Sefer HaIkkarim, Maamar 2

It has already been proved demonstratively that God is neither body nor a force residing in body. It follows that we must deny God all bodily accidents and corporeal affections. It is necessary therefore to give a reason for the expressions found in all the Prophets that God is jealous, wrathful, vengeful and bearing grudge. Thus Nahum says, “The Lord is a jealous and avenging God. The Lord avengeth and is full of wrath, The Lord taketh vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserveth wrath for His enemies.” All these descriptions denote corporeal affections. Moreover, they are ignoble qualities which should not be attributed to any excellent person, not to speak of God. The Bible also attributes to Him pride, “The Lord reigneth; He is clothed in majesty”; also the emotion of pity, “My compassions are kindled together”; as well as sorrow, “And it grieved Him at His heart”; and grief, “And His soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.”

The explanation is this. The purpose of the prophets is to lead all mankind to worship God and to love Him. But the masses of the people can not be made to humble themselves for service except from fear of punishment. Therefore it was necessary for the prophets to speak in a language understood by the generality of the people. Now since, in human phraseology, when a king punishes those who have rebelled against him and given his kingdom to another, he is said to be jealous and revengeful and full of wrath, so the prophets say of God when He punishes those who violate His will that He is a jealous and avenging God and is full of wrath, because the act which emanates from Him against those who transgress His will is the act of a revengeful, grudging and jealous person.

The attribution of sorrow to God must be explained in the same way. Just as human beings feel sorrow when necessity compels their works to be destroyed, so the Bible says, “And it grieved Him at His heart,” and in the immediate sequel we read, “And the Lord said, ‘I will blot out man whom I have created … for it repenteth Me that I have made them.’ ” God is said to repent because He does the act of a person who repents of what he has made and desires to destroy it. And just as when a human being finds himself compelled by the requirements of justice to destroy what he has made, he looks about for a way which will enable him to save some of it from destruction, so God sought a way to prevent the destruction of all things. Therefore the narrative concludes, “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” The meaning is that God brought it about that the world should be continued through Noah and his sons.

The expression, “And His soul was grieved for the misery of Israel,” is to be explained in the same way. God did the act of a person who is in sorrow, whose soul grieves for the misery of his neighbor, and who puts himself to inconvenience in order to help him. So here, though Israel had sinned and were not deserving at that time of such great deliverance, nevertheless God saved them of His own accord as if He was affected by their trouble and misery, as we read, “I have surely seen the affliction of My people that are in Egypt … and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians.” Similarly is to be explained the expression, “My compassions are kindled together.”

The other expressions of corporeal affections must be understood in the same way, as a mode of bringing to the human understanding the nature of the act which emanates from Him, in a manner consonant with human habits of perception. Thus the Bible says expressly, “Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves, for ye saw no manner of form,” and yet it attributes corporeal members to God, speaking of the Tables of Stone, as “written with the finger of God”; and in the following expressions, “When I behold Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers”; “Thy right hand, O Lord, glorious in power”; “Thy hands have made me and fashioned me”; and many others of the same kind. The explanation is that as a human person writes with the finger, finger is attributed to God; as strength in man comes from the right hand, right hand is ascribed to Him; as human acts are done with hands and fingers, hands and fingers are attributed to God; and as the acceptation of words in man is attributed to the hearing of the ears, the Bible says, “Let thine ears be attentive.”

In the same way must be explained the saying of God in relation to the Temple, “And Mine eyes and Mine heart shall be there perpetually.” The meaning is, My providence and My good will, indicating that God desires its permanent existence. Similarly when the prophets picture God as a king sitting on a throne, as in Isaiah, “And I saw the Lord sitting on a throne”; “For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts”; or when they describe Him as a strong man, “The Lord will go forth as a mighty man”; “The Lord mighty in battle”;—all this is done in order to bring before human understanding a picture of His mighty glory and majesty. Thus David says, “They shall speak of the glory of Thy kingdom.… To make known to the sons of men His mighty acts, and the glory of the majesty of His kingdom.” The meaning is that