which Yahweh had not commanded (; ). Other cases, such as the execution of the chiefs of Shittim (), and of Saul's sons “before Yahweh†(), and the ḥērem or ban, by which whole communities were devoted to destruction (; 1 Sam 15), while they show a very inadequate idea of the sacredness of human life, are not sacrifices, nor were they demanded by Yahweh's worship. They were survivals of savage customs connected with tribal unity, which the higher morality of Yahweh's religion had not yet abolished.
(2) The Nature and Character of Yahweh
The nature and character of Yahweh are manifested in His activities. The Old Testament makes no statements about the essence of God; we are left to infer it from His action in Nature and history and from His dealing with man.
(A) A God of War
In this period, His activity is predominantly martial. As Israel's Deliverer from Egypt, “Yahweh is a man of war†(). An ancient account of Israel's journey to Canaan is called “the book of the Wars of Yahweh†(). By conquest in war He gave His people their land (Jdg 5; ; ). He is, therefore, more concerned with men and nations, with the moral, than with the physical world.
(B) His Relation to Nature
Even His activity in Nature is first connected with His martial character. Earth, stars and rivers come to His battle (, , ). The forces of Nature do the bidding of Israel's Deliverer from Egypt (Ex 8-10; ). He causes sun and moon to stand while He delivers up the Amorites (). Later, He employs the forces of Nature to chastise His people for infidelity and sin (; ). Amos declares that His moral rule extends to other nations and that it determines their destinies. In harmony with this idea, great catastrophes like the Deluge (Gen 7) and the overthrow of the Cities of the Plain (Gen 19) are ascribed to His moral will. In the same pragmatic manner the oldest creation narrative describes Him creating man, and as much of the world as He needed (Gen 2), but as yet the idea of a universal cause had not emerged, because the idea of a universe had not been formed. He acts as one of great, but limited, power and knowledge (-8; ). The more universal conception of Gen 1 belongs to the same stratum of thought as Second Isa. At every stage of the Old Testament the metaphysical perfections of Yahweh follow as an inference from His ethical preeminence.
(3) The Most Distinctive Characteristic of Yahweh
The most distinctive characteristic of Yahweh, which finally rendered Him and His religion absolutely unique, was the moral factor. In saying that Yahweh was a moral God, it is meant that He acted by free choice, in conformity with ends which He set to Himself, and which He also imposed upon His worshippers as their law of conduct.
(A) Personality
The most essential condition of a moral nature is found in His vivid personality, which at every stage of His self-revelation shines forth with an intensity that might be called aggressive. Divine personality and spirituality are never expressly asserted or defined in the Old Testament; but nowhere in the history of religion are they more clearly asserted. The modes of their expression are, however, qualified by anthropomorphisms, by limitations, moral and physical. Yahweh's jealousy (; ; ), His wrath and anger (-12; ) and His inviolable holiness (, ; ; ) appear sometimes to be irrational and immoral; but they are the assertion of His individual nature, of His self-consciousness as He distinguishes Himself from all else, in the moral language of the time, and are the conditions of His having any moral nature whatsoever. Likewise, He dwells in a place and moves from it (); men may see Him in visible form (; ); He is always represented as having organs like those of the human body, arms, hands, feet, mouth, eyes and ears. By such sensuous and figurative language alone was it possible for a personal God to make Himself known to men.
(B) Law and Judgment
The content of Yahweh's moral nature as revealed in the Old Testament developed with the growth of moral ideas. Though His activity is most prominently martial, it is most permanently judicial, and is exercised through judges, priests and prophets. Ṭōrāh and mishpāṭ, “law†and “judgment,†from the time of Moses onward, stand, the one for a body of customs that should determine men's relations to one another, and the other for the decision of individual cases in accordance with those customs, and both were regarded as issuing from Yahweh. The people came to Moses “to inquire of God†when they had a matter in dispute, and he “judged between a man and his neighbor, and made them know the statutes of God, and his laws†(, ). The judges appear mostly as leaders in war; but it is clear, as their name indicates, that they also gave judgments as between the people (; ; , ; ). The earliest literary prophets assume the existence of a law which priest and prophet had neglected to administer rightly (; , ; ). This implied that Yahweh was thought of as actuated and acting by a consistent moral principle, which He also imposed on His people. Their morality may have varied much at different periods, but there is no reason to doubt that the Decalogue, and the moral teaching it involved, emanated substantially from Moses. “He taught them that Yahveh, if a stern, and often wrathful, Deity, was also a God of justice and purity. Linking the moral life to the religious idea, he may have taught them too that murder and theft, adultery and false witness, were abhorred and forbidden by their God†(Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures3, 49). The moral teaching of the Old Testament effected the transition from the national and collective to the individual and personal relation with Yahweh. The most fundamental defect of Hebrew morality was that its application was confined within Israel itself and did little to determine the relation of the Israelites to people of other nations; and this limitation was bound up with Henotheism, the idea that Yahweh was God of Israel alone. “The consequence of this national conception of Yahweh was that there was no religious and moral bond regulating the conduct of the Hebrews with men of other nations. Conduct which between fellow-Hebrews was offensive in Yahweh's eyes was inoffensive when practiced by a Hebrew toward one who was not a Hebrew ( f) ..... In the latter case they were governed purely by considerations of expediency. This ethical limitation is the real explanation of the 'spoiling of the Egyptians'†(, ) (G. Buchanan Gray, The Divine Discipline of Israel, 46, 48).
