Conclusion
Chapter Two
God prepares the way in his dealings with Abraham and
Abraham’s Old Testament children
In this chapter we continue to follow the biblical plotline as we consider first God’s dealings with the patriarchs and then Israel itself. The angle of vision remains the same. With special attention to anthropomorphisms, anthropopathisms and anthropopraxisms we are asking how God is portrayed in the relevant texts. Of particular interest will be those texts that present an encounter with Yahweh in human form on the one hand, and those texts on the other hand that suggest that in the divine revelatory encounters there is both a veiling and unveiling of the nature of God. We shall also see if there is merit in W. Eichrodt’s view that in the Old Testament, God ‘can temporarily incarnate himself ’, and in the even more provocative suggestion from Terence E. Fretheim that ‘There is no such thing for Israel as a nonincarnate God.’
The patriarchal story and the ‘embodied’ God
There is much continuity in the way God is rendered in the patriarchal texts with the ones we have already explored in Genesis 1 – 6. Abram/ Abraham serves as our example. Abram becomes God’s speech partner (Gen. 12:1) just as Adam and Noah had been in pre-patriarchal times. And for the first time in the canonical story God is said to appear to, and not simply speak to, an individual (Gen. 12:7). A second new feature is that divine speaking now also takes place in vision (Gen. 15:1) and dream (Gen. 15:12–13). Esther J. Hamori usefully describes such textual evidence that presents a vision or a dream as ‘envisioned anthropomorphism’. Other anthropopraxisms, besides speech, include the Lord’s taking Abram outside the tent (Gen. 15:5). This spatial idea is not elaborated in this text. Nor is the language of divine appearance filled out in Genesis 17:1: ‘When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless.”’ Here an empirical dimension is suggested implicitly (‘appearance’) as well as divine speaking explicitly (‘He said’).
Two patriarchal stories are of particular interest, because for the first time in canonical unfolding we meet what Hamori describes as ‘’îš’ theophanies. She writes, ‘There are two biblical texts in which God appears to a patriarch in person and is referred to by the narrator as a “man,” both times by the Hebrew word ’îš. Both of these identifications of God as an ’îš [man] are accompanied by graphic human depiction.’
Abraham and the three visitors
The first of these stories involves Abraham and is found in Genesis 18. It has been said that Judaism is a four-thousand-year argument with God. In this view, Genesis 18 would describe the fountainhead. For in this chapter, Abraham famously argues with God about the fate of his nephew Lot in the face of the news that the Lord is about to overthrow the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 18:23–32). That disturbing news is prefaced by the good news that the aged Sarah will indeed have a son in a year’s time (Gen. 18:10). This then is no minor encounter. God is keeping covenant. The account itself opens in a surprising way in Genesis 18:1–2: ‘The LORD appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. Abraham looked up and saw three men [’ănāšîm] standing nearby.’
Interpreting the text is challenging because by the time one has read both Genesis 18 and 19 the visitors are described variously as ‘the LORD’ (Gen. 18:1, 13, 17, 20, 22, 26, 33), ‘three men’ (Gen. 18:2), ‘my Lord’ (’ădōnāy, Gen. 18:3), ‘the men’ (Gen. 18:16, 22; 19:10), ‘two angels’ (Gen. 19:1) and finally, ‘two men’ (Gen. 19:12). The following catena displays the diversity:
Genesis 18:1
The LORD appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day.
Genesis 18:2
Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby.
Genesis 18:3
He said, ‘If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by.’
Genesis 18:13
Then the LORD said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh and say, “Will I really have a child, now that I am old?”’
Genesis 18:16
When the men got up to leave, they looked down towards Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way.
Genesis 18:17
Then the LORD said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?’
Genesis 18:20
Then the LORD said, ‘The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous… ’.
Genesis 18:22
The men turned away and went towards Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the LORD.
Genesis 18:26
The LORD said, ‘If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.’
Genesis 18:33
When the LORD had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.
Genesis 19:1
The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city.
When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground….
Genesis 19:10
But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door.
Genesis 19:12
The two men said to Lot, ‘Do you have anyone else here – sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out… ’.
At first Abraham does not recognize that he has encountered the Lord. True, he addresses one of them as ‘Lord’ when he offers hospitality (Gen. 18:3). But this seems simply to mean, as Gordon J. Wenham suggests, that he recognized one of them as the leader of the three, even though all three replied to him (Gen. 18:5). It is not until Genesis 18:13–14 that the proverbial penny drops. Abraham is speaking with Yahweh: ‘Then the LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the LORD? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”’ Sarah now knows in whose presence she stands. She is afraid (Gen. 18:15). It is intriguing that recognizing the presence of Yahweh himself took time, as Gordon J. Wenham notes. Was it the supernatural knowledge of Sarah’s laughing to herself that betrayed the divine visitation? Or was it that Abraham finally recognized a voice he had heard in the past (Gen. 12:1; 15:1; 17:1)? Hamori is in no doubt: ‘In the ’îš theophany, Yahweh appears as man, with such anthropomorphic realism that Abraham does not recognize him until Yahweh’s verbal self-revelation.’
