{"id":34674,"date":"2018-07-22T13:18:13","date_gmt":"2018-07-22T10:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=34674"},"modified":"2022-02-13T10:12:08","modified_gmt":"2022-02-13T08:12:08","slug":"behold-the-divine-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/behold-the-divine-surprise\/","title":{"rendered":"Behold – The Divine Surprise"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[395,384,374],"acf":{"old_id":"34674","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34227,"related_cahpter":"6","type_929":"2","show_author_image":true,"old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"By the end of the flood, it is not humanity that has changed but God","content":"

Genesis 6:12, “And God saw and behold it was corrupted.” For only the second time since creating the world God has seen and \u2013 “behold!” \u2013 been taken by surprise. The first, of course, was after God created humankind and thereby brought creation to its completion (Genesis 1:31).<\/span><\/p>\n

Until the moment God creates humanity, nothing in God’s field of vision causes Him to do a double-take. “And God saw that it was good” is the refrain of chapter 1 of Genesis. Well, how could it be otherwise? It was created by God, after all. God’s vision in that opening chapter is inseparable from His act of creation. Intention, act and perception are one. \u00a0Only following the creation of people does God intuit that He has created a world that cannot be entirely relied upon to run according to His wishes, a world that is not entirely predictable, that He has created an <\/span>other<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

God’s initial excitement soon turns to dismay as the full implications of creating this independent, headstrong creature sink in. His solution? He will destroy his creation and start again. He will take the last remaining pure strand of humanity, the one righteous man of the generation, and rebuild humanity through him.<\/span><\/p>\n

What was God thinking?! Does a good man never lose his way? Are his offspring guaranteed to follow his path? Sure enough, the first recorded events following the flood are: Noah gets drunk, his son Ham sees and reports his father’s nakedness, Noah opens his mouth for the first time to curse his offspring.<\/span><\/p>\n

By the end of the flood, it is not humanity that has changed but God. It is God who learns that if the world is to persist, then His power and will can no longer be exercised in an absolute and untrammeled fashion. It is not only man who must control his impulses and subject his actions to the moral law. God, too, must give His undertaking. God too must be <\/span>held to account<\/span><\/em>. Thus is born the concept of <\/span>b’rit<\/span><\/em>, covenant.<\/span><\/p>\n

These thoughts and questions – the idea of covenant; is God accountable to humanity; evil and freewill; the separateness of the world from God \u2013 permeate the rest of the Bible, indeed all subsequent Jewish thought.<\/span><\/p>\n

Only through self-limitation, by making a covenantal undertaking and thereby making himself accountable to humankind, can God enter into true relationship (an I-Thou relationship, to borrow Martin Buber’s famous phrase) with this independent, subjective creature called Human.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although God didn’t realize it at the time, it was the moment He <\/span>saw<\/span><\/em> and was <\/span>surprised<\/span><\/em> that this idea was born.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":69821,"id":69821,"title":"jer11-covenant","filename":"jer11-covenant.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/jer11-covenant.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/a-covenant-of-fate-or-of-faith\/jer11-covenant\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jer11-covenant","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":69820,"date":"2020-02-08 07:20:26","modified":"2022-10-15 09:50:51","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1280,"height":720,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/jer11-covenant-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/jer11-covenant-300x169.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":169,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/jer11-covenant-768x432.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":432,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/jer11-covenant-1024x576.jpg","large-width":1024,"large-height":576,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/jer11-covenant.jpg","1536x1536-width":1280,"1536x1536-height":720,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/jer11-covenant.jpg","2048x2048-width":1280,"2048x2048-height":720,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/jer11-covenant-1200x675.jpg","post_full_size-width":1200,"post_full_size-height":675,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/jer11-covenant-747x420.jpg","home_baner-width":747,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"Behold - 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