The first line of advance in the teaching of the prophets was to expand and deepen the moral demands of Yahweh. So they removed at once the ethical and theological limitations of the earlier view. But they were conscious that they were only developing elements already latent in the character and law of Yahweh.
5. The Idea of God in the Prophetic Period
Two conditions called forth and determined the message of the 8th-century prophets - the degradation of morality and religion at home and the growing danger to Israel and Judah from the all-victorious Assyrian. With one voice the prophets declare and condemn the moral and social iniquity of Israel and Judah (; ; -23). The worship of Yahweh had been assimilated to the heathen religions around (; ; ). A time of prosperity had produced luxury, license and an easy security, depending upon the external bonds and ceremonies of religion. In the threatening attitude of Assyria, the prophets see the complement of Israel's unfaithfulness and sin, this the cause and that the instruments of Yahweh's anger (, ).
(1) Righteousness
These circumstances forced into first prominence the righteousness of Yahweh. It was an original attribute that had appeared even in His most martial acts (; ). But the prophet's interpretation of Israel's history revealed its content on a larger scale. Yahweh was not like the gods of the heathen, bound to the purposes and fortunes of His people. Their relation was not a natural bond, but a covenant of grace which He freely bestowed upon them, and He demanded as its condition, loyalty to Himself and obedience to His law. Impending calamities were not, as the naturalistic conception implied, due to the impotence of Yahweh against the Assyrian gods (), but the judgment of God, whereby He applied impartially to the conduct of His people a standard of righteousness, which He both had in Himself and declared in judgment upon them. The prophets did not at first so much transform the idea of righteousness, as assert its application as between the people and Yahweh. But in doing that they also rejected the external views of its realization. It consists not in unlimited gifts or in the costliest oblations. “What doth Yahweh require of thee, but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God?†(). And it tends to become of universal application. Yahweh will deal as a righteous judge with all nations, including Israel, and Israel as the covenant people bears the greater responsibility (Am 1 through 3). And a righteous judge that metes out even justice to all nations will deal similarly with individuals. The ministry of the prophets produced a vivid consciousness of the personal and individual relation of men to God. The prophets themselves were not members of a class, no order or school or profession, but men impelled by an inner and individual call of God, often against their inclination, to proclaim an unpopular message (, ; -13; -9; ). Jeremiah and Ezekiel in terms denounced the old idea of collective responsibility (; Ezek 18). Thus in the prophets' application of the idea of righteousness to their time, two of the limitations adhering to the idea of God, at least in popular religion hitherto, were transcended. Yahweh's rule is no longer limited to Israel, nor concerned only with the nation as a collective whole, but He deals impartially with every individual and nation alike. Other limitations also disappear. His anger and wrath, that once appeared irrational and unjust, now become the intensity of His righteousness. Nor is it merely forensic and retributive righteousness. It is rather a moral end, a chief good, which He may realize by loving-kindness and mercy and forgiveness as much as by punishment. Hebrew thought knows no opposition between God's righteousness and His goodness, between justice and mercy. The covenant of righteousness is like the relation of husband to wife, of father to child, one of loving-kindness and everlasting love (; ; ; ; ; ; ; , ; ). The stirring events which showed Yahweh's independence of Israel revealed the fullness of grace that was always latent in His relation to His people (; ). It was enshrined in the Decalogue (), and proclaimed with incomparable grandeur in what may be the most ancient Mosaic tradition: “Yah, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness and truth; keeping lovingkindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin†(, ).
(2) Holiness
The holiness of Yahweh in the Prophets came to have a meaning closely akin to His righteousness. As an idea more distinctly religious and more exclusively applied to God, it was subject to greater changes of meaning with the development or degradation of religion. It was applied to anything withdrawn from common use to the service of religion - utensils, places, seasons, animals and men. Originally it was so far from the moral meaning it now has that it was used of the “sacred†prostitutes who ministered to the licentiousness of Canaanitish worship (). Whether or not the root-idea of the word was “separateness,†there is no doubt that it is applied to Yahweh in the Old Testament to express his separateness from men and his sublimity above them. It was not always a moral quality in Yahweh; for He might be unapproachable because of His mere power and terror (; ). But in the Prophets, and especially in Isa, it acquires a distinctly moral meaning. In his vision Isaiah hears Yahweh proclaimed as “holy, holy, holy,†and he is filled with the sense of his own sin and of that of Israel (-13; compare ; ). But even here the term conveys more than moral perfection. Yahweh is already “the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy†(). It expresses the full Divinity of Yahweh in His uniqueness and self-existence (; ; ). It would therefore seem to stand in antithesis to righteousness, as expressing those qualities of God, metaphysical and moral, by which He is distinguished and separated from men, while righteousness involves those moral activities and relations which man may share with God. But in the Prophets, God's entire being is moral and His whole activity is righteous. The meanings of the terms, though not identical, coincide; God's holiness is realized in righteousness. “God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness†(). So Isaiah's peculiar phrase, “the Holy One of Israel,†brings God in His most exalted being into a relation of knowledge and moral reciprocity with Israel.