In this account we are dealing with anthropopraxisms. The Lord stands (Gen. 18:2), eats (Gen. 18:8), speaks (Gen.18:13) and walks (Gen. 18:16). However, there is also anthropomorphism here in a startling way. We are dealing not with figurative references to the divine heart or arm or ears but with the form of a male human being. Early church fathers had no doubts as to who was in view in the story. Irenaeus is representative and his comments apply to the patriarchal story regarding Abraham we have been considering and the one to come involving Jacob: ‘The Son of God is implanted everywhere throughout Moses’ writings. At one time, indeed, He spoke with Abraham, when about to eat with him [Gen. 18]…. At another time, He brought down judgment upon the Sodomites. And again, He became visible and directed Jacob on his journey [Gen. 32, more anon].’ As David W. Bercot suggests, ‘The early church taught that in all of the Old Testament theophanies, it was the pre-incarnate Son of God who appeared.’
Interestingly Calvin largely follows early church interpretation but also allows the following:
The reason why Moses introduces, at one time, three speakers, while, at another, he ascribes speech to one only, is, that the three together represent the person of one God. We must also remember what I have lately adduced, that the principal place is given to one; because Christ, who is the living image of the Father, often appeared to the fathers under the form of an angel, while, at the same time, he yet had angels, of whom he was the Head, for his attendants.
According to Calvin the three speakers are angels clothed in human form, one of whom is the pre-incarnate Christ, who is ‘the chief of the embassy’.
Unlike the early church fathers considered above, some modern interpreters have struggled to explain the portrayal of God in the story. John H. Sailhamer for instance:
The explanation seems to be that the three men, as such, are to be understood as the physical ‘appearance’ of the Lord to Abraham. In other words, though God himself did not appear to Abraham in physical form, the three men are to be seen as representative of his presence. In much the same way the Burning Bush of Exodus 3:2–3 was a physical representation of God’s presence but yet was not actually the physical presence of God. In such a way the actual presence of God among his covenant people was assured but without leaving the impression that God may have a physical form.
For Sailhamer the three men represent the one God. Others, however, for example R. W. L. Moberly, see in the account that Yahweh appears ‘in the form (apparently) of a normal human being’ in one of the individuals. But is it a metaphor only? Moberly thinks yes. Hamori argues no and convincingly so in the light of thorough treatment of comparative ancient Near Eastern materials: ‘The human form is no more metaphorical in the ’îš theophany of Genesis 18 than in the fire in the theophany of Exodus 3.’
Jacob and the wrestler
The second ’îš theophany is found in another famous patriarchal narrative. Jacob, Abraham’s grandson, is on his way to meet his estranged brother Esau and is aware that danger may well lie ahead. On the way Jacob meets a strange figure at the ford of the Jabbok. Martin Luther says of the story that ‘Every man holds that this text is one of the most obscure in the Old Testament.’ The account in Genesis 32:22–32 is so striking and so mysterious it needs quoting in full:
That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, ‘Let me go, for it is daybreak.’
But Jacob replied, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’
The man asked him, ‘What is your name?’
‘Jacob,’ he answered.
Then the man said, ‘Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.’
Jacob said, ‘Please tell me your name.’
But he replied, ‘Why do you ask my name?’ Then he blessed him there.
So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, ‘It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.’
The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.
As with the earlier ’îš theophany, this second one is no minor episode. After it Jacob will bear a name that remains with Abraham’s progeny to this very day: ‘Israel’.
According to Hamori this narrative needs to be taken at face value as depicting an appearance of the divine in a human form. She argues:
As in Genesis 18, God appears here in anthropomorphically realistic form. There is no indication that there is anything unusual about his physical form as a man. He is scarcely a match for Jacob, who is himself not drawn as a terrifically intimidating character. The man is thus implicitly not larger than human size nor beyond human strength. He is not stronger than Jacob even when the latter has a dislocated hip. He engages in very human activity, as in Genesis 18, and never acts outside the bounds of his human form.
Bringing Genesis 32 and 18 into conversation she concludes, ‘The most straightforward reading of each of these two texts is that God appears to the patriarch in theophany, just as we have seen in myriad other texts, and that in these two cases, the form of theophany is human.’
