The Image of God in Judaism
Throughout the world’s various religions, the idea of God is portrayed in many ways. In some religions, for example in Hinduism and in Indigenous religions, God comes in the shape of numerous different figures and deities, each with their own followers and worshipped individually. They are all depicted in a different manner and serve their own purpose. In Christianity, a traditionally monotheistic religion, God is described as three distinct persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They are not separate entities but one God, forming the Holy Trinity, although all three have their own names and come in different forms. The essence of God can be described differently from one religion to another. Even within only one, teachings of a higher power vary in different religious texts. Such is the case in the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Old Testament to Christians, wherein teachings describe God differently from book to book. Some depict him as giving and all-loving while others have a more ominous approach, presenting a commanding and even enraged God, threatening to punish his people. The overall concept of God as the one divine and all-powerful being remains the same, but each book casts a different light on him, making him seem like a different entity from one text to another.
According to the book of Genesis, Elohim, referring to the Jewish God, constructs and designs creation through his will. Elohim is the plural form of the Hebrew root word el, meaning strength. Elohim, based on context, typically means God, as the word el is used to refer to false gods and idols. In Genesis 1 and 2, Elohim is depicted as the creator of the natural world. Over the course of six days, he builds and separates creation into land, sea, and the heavens and then fills it all with life. On the sixth day, he makes man from the dust of the earth and shares creation with him.
And God [Elohim] created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. And God blessed them; and God said unto them: ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth.”
God forms creation out of a void and saw that it was good. He then creates man in his likeness and gives what he had made to man to control and rule over. God uses his power to create the natural world not for his own use, but for man’s. He does all this for the sake of man, giving to man the world that he made for him, like a father would for a son. He sees the world’s beauty and sets a limit to a finite universe, then gives life to man as an individual complete in body and in spirit with the power to rule over it. In this passage, God is seen as not only the creator of the natural world but as a giving and loving father, selflessly handing over everything that he designed for man to live in and to control.
In contrast with the way God is depicted in the first chapter of Genesis, the book of Exodus contains teachings of him that are less benevolent. Instead of presenting the world to man and giving him free reign over it, God takes on a more assertive figure, imposing a fear of him to his people so that they may obey him. God maintains a father-like quality and chooses Moses to lead his chosen people, the Israelites, out of bondage in Egypt; However, after their escape from slavery under the Pharaoh’s rule, the Israelites are strictly warned and given God’s law. YHWH, which is another name for God and read as “Adonai”, speaks to the Moses, presenting himself as the one and only God, and gives to Moses his commandments. The people, fearful of the presence of God, hide from him even though he had rescued them and sent them on their way to the promised land.
And all the people perceived the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the voice of the horn, and the mountain smoking, and when the people saw it, they trembled, and stood afar off. And they said unto Moses: ‘Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.’ And Moses said unto the people: ‘Fear not; for God is come to prove you, and that His fear may be before you, that ye sin not.’
After leading the Israelites out of Egypt, God asserts his authority, proclaiming himself to be the only God and commands them to follow his law. As Moses says, God presents himself to them to warn and test them. He gives them his commandments that they are bound by so that they do not sin and turn away from him. Instead of the generous and kindhearted manner in which God is presented in Genesis, God’s words and actions in the twentieth chapter of Exodus introduce a sense of fear in his people as he instructs them how to behave. He becomes an authority figure, governing them under his law so that they do not face the consequences. God saves the Israelites from the Pharaoh’s rule; therefore, they owe their new lives in the promised land to him, bound by his commandments that he demands they follow. YHWH gives Moses the commandments for the Israelites to follow, so that they will not turn away from him and sin. He warns his people that he is their God, an impassioned and fierce God, and that they must obey, or their sins will not go unpunished. He does, however, promise ever-loving kindness to those who adhere to his word which he provides them, but the people still rebel against him.
After many generations, God reveals to the prophet Isaiah a vision of his disappointment with the kingdom of Judea. He had warned them of the consequences of sin, and after they continued fall from his grace, he threatens them with suffering and abandonment. God says, “Ah, I will ease Me of Mine adversaries, and avenge me of Mine enemies . . . the destruction of the transgressors and the sinner shall be together, and they that forsake the LORD shall be consumed.” God tested his people, but they rejected him and failed. Their wrongdoing and disobedience broke his covenant with them, so he proclaims their punishment for their sin. He gives them the commandments through Moses so that they would learn to do what is right and seek refuge in him, but after continued rebellion against him, he turns on them to wash away their impurity through pain and suffering. In Isaiah, he promises them punishment to discipline them, but according to the prophet Micah’s vision, he tells his people that he will send someone to lead them to peace and rescue them.
But thou, Beth-lehem Ephrathah . . . out of thee shall one come forth unto Me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from ancient days . . . And he shall stand, and shall feed his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God; and they shall abide, for then shall he be great unto the ends of the earth.
In contrast with the teachings of God in the book of Isaiah where God threatens to punish his people for their transgressions, Micah’s vision teaches that God will bring forth a Messiah, a savior for his people. This savior is told to be the one that will guide God’s people to righteousness in his name. Instead of threatening to punish man for his sins, warning him to abide by his commandments, God promises to instead save him through the Messiah and lead him to strength in God. Like how he provides man with the earth and life in Genesis and how he first leads the Israelites out of bondage in Exodus, God now assures to his people that they will be given a savior and that he will lead them like a shepherd. Micah presents God through his vision drastically different than in the first chapter of Isaiah and the twentieth chapter of Exodus. God is not commanding of his people in Micah, but rather promising to save them and lead them back to him.
Overall, the essence of the Jewish God remains the same: one everlasting, all-powerful God that formed creation and watches over his people. Though that remains consistent, the way that he is characterized between each book presents him entirely differently, as if there are two personalities that he exhibits. In first and second chapter of Genesis, God is described as a loving and giving father, providing man with life and all of creation to rule over. When God leads the Israelites from suffering in Egypt in Exodus, he maintains this fatherly behavior, using his power for the people. But in the end of Exodus and within the book of Isaiah, the compassionate and generous God presented earlier is replaced by an entirely different figure, one that is authoritarian and demanding of his people, eventually casting misery onto his people for disobeying. The God described in these passages does not display the same qualities as in Genesis and in the beginning of Exodus, but in the teachings from Micah, he returns to mimic that same behavior and promises to send a savior to his people to lead them from hardship and anguish. In some of the teachings, God is loving and uses his power to save the people, but in others, he is enraged and uses it to bring pain to them. These descriptions contradict one another, and though God himself says that he is the one and only eternal God, the concept of him from different teachings within the Jewish Bible changes, presenting him as a totally different figure from book to book.