(3) Universality
The moralizing of righteousness and holiness universalized Deity. - From Amos downward Yahweh's moral rule, and therefore His absolute power, were recognized as extending over all the nations surrounding Israel, and the great world-power of Assyria is but the rod of His anger and the instrument of His righteousness (Am 1 through 2; ; ; ). Idolatrous and polytheistic worship of all kinds are condemned. The full inference of Monotheism was only a gradual process, even with the prophets. It is not clear that the 8th-century prophets all denied the existence of other gods, though Isaiah's term for them, 'ĕlı̄lı̄m (“things of nought,†“no-godsâ€), points in that direction. At least the monotheistic process had set in. And Yahweh's control over other nations was not exercised merely from Israel's point of view. The issue of the judgment upon the two great powers of Egypt and Assyria was to be their conversion to the religion of Yahweh (, ; compare -4 = -3). Yet Hebrew universalism never went beyond the idea that all nations should find their share in Yahweh through Israel (). The nations from the ends of the earth shall come to Yahweh and declare that their fathers' gods were “lies, even vanity and things wherein there is no profit†(). It is stated categorically that “Yahweh he is God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath; there is none else†().
(4) Unity
The unity of God was the leading idea of Josiah's reformation. Jerusalem was cleansed of every accretion of Baal-worship and of other heathen religions that had established themselves by the side of the worship of Yahweh (-8, -14). The semi-heathen worship of Yahweh in many local shrines, which tended to disintegrate His unity, was swept away (, ). The reform was extended to the Northern Kingdom (-20), so that Jerusalem should be the sole habitation of Yahweh on earth, and His worship there alone should be the symbol of unity to the whole Hebrew race.
But the monotheistic doctrine is first fully and consciously stated in Second Isa. There is no God but Yahweh: other gods are merely graven images, and their worshippers commit the absurdity of worshipping the work of their own hands (; -20). Yahweh manifests His deity in His absolute sovereignty of the world, both of Nature and history. The prophet had seen the rise and fall of Assyria, the coming of Cyrus, the deportation and return of Judah's exiles, as incidents in the training of Israel for her world-mission to be “a light of the Gentiles†and Yahweh's “salvation unto the end of the earth†(-7; -6). Israel's world-mission, and the ordering of historical movements to the grand final purpose of universal salvation (), is the philosophy of history complementary to the doctrine of God's unity and universal sovereignty.
(5) Creator and Lord
A further inference is that He is Creator and Lord of the physical universe. Israel's call and mission is from Yahweh who “created the heavens, and stretched them forth; he that spread abroad the earth and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein†(; compare , ; ; ; Gen 1). All the essential factors of Monotheism are here at last exhibited, not in abstract metaphysical terms, but as practical motives of religious life. His counsel and action are His own () Nothing is hid from Him; and the future like the past is known to Him (; ; ; ). Notwithstanding His special association with the temple in Jerusalem, He is “the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternityâ€; the heaven is His throne, and no house or place can contain Him (; ). No force of history or Nature can withstand His purpose (-20; ; ). He is “the First and the Last,†an “Everlasting God†(; ; ). Nothing can be likened to Him or compared with Him (). As the heavens are higher than the earth, so His thoughts and ways transcend those of men (, ). But anthropomorphic and anthropopathic expressions still abound. Eyes, mouth, ears, nostrils, hands, arms and face are His; He is a man of war (; ); He cries like a travailing woman (), and feeds His flock like a shepherd (). Thus, alone could the prophet express His full concrete Divinity.
(6) His Compassion and Love
His compassion and love are expressed in a variety of ways that lead up directly to the new testament doctrine of divine fatherhood. He folds Israel in his arms as a shepherd his lambs (). Her scattered children are his sons and daughters whom he redeems and restores (-7). In wrath for a moment he hides his face, but his mercy and kindness are everlasting (). Greater than a mother's tenderness is Yahweh's love for Israel (; ). “It would be easy to find in the prophet proof-texts for everything which theology asserts regarding God, with the exception perhaps that he is a spirit, by which is meant that he is a particular kind of