However, it must be noted that on the surface Hosea 12 with its reference to Jacob appears to tell a different story to that of Hamori. What is straightforward in Genesis 32 becomes not so much so given Hosea 12:3–5:
In the womb he grasped his brother’s heel;
as a man he struggled with God.
He struggled with the angel and overcame him;
he wept and begged for his favour.
He found him at Bethel
and talked with him there –
the LORD God Almighty,
the LORD is his name!
Unsurprisingly then Jewish commentators have taken the Genesis 32 encounter to be one between Jacob and an angel. J. D. Levenson sums up the Jewish tradition of interpretation:
[Most] traditional Jewish commentators have taken him [Jacob’s opponent] to be angelic. A well-known midrash [Gen. Rab. 77.3] sees him as the ‘patron angel of Esau’ and thus interprets this episode as a warning to all future enemies of the Jewish people: ‘Your patron angel could not withstand him [i.e. Jacob/Israel] and you seek to attack his descendants?’
How then is the challenge posed by Hosea 12:3–5 to be addressed? Hamori deals with the challenge by suggesting that the word for ‘angel’ in the text (mal’āḥ) is a gloss. W. Kaiser, Jr., takes a different tack:
Hosea 12:4 describes the antagonist, then, as an ‘angel.’ But since Old Testament appearances of God, or theophanies, are routinely described as involving the ‘angel of the Lord,’ it should not surprise us that the Lord of glory took the guise or form of an angel. In fact, that is exactly what God would do later on in his enfleshment, or incarnation. He would take on flesh; in his coming as a babe to Bethlehem, however, he took on human flesh forever. But what really clinches the argument for this identification is the fact that in verse 3 of Hosea 12, the parallel clause equates this ‘angel’ with God himself. Jacob struggled with an ‘angel,’ yes, but he also ‘struggled with God.’
Reconciling the Genesis account and Hosea’s interpretation is not easy for the interpreter but Kaiser, Jr., offers the most promising way forward.
Turning to early church reflection upon Genesis 32 once more, we find a consistent reading of the text in Christological terms. Clement of Alexandria provides a serviceable example. He writes, ‘Furthermore, Jacob is said to have wrestled with Him…. Jacob called the place, “Face of God.”… The “face of God” is the Word by whom God is manifested and made known. Then also was Jacob given the name Israel, because he saw God the Lord. It was God the Word.’ Some modern commentators are not as sure, with suggestions that include the following: an angel, a river spirit, a river demon, a river guardian, spirit of a dead man and even Esau’s alter ego or Esau’s patron angel. However, as Paul R. House contends, ‘He [Jacob] has not encountered a river demon in his opinion. He has encountered one who knows his past, present and future. Only God fits this description in the book of Genesis.’
The Mosaic story and the ‘embodied’ God
There are a number of theophanic moments in the book of Exodus that are of interest. The burning bush in Exodus 3 is the most famous. God has remembered his covenant commitment to the children of Israel (Exod. 2:24). He meets Moses in the desert at Horeb, the mountain of God (Exod. 3:2–4):
There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, ‘I will go over and see this strange sight – why the bush does not burn up.’
When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, ‘Moses! Moses!’
And Moses said, ‘Here I am.’
All the elements of a theophany are present: the language of appearance, visible phenomena and the divine voice. In Fretheim’s categories this is a theophany of ‘God as Bearer of the Word’. What is not present is any suggestion that this was an anthropomorphic theophany. Once Israel is gathered at Sinai, however, anthropomorphic theophany comes into view. The description is curious. In Exodus 24:9–11 we read:
Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky. But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.
The divine becomes visible. There is a reference to the sight of God, the feet of God and the hand of God. The reference to feet suggests a human form, whereas the reference to hand is more easily understood as metaphor.
Israel’s failure at Sinai is a well-known story. While Moses receives the Ten Commandments on the mountain top, Israel below indulges in breaking them with the idolatry of the golden calf (cf. Exod. 31:18; 32:7–8). Moses as covenant mediator pleads with God not to abandon his people (Exod. 32:11–14). Judgment follows but is mitigated by Mosaic intercession (Exod. 32:33–35). Moses seeks further reassurance that the divine presence will be with God’s people and asks to see the divine glory (Exod. 33:18). God accedes to his servant’s request and the divine glory is displayed (Exod. 33:19–23):
And the LORD said, ‘I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But,’ he said, ‘you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.’
Then the LORD said, ‘There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.’
