Tashbih: God’s Heart Is In The Hebrew Bible

The two major forms of anthropomorphism are physical anthropomorphism, which uses physical or bodily features to describe God’s actions; and mental or psychological anthropomorphism which uses human feelings and thoughts, like planing, deciding, controlling, remembering, judging and creating; and well as feelings or emotions such as love, anger, desire, mercy, forgiveness, and faithfulness to describe God. (See Zulfi1ar Ali Shah, Anthropomorphic Depictions of God: The Concept of God in Judaic, Christian and Islamic Traditions)

A verse in the Qur’an that clearly shows that God also uses anthropomorphism is “Wheresoever you turn, there is the Face of God” [Qur’ān 2:115]. But Judaism in general, and the Hebrew Bible in particular, uses anthropomorphisms much more than Islam does, because Christianity had totally turned the human Jesus into a trinity anthropomorphism. “They have certainly disbelieved who say, “Allah is the third of three.” There is no god except one God. And if they do not desist from what they are saying, there will surely afflict the disbelievers among them a painful punishment”. (Qur’an 5:73)

The reason why the Bible frequently uses both anthropomorphism (human body forms) and anthropropathisms (human emotional feelings), is to bring God’s personality and character dramatically to life, so that readers of the Bible can personally relate to an otherwise invisible, transcendent, creative and unique Deity who lovingly deals mercifully with believers who relate better to admirable character traits than to abstract ideas.

For the overwhelming majority of believers, our individual relationship with God is more important than our theology; as Prophet Malachi states: “Because I, the LORD, do not change, you descendants do not change, you descendants of Jacob have not been destroyed. Yet from the days of your ancestors you have turned away from My statutes and not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD of Hosts.” (Malachi 3:6-7)

And as the Qur’an states: “When We inspired your mother what We inspired, [Saying], ‘Cast him [Moses] into the chest and cast it into the river, and the river will throw it onto the bank; there will take him an enemy to Me and an enemy to him.’ And I bestowed upon you love from Me that you would be brought up under My eye.” (Qur’an 20:38-9 + 39:67) This is very different from the abstract God of Plato and Aristotle.

Platonic thinkers perceived reality as divided into two levels: the upper level of reality includes the invisible but intelligible, and is absolute and universal and therefore more real, while the lower level includes all physical things that are subject to change and therefore are less real.

Aristotelian thinkers understand reality in terms of potentiality and actuality. For Aristotle “God” is static and does not change because “God” being fully actual cannot change because he has no potentiality to become more fully realized.

But the one God of the Bible is indeed an active, dynamic, spiritual being at work in the world and [his activity] is continually stable rather than unstable. Thus, the only constant is change.

Most religious language in Judaism is metaphorical. In the Bible, metaphors for God are drawn from a wide variety of areas: God may, e.g., be a “rock,” a mother-bird hovering over its young, or a king. Some of these divine metaphors are derived from the realm of the family, where God is described as a parent, typically but not always a father, or as Israel’s husband (but never wife).

This latter metaphor, which emphasizes the seemingly marital intimacy between God and Israel, is central to the prophecies of Prophet Hosea, who was active in the northern kingdom of Israel around 730 BCE. Prophet Hosea’s use of this image influenced countless generations following his time. Both Jeremiah (particularly in chaps. 2-4) and Ezekiel (16 and 23) pick up on this theme and develop it further.

The inclusion of the seemingly secular Shir ha-Shirim (Song of Songs) in sacred scripture was made possible by an allegorical religious interpretation of its contents based on the marriage metaphor found in Prophet Hosea.

The Jewish mutual relationship concept of covenant is more like a modern marriage relationship than the traditional parent-child or King-subject relationship of the past. The Jewish mystics believed that every Jew, in every generation, both married and single, can and should feel like he or she is a spiritual beloved and/or a spiritual lover of God who states: “I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, in loving kindness and in compassion. I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness and you shall know the Lord”. (Prophet Hosea 3:21-22)

Unfortunately, many disciples of Jesus took Prophet Jesus’ use of “my father in heaven” literally when it was of course meant metaphorically. They also misunderstood the statement of Prophet Jesus: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:11) The metaphor of a shepherd describes both God and a human ruler. Jesus was saying that a good leader puts the good of the flock ahead of his own good. John understood incorrectly that “I” [God] will sacrifice [My Son] to save all humanity.

All Biblical Anthropomorphism (tashbih) are not to be taken literally. They are only metaphors or poetic expressions like the Qur’an’s statement: “And do not invoke Allah with another deity. There is no deity except Him. Everything will be destroyed except His Face. His is the judgement, and to Him you will be returned” (28:88). Face is just a metaphor for God’s presence.

A Biblical example for the metaphor of stubborn uncaring people as having an uncircumcised heart can be found in several different Biblical verses: Deuteronomy 10:16 “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn”; Leviticus 26:41 …”if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity”; Jeremiah 4:4 “Circumcise yourselves to the LORD; remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem”; Jeremiah 6:10 “To whom shall I speak and give warning, that they may hear? Behold, their ears are uncircumcised, they cannot listen”; (also Jeremiah 9:26; and Ezekiel 44:7–9)

The rabbinic Tafsir/midrash (Ecclesiastes Rabba 1:16) actually gathers 50+ different metaphors of the heart that are implied by various verses in the Hebrew Bible. The list begins by describing that the heart: sees (Ecclesiastes 1:16), hears (I Kings 3:9), speaks (Ecclesiastes 1:16), walks (2 Kings 5:26), falls (I Samuel 17:32), stands (Ezekiel 22:14), rejoices (Psalms 16:9), cries out (Lamentations 2:18), is consoled (Isaiah 40:2), is pained (Deuteronomy 15:10), is hardened (Exodus 9:12), fears (Deuteronomy 28:67), breaks (Psalms 51:19), is prideful (Deuteronomy 8:14), refuses (Jeremiah 5:12), imagines (Deuteronomy 29:18), feels (Psalms 45:2), thinks (Proverbs 19:21), desires (Psalms 21:3), strays (Proverbs 7:25), desires sin (Numbers 15:39), eats (Genesis 18:5), convinces (Genesis 34:3), and errs (Isaiah 21:4). All of these are clearly intended to be understood metaphorically.

Even the various names for the one God are also anthropomorphic and/or anthropropathic metaphors. Monotheists call God by a name because we believe that the Divine One is not an impersonal, universal force or power, because the Divine One is a personality. A unique, disembodied, undying, always creative personality, who cares about the whole created world. We even use a pronoun of gender, although God includes both genders, because we do not wish to refer to the Divine One as it.

The Qur’an tells us (17:110) “Say, “Call upon Allah or call upon Ar-Rahman [Arabic]/Ha Rakhaman [Hebrew], the Most Merciful. Whichever [name] you call – to Him belong the best names.” For those religions that trace their prophets back to Prophet Abraham, and his two sons Ishmael and Isaac; the many names or appellations (titles and descriptions) of God describe different aspects or attributes of the one God’s multifaceted personality.

Thus, to say that God is a King or a Judge describes one of many ways God acts. To say that God is the Merciful/Compassionate One is to describe one of many character or personality traits of the one and only God. Both Islam and Judaism agree that each name is only one of the many appellations and anthropomorphic and/or anthropropathic metaphors of the one universal creator of space and time who used His own hands to create humanity.

On rare occasions the Qur’an does use metaphors for Allah: “O Iblīs! What prevented you from prostrating unto one [Adam] I created with My two Hands? Were you arrogant or were you haughty?” (Qur’an 38:75).