6 Yahweh, God of Moses
Is man created in the image of God or is God
created in the image of man?
The god of Moses who spoke to Moses at the Burning Bush
on Mount Sinai came to
be known as Yahweh. The name was used by the Israelites throughout their history.
The name was so fearsome, so awe-inspiring that the Israelites dared not
enunciate it. It was written as YHWH. Also, early Hebrew lacked vowels, as was
mentioned in an earlier chapter of Biblelore. Later YHWH came to be written and
referred to by writers as Yahweh.
The character of Yahweh changed through the history of the Israelites, according
to their conception of him. The Israelites were originally a Semitic tribe who
went to Egypt during a famine, were enslaved, then returned to what they
considered to be their Promised Land in Canaan. As semi-nomads, they were by
nature warlike, fighting to survive against other tribes. Their god Yahweh was
therefore warlike.
In the words of Moses, Yahweh was a jealous and vengeful god who would visit the
sins of one generation upon the next. In the Decalogue Moses quotes Yahweh
(Exodus 20:3,5):
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me... Thou shalt not bow down thyself
to them nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the
iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation
of them that hate me."
Yahweh reflected the experience of the people who worshiped him. After defeating
the Canaanite tribes, the Israelites adopted their agricultural deities, the Baals, and their rituals of fertility. Yahweh was transformed from a tribal war
god to a more passive god. Yet he was ever the anthropomorphic god of Amos and
Isaiah, vengeful, capable of destructive anger against human cruelty and
injustice.
Amos emphasized the moral character of Yahweh and his
authority as the one God over all nations, capable of punishing the
transgressions of his people, the Israelites, by the use of foreign nations
against them for disobeying his law. Amos recites the punishment to be visited
upon several tribes including Judah and Israel for (as few as) "three
transgressions... and for four." ( Amos 1,2.)
A contemporary prophet added another element to the character of Yahweh. Hosea
related Yahweh's love for Israel as a man's love for his wife. He discovered
that his wife had been unfaithful to him, and, although he prepared to treat her
according to Israelite custom and law by punishing her, he came to believe that
Yahweh commanded him to still love her in spite of her love for someone else. He
believed Yahweh still loved Israel, yet Israel would have to endure the
punishment of exile to earn Yahweh's redemption. (Hosea 1-3.)
Isaiah, who lived in Jerusalem at the same time as Hosea of Judah, envisioned in
a megalomaniacal manner a god who had been provoked by his people the Israelites
(Isaiah 1.) In the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah saw in a vision the Lord
sitting on a throne with winged seraphim that said one to the other," Holy,
holy, holy is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory." The
vision of Yahweh's holiness rendered Isaiah awe-struck and fearful. Purged of
his sins by the seraphim, Isaiah answered Yahweh's question about whom he should
send to speak to the people by requesting that he be selected. (Isaiah 6:1-8.)
Isaiah saw Yahweh in human terms: a king sitting on his throne in the Temple similar to the god Baal who reigned over his Canaanite worshipers; able to speak
and dialog with man as with Isaiah, and Moses before him at the Burning Bush.
Yahweh was also, in Isaiah's cunning foresight, political: he would use a
foreign king as an instrument in his relations with the people of Israel. Isaiah
foresaw the reality of Israel's fate in the face of impending Assyrian
domination as part of Yahweh's plan for his Chosen. (Isaiah 6:11-13.)
Like Amos, Isaiah added compassion to the character of Yahweh who no longer
demanded animal sacrifices: compassion for the oppressed, for the fatherless,
for the widow (Isaiah 1:11-17).
After reading the scriptures of each of these prophets, one gathers that all had
a practical sense of Israel's precarious position among more powerful nations,
and used that fact to predict Yahweh's wrath against the doomed Israelites for
disobeying his commandments. Their political acumen helped to establish the
dominance of Yahweh in the minds of Israelites.
Each prophet added something to the character of Yahweh: a moral god, a
universal god, a loving god, a compassionate god. It is apparent from what we
have seen that the prophets created their god Yahweh in the image of man with
human emotions. It is ironic that given their abhorrence of idolatry and the
Canaanites' cult practice of imitating their gods of fertility, the prophets of
Israel and Judah were themselves creating Yahweh in their own likeness,
anthropomorphic , with human feelings of jealousy, anger, revenge, love, and
compassion.
In spite of the human attributes bestowed on him by the prophets, Yahweh
remained the mysterious, transcendent being who confronted Moses on Mount Sinai.
He was still referred to in writing as YHWH; his name was too awesome to be
spoken in the reading of scripture by Israelites. He was incomprehensible; he
transcended human understanding. His "otherness" constituted his "holiness."
So believed the Israelites.
Present-day theology mirrors the various aspects of the god of the Israelites
according to one's denomination. The fundamentalist Christian focuses on the
moral and vengeful traits of Yahweh who vowed to punish transgressions of his
commandments, and stress the fear of "God." The more liberal Christian reflects
Yahweh's love and compassion.
The answer to the question: who created whom in his own image, is obvious in the
case of Yahweh, as it always has been for every god and every culture known to man. Each
succeeding generation adds to the prevailing image of the deity according to
one's perception of human experience. What one cannot comprehend, what one
cannot explain remains as part of the "mystery" of "God."
(For more perspective
on Yahweh's perceived character, see the author's rendition, "Song
of Yahweh," in the BibleloreLite
section following Biblelore.)
Next in Chapter 7 The Five Books of Moses will be discussed.
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