This too is an anthropomorphic theophany with its references to back, face and hand. However, this account introduces important qualifications. This is no surprise given the divine statement in Exodus 33:20 above: ‘“But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”’
What then did Moses see? Terence E. Fretheim perceptively comments regarding the reference to Moses’ seeing the back of God: ‘This suggests, not only that even Moses was granted less than a full sensorial view of God, but that what he was given had the lineaments of a human form.’ Richard Elliot Friedman accurately describes this encounter between Yahweh and Moses on Sinai as ‘the ultimate, exceptional experience of God by anyone in the Bible [by which he means the Hebrew Bible], Moses seeing the actual form of God on Mount Sinai (Exod. 34). It is arguably the culminating moment of human history since Adam and Eve in this narrative, and it is as mysterious as anything in the Bible.’ Friedman’s comment is accurate as long as only the Hebrew Bible is in view.
Jeffrey S. Niehaus correctly observes that in the biblical presentation theophany involves both a veiling and an unveiling. It is as though outside Eden human ontology cannot bear the sight of the divine glory in its plenitude. A variety of commentators underline the point. For example, Jewish scholar Jeffrey H. Tigay comments, ‘Although the Bible assumes that God has a physical (usually humanlike) form, many passages suggest that seeing him would be too awesome for humans to survive.’ Evangelical Walter Kaiser, Jr., helpfully suggests, ‘That this is a figure of speech [Exod. 33:23] is clear from the double effect of God passing by while simultaneously protecting Moses with the divine “hand.” Only after his glory, or presence, had passed by would God remove his gracious, protecting “hand.” Then Moses would view what God had permitted.’ He then asks, ‘But what was left for Moses to see? The translators say God’s “back.” But since God is spirit (Is 31:3; Jn 4:24) and formless, what would this refer to?’ Kaiser, Jr., answers his own questions: ‘The word back can as easily be rendered the “after effects” of the glory that had passed by. This would fit the context as well as the range of meanings for the Hebrew word used. Moses did not see the glory of God directly, but once it had gone past, God did allow him to view the results, the afterglow, that his presence had produced.’
One further account is of great interest in this part of the canonical unfolding. The setting is post-Sinai and Israel are on the march in the wilderness. Miriam and Aaron display a deep jealousy of their brother as God’s chosen mouthpiece, and the Lord is displeased. We read in Numbers 12:4–8:
At once the LORD said to Moses, Aaron and Miriam, ‘Come out to the tent of meeting, all three of you.’ So the three of them went out. Then the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud; he stood at the entrance to the tent and summoned Aaron and Miriam. When the two of them stepped forward, he said, ‘Listen to my words:
‘When there is a prophet among you,
I, the LORD, reveal myself to them in visions,
I speak to them in dreams.
But this is not true of my servant Moses;
he is faithful in all my house.
With him I speak face to face,
clearly and not in riddles;
he sees the form of the LORD.
Why then were you not afraid
to speak against my servant Moses?’
Moses is a privileged person as he sees the form of God. He is a prophet, yes, but more than that as he is God’s conversation partner at an unrivalled depth (‘face to face’). Jewish scholar Nili S. Fox rightly comments, ‘God distinguishes Moses’ prophetic privileges from those accorded any other prophet. Moses can speak to God directly, in live dialogue rather than in dreams or visions. God is at his most anthropomorphic in these verses.’
The picture of the ‘embodied’ God of anthropomorphic theophany is further complicated in the Mosaic materials by the witness of Deuteronomy. Moses preaches to Israel gathered on the plains of Moab just prior to their entry into the land of promise (Deut. 4:10–13):
Remember the day you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, when he said to me, ‘Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children.’ You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it blazed with fire to the very heavens, with black clouds and deep darkness. Then the LORD spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice. He declared to you his covenant, the Ten Commandments, which he commanded you to follow and then wrote them on two stone tablets.
Israel experience a theophany as a gathered people. They hear the divine voice. They witness theophanic phenomena: fire, clouds and deep darkness. However they see no form. Anthropopraxism is in evidence. Moses refers to God’s speaking out of the fire and writing on the two stone tablets.
These Mosaic stories reveal two lines of important evidence. On the one hand there is anthropomorphic theophany albeit with qualifications as discussed above. On the other hand there is theophany but no sighting of God in human form. As in the patriarchal accounts, anthropomorphic theophany appears to be for the few (Moses or Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel), and of the few for Moses even more so, and theophany for the many (gathered Israel). Importantly, however, theophany for Israel per se apparently comes to an end at Sinai. The experience was too much for them (Exod. 20:18–19): ‘When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not let God speak to us or we will die.” ’ As Friedman contends, Sinai represents the high point in God’s manifest presence to a community: ‘After this scene in the bible, Yahweh never again speaks directly to an entire community Himself.’ He observes, ‘Prophecy is mentioned in passing in the book of Genesis (20:7), but prophecy in this formal sense of divine messages mediated through individuals begins here in Exodus at Sinai.’ It seems that God takes the plea of Israel seriously.
