{"id":69889,"date":"2020-02-09T22:42:57","date_gmt":"2020-02-09T20:42:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=69889"},"modified":"2023-09-04T17:35:56","modified_gmt":"2023-09-04T14:35:56","slug":"gods-five-fold-metaphors-of-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/gods-five-fold-metaphors-of-love\/","title":{"rendered":"God\u2019s Five-Fold Metaphors of Love"},"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":[539,854],"acf":{"old_id":"69889","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":67893,"related_cahpter":"412","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Israel as wife, child, servant, flock and crop\r\n\r\n","content":"

You have planted them, and they have taken root; they grow and bear fruit (12:2).<\/span><\/p>\n

When we pick apart the text of Tanach we find layers of interleaving metaphors – most obtusely when it comes to the main character, the nation of Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since Israel is not a person it is a very useful device to be able to personify the nation metaphorically, and the Tanach does this in five primary ways, each bringing out an element of God\u2019s love for Israel and its place in the world. They may also form a hierarchy.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Israel as God’s wife<\/em>.<\/b> Though by inference from Gen. 1.27, God, like the \u201cAdam\u201d he created, is not gendered, Israel is portrayed in the feminine. The apogee is seen at Sinai – a marriage between God and Israel. After Israel sins with the Golden Calf, the remedy echoes the <\/span>Sotah<\/em>\u00a0(suspected unfaithful wife)\u00a0<\/span>ordeal, with the message that while some died, the survivors were innocent of the \u201cadultery\u201d and could depend on God’s eternal love. Most of Jeremiah 3 and <\/span>many <\/span>other places explicitly embody this imagery.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Israel as God\u2019s child<\/em>.<\/b> This is made explicit in a number of places (Hosea 11:1, Ex. 4:22) but there is an over-arching narrative of exquisite imagery that follows the life cycle of a baby in the womb of Egypt through his birth, at the literal breaking of waters at the Sea. Israel is an infant before Sinai, wailing for food and water. Their adolescence alongside God in the desert is bookended by their entry into the land. It is Rahab the harlot who opens the door to them, with the text implying that Israel’s emissaries partook of her services. There is a reason why we are given her trade – \u201cthis is Israel coming of age\u201d in the usual unsavory way that would have been universally recognized by the ancient reader.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Israel as God\u2019s servant<\/em>. A common metaphor, Isaiah makes this explicit (41:8), but this metaphor is put to use in the ten commandments (Ex. 20:11) where the implication is that since we are God\u2019s servants and we like Him rest on Sabbath, so too our servants must rest.<\/li>\n
  4. Israel as God\u2019s flock<\/em>.<\/b> This is Israel on a low level. When they complain about the lack of food (Num. 11.5) they enumerate five items of vegetation or fodder.\u00a0 When they accept the spies slander against the land, it is the conspicuously-named Caleb – \u201cdog\u201d – who corrals the “sheeple” onto the straight and narrow.\u00a0 From the \u201cvalley of death\u2019s shadow\u201d the Psalmist calls to his God-shepherd.<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. Israel as God\u2019s crop<\/em>.<\/b> The lowest level – as we see in above, Israel planted in the land, the failing crop that is to be uprooted.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    To understand the text we need to understand the metaphors and to understand the metaphors we need to understand the mentality and the context of the initial audience of the text.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":69890,"id":69890,"title":"jer12-fractal five","filename":"jer12-fractal-five.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/jer12-fractal-five.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/gods-five-fold-metaphors-of-love\/jer12-fractal-five\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jer12-fractal-five","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":69889,"date":"2020-02-09 20:41:00","modified":"2020-02-09 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