The Judges story and the ‘embodied’ God
The book of Judges does not make for pleasant reading. Abraham’s children are in the land of promise but they are also caught up in a cyclical existence of periods of obedience, periods of disobedience, divine judgment in the form of consequent oppression from nations round about them, desperate cries to the Lord for deliverance, the divine provision of a judge as the bearer of Yahweh’s rule and a subsequent period of šālôm before the cycle starts up again.
The Gideon narrative provides an interesting example. Judges 6 opens with the Israelites doing evil in the Lord’s sight and the divine judgment being Midianite oppression. The situation is desperate (Judg. 6:2): ‘Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds.’ Israel calls upon the lord (Judg. 6:6): ‘Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the LORD for help.’ God acts. The angel of the Lord visits Gideon. The divine message is brief and to the point (Judg. 6:14): ‘The LORD turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand.”’ Gideon’s diffidence is soon apparent (Judg. 6:15): ‘“Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”’ He seeks a sign and is given graciously more than one. After the first sign (the fire flaring from the rock and consuming the meat and bread), Gideon realizes that the stranger is no ordinary visitor (Judg. 6:22): ‘When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the LORD [mal’āḥ YHWH], he exclaimed, “Alas, Sovereign LORD! I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face!”’ At this point, with the angel of the LORD absent, the Lord speaks (Judg. 6:23): ‘But the LORD said to him, “Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die.”’
Gideon’s encounter with the mysterious angel of the Lord in Judges 6:1–40 brings an important set of questions into sharp relief. Who is this angel of the Lord? How is the angel of the Lord related to Yahweh? The angel of the Lord is introduced as such by the narrator in Judges 6:11. The language is anthropopraxic. The angel of the Lord comes and sits under the oak (Judg. 6:11). The angel speaks to Gideon (Judg. 6:12). However, the speaker becomes the Lord (Judg. 6:14, 16, 18) before the narrative returns briefly to the angel as Gideon’s conversation partner and before the angel disappears (Judg. 6:20–21). There is no further reference to the angel of the Lord in the Gideon cycle, though there are references to the Lord as speaker (Judg. 6:23, 25; 7:4, 7).
Charles H. H. Scobie rightly maintains, ‘In a number of passages it is not easy to distinguish the angel of the Lord from the Lord himself.’ Judges 6:1–40 is a good example. Early in the account the angel of the Lord appears to be simply a divine messenger in human form (e.g. Judg. 6:11). Angels in the biblical narratives do indeed appear in human form, as we found in the story of Abraham’s three visitors and in the Hagar and Ishmael story (e.g. Gen. 18:2). However, in Gideon’s case there are puzzling turns. Walter Kaiser, Jr., states the puzzle well: ‘If Gideon only saw an angel, why did he fear that he might die?’ The angel of the Lord appears to transcend the mere angelic category. Because it is an encounter with the angel of the Lord he is then given divine assurance that he will not die (Judg. 6:23). In Judges 6:24 we find that Gideon is assured and builds an altar in response, which he calls ‘The LORD Is Peace’ (Hebr. šālôm).
Some interpreters, for example Susan Niditch, see the angel of the Lord in the Judges passage as ‘an intermediary messenger who appears at first to be a human being’. So what does she do with the change of speaker in the text? She argues, ‘having experienced the power of God through an intermediary, Gideon now receives messages directly from the Lord’. Certainly angels do function as divine messengers in both Old Testament and New Testament. Scobie captures this idea well: ‘The Hebrew mal’ākh, from the root l’k = “send,” means one who is sent, a messenger. The LXX and NT Greek equivalent angelos provides the English word “angel.”’ Gerald Bray concurs and points out the difference between patristic and contemporary exegetes on the matter of interpreting these sorts of biblical materials:
The real point of difference between ancient and (most) modern commentators is to be found in the ways in which they generally assess the relationship between the Old Testament to the new. It was standard practice in ancient times to look for typological and prophetic foreshadowings of the coming of Christ in the Old Testament, and so we find that the Fathers saw nothing wrong in regarding epiphanies of angels, for example, as preincarnational appearances of the Son of God.
He adds, ‘This would not meet with general acceptance today.’
Bray is right to claim that most of today’s exegetes would not see preincarnational appearances of Christ in the Old Testament. There are exceptions however that need to be noted. For example, Walter Kaiser, Jr., is emphatic:
It is clear from this abundance of evidence that the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament was a preincarnate form of our Lord Jesus Christ, who would later permanently take on flesh when he came as a babe in Bethlehem. But mark it well: the one who came after John had already been before – he was that angel of the Lord. His full deity was always observed and yet he presented the same mystery of the Trinity that would later be observed in ‘I and the Father are one’ (Jn 10:30) and ‘my other witness is the Father, who sent me’ (Jn 8:18). It is that word sent that ties together the angel, messenger or sent one into an Old Testament theology of christophanies, appearances of God in human form.
Kaiser, Jr., is confident – too confident? – about the clarity of the Old Testament regarding Christophanies. However, whether the anthropomorphic theophanies of the Old Testament are in fact Christophanies is an important question to which we shall return at this chapter’s end. The question is important because if these anthropomorphic theophanies are appearances of the pre-incarnate Christ, then there are indeed anticipations of the incarnation in the Old Testament.
The former prophets and the ‘embodied’ God
In the unfolding biblical plotline we are now with Israel settled in the land of promise. Once more, as we shall see, God is rendered as ‘embodied’. There are examples of anthropomorphism, anthropopathism and anthropopraxism. In contrast to the earlier biblical accounts, what we do not see are any ‘’îš’ theophanies. Two accounts from this period are particularly instructive for our purposes: those concerning Samuel and those involving Solomon.
Samuel
Samuel is an outstanding player in the drama of Scripture. He was a prophet, priest and judge. His threefold ‘office’ (munus triplex) in many ways anticipates that of the Christ to come. He first experienced a theophany of God the bearer of the Word as a child. His mother Hannah had dedicated him to God and he served at Shiloh under Eli the priest (1 Sam. 1:1 – 2:11). It was a period in Israel’s history in which ‘in those days the word of the LORD was rare; there were not many visions’ (1 Sam. 3:1). Then God spoke to Samuel (1 Sam. 3:2–10):
One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the house of the LORD, where the ark of God was. Then the LORD called Samuel.
Samuel answered, ‘Here I am.’ And he ran to Eli and said, ‘Here I am; you called me.’
But Eli said, ‘I did not call; go back and lie down.’ So he went and lay down.
Again the LORD called, ‘Samuel!’ And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, ‘Here I am; you called me.’
‘My son,’ Eli said, ‘I did not call; go back and lie down.’
Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD: the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him.
A third time the LORD called, ‘Samuel!’ And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, ‘Here I am; you called me.’
Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy. So Eli told Samuel, ‘Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, “Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.”’ So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
The LORD came and stood there, calling as at the other times, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’
Then Samuel said, ‘Speak, for your servant is listening.’
This theophany proved to be no isolated episode. The account goes on to assert in 1 Samuel 3:21, ‘The LORD continued to appear at Shiloh, and there he revealed himself to Samuel through his word.’ This claim is highly significant for Friedman. He observes this is ‘The last time God is said to be “revealed” to a human: the prophet Samuel.’ Moreover the text affirms that God appeared to Samuel. There is no fulsome elaboration however. We simply do not know what form the appearance assumed in any detail. Even so, there may be a clue in 1 Samuel 3:10: ‘The LORD came and stood there.’ James Barr sees here ‘a trace of the common picture of theophany in erect human form’. In other words here is another anthropomorphic theophany. One further observation is in order. There is now a clear nexus between revelation and word in 1 Samuel 3:21: ‘there he revealed himself to Samuel through his word’.
Solomon
King Solomon is the last person in the Old Testament to whom God is said to have appeared. The first revelatory account concerns a dream (1 Kgs 3:5): ‘At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.”’ Solomon famously asks for wisdom (1 Kgs 3:9): ‘So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong.’ Solomon’s wisdom is soon demonstrated in the story of the two prostitutes and the baby boy (1 Kgs 3:16–28). His fame spreads. Even the queen of Sheba comes visiting to see that wisdom for herself and is suitably impressed. This is the high point of the undivided kingdom, as 1 Kings 10:23–25 shows:
King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth. The whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart. Year after year, everyone who came brought a gift – articles of silver and gold, robes, weapons and spices, and horses and mules.
However, ancient Near Eastern realpolitik sets in: foreign alliances made firm by marriage. In the very next chapter we read (1 Kgs 11:1–2), ‘King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter – Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” ’ And turn his heart they did. The divine response is anger (1 Kgs 11:9): ‘The LORD became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice.’ Those two appearances are referred to first in 1 Kings 3:5, and then in 1 Kings 9:2 (which mentions ‘a second time’).
The very fact that God had appeared to Solomon on two occasions and spoke to him makes Solomon’s turning away from God to follow after idols all the more blameworthy. Indeed it appears an ‘axiom’ of biblical thought that knowledge brings responsibility, and the greater the knowledge the greater the responsibility and accountability (cf. Amos 3:2; Luke 12:47–48). Solomon had been privileged to experience theophanies of God as bearer of the Word. He had not merely received the divine word as in 1 Kings 6:11 but had seen something in a dream. As Fretheim comments, ‘the appearance would have impressed the word upon Solomon in a way that just words would not have’. But what did Solomon see on those two occasions? We are not told. An anthropomorphic theophany is a possibility. What is clear though is the anthropopraxism of a speaking God with whom one may converse in a dialogue (e.g. in 1 Kgs 3:5–15 there is dialogue, whereas in 1 Kgs 9:3–9 there is only monologue).
The latter prophets and the ‘embodied’ God
In the latter prophets there are no accounts of an earthly encounter with the ‘embodied’ God. There are no analogues to Abraham at the Oaks of Mamre or to Jacob at the Jabbok. There are however accounts of sightings of God. These sightings take place in visionary experience. These are theophanies of God as bearer of the Word and can be best categorized as visionary anthropomorphic theophanies. Three prophets in particular will occupy our attention. First we shall consider Isaiah, then Amos and finally Hosea.
Isaiah’s vision
In the eighth century Isaiah has an extraordinary vision of God in the temple in Jerusalem. He not only has a vision of God but also of the divine retinue of seraphim. He also hears the divine voice commissioning him to take a message of judgment to Judah. We read in Isaiah 6:1–9:
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: with two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:
‘Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.’
At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
‘Woe to me!’ I cried. ‘I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.’
Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, ‘See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.’
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’
And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’
He said, ‘Go and tell this people:
“Be ever hearing, but never understanding;
be ever seeing, but never perceiving.”’
The Lord is rendered as an immense presence: ‘the train of his robe filled the temple’. The phenomena of theophany are in evidence: smoke, shaking and the human response of expressed unworthiness. The Lord sits in divine council and speaks. These are the traces of anthropomorphic theophany, albeit in visionary form.
Also in Isaiah 6 we see the typical feature of the human response to theophany as one of fear and dread: ‘Woe to me.’ As Kuntz points out, ‘In theophany, the God of Israel draws near as one whose ways are supremely holy and utterly mysterious. Man is overawed by the self-manifestation of the mysterium tremendum.’ He elaborates:
Biblical man hides his face (so Moses in Ex. 3:6 and Elijah in 1 Kings 19:13), falls backwards toward the ground (so Abraham in Gen. 17:3 and Ezekiel in Ezek. 1:28), or utters a word of awful exposure (so Isaiah of Jerusalem in Isa. 6:6, ‘Woe is me! For I am undone’) or dismay (so Jacob in Gen. 28:17, ‘How awesome is this place!’).
Sometimes one hears the statement ‘If only God would show himself, then I would believe.’ In the light of the human response to God in the biblical account of theophany, such a challenge is to ask for much more than is bargained for.
Amos’s vision
Another eighth-century prophet, Amos, also had a visionary experience (Amos 1:1): ‘The words of Amos, one of the shepherds of Tekoa – the vision he saw [ḥāzâ is typically used of prophecy] concerning Israel two years before the earthquake, when Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam son of Jehoash was king of Israel.’
Two elements in the vision are of a particular interest. The first is in Amos 7:7–8:
This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing by a wall that had been built true to plumb, with a plumb-line in his hand. And the LORD asked me, ‘What do you see, Amos?’
‘A plumb-line,’ I replied.
Then the Lord said, ‘Look, I am setting a plumb-line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.’
The vision presents the Lord as a standing figure holding a plumb line like a builder. The second element is in Amos 9:1:
I saw the Lord standing by the altar, and he said:
‘Strike the tops of the pillars
so that the thresholds shake.
Bring them down on the heads of all the people;
those who are left I will kill with the sword.
Not one will get away,
none will escape.’
In this part of the prophecy God again is a standing figure and a speaking one. In both elements there are traces of anthropomorphic theophany in visionary expression. As Barr maintains in relation to Amos, ‘There is little direct description of the theophanic appearance although an erect figure of human likeness seems clearly implied.’
Hosea’s vision
The eighth-century prophecy of Hosea stands as a witness against any Marcionite attempt to posit a wrathful, unfeeling God of the Old Testament against the loving one of the New Testament. In a remarkable passage in Hosea 11:8–9 we find that God’s holiness becomes the grounds for divine compassion and not divine wrath. God saves his people because he is the holy God. He looks upon his broken people in Hosea 11 and, filled with compassion for their plight although undeserved, declares:
How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, Israel?
How can I treat you like Admah?
How can I make you like Zeboyim?
My heart is changed within me;
all my compassion is aroused.
I will not carry out my fierce anger,
nor will I devastate Ephraim again.
For I am God, and not a man –
the Holy One among you.
I will not come against their cities.
John Day rightly observes, ‘In vv. 8–9, one of the most moving passages in the OT, YHWH struggles with himself, and the anguish of his love dictates that he cannot totally destroy Israel.’ Verse 8 speaks of God’s heart and God’s compassion. This passage in Hosea is the high point of Old Testament anthropopathism, a veritable ‘window into the heart of God’, as Leon J. Wood suggests. The God revealed in the Old Testament is a feeling God and not reducible to Mind, albeit with an upper case ‘M’. This is not a God like Aristotle’s ‘thought thinking itself ’.
The theomorphic life of the prophet
Terrence E. Fretheim offers an interesting line of inquiry concerning theophany and the life of the Old Testament prophet. He argues that ‘The prophet’s life was reflective of the divine life.’ Moses provides one of his examples. Twice in the book of Exodus Moses is described ‘as God’. In Exodus 4:16 Aaron is to speak for Moses and Moses is to be as God to him, and in Exodus 7:16 Moses will be as God to Pharaoh and Aaron shall be his prophet. This is God’s doing. Fretheim concludes, ‘Moses became a vehicle for divine immanence.’ I would add ‘and concomitance’.
Fretheim also draws attention to how Old Testament figures on occasion are said to be clothed with God’s Spirit. He suggests, ‘In these cases [e.g. Judg. 6:34; 1 Chr. 12:18; 2 Chr. 24:20; Mic. 3:8; Isa. 61:1], God becomes so active within the life of an individual that he can be said to be an embodiment of God.’ In interpreting the ingesting of the Word of God by Ezekiel in Ezekiel 3:1–3, Fretheim quotes Samuel Terrien with approval, describing the prophet as a ‘living incarnator of divinity’. Passages which speak of the prophet’s suffering in the light of the people’s sins and parlous state and God’s own attitudes are such that it is hard to distinguish the two, as in Jeremiah 8:18 – 9:1. Fretheim contends, ‘At the least, Jeremiah’s mourning [Jer. 8:18 – 9:1] is an embodiment of the anguish of God, showing forth to the people the genuine pain God feels over the hurt that his people are experiencing,’ and, ‘Yet, it seems best to understand the mourning of God and prophet as so symbiotic that in everything we hear the anguish of both.’ In the light of this evidence Fretheim argues, ‘The people thus not only hear the Word of God from the prophet, they see the Word enfleshed in their midst.’ Fretheim’s reading of these texts is highly suggestive. He contends, ‘The prophet’s life is… Theomorphic.’
However, he is aware that he needs to be cautious lest he read too much anachronistically back into texts that predate Christ: ‘Finally, we should note that the prophet’s life as embodied Word of God is partial and broken. The OT does not finally come to the conclusion that God was incarnate in a human life in complete unbrokenness or in its entirety…. Yet, in the prophet we see decisive continuities with what occurs in the Christ-event.’
Conclusion
In this chapter we have been exploring – albeit briefly and selectively – the theophanic language of the patriarchal, Mosaic, former and latter prophetic periods. God is rendered as a person who speaks, acts and feels. We have seen evidences in these texts of anthropomorphism, anthropopathism and anthropopraxism. In two places the Lord is rendered in human terms as someone who eats and wrestles, and does so in history (Gen. 18 and 32 respectively). In other places the experience is visionary, more fragmentary and heavenly. Such renderings are best described, following James Barr, as anthropomorphic theophanies. Traces of these anthropomorphic theophanies are found along the unfolding biblical plotline. However Deus revelatus (God revealed) needs the balance of Deus absconditus (God concealed or hidden). The divine appearance is not to be presumed on and cannot be controlled or manipulated by the creature. A surprising number of Jewish scholars I have referenced argue that the God of the Hebrew Bible is assumed by many of the biblical authors to be ‘embodied’. However, we have seen no incarnation of deity as such even though the life of a prophet might be accurately described as theomorphic in some instances. Next we shall consider whether an incarnation of ‘the embodied’ God was part of Israel’s hope. However, before we do so, there is a question that has been tabled as to whether or not these Old Testament anthropomorphic theophanies were in fact Christophanies. To that question we shall turn in a subsequent chapter by way of an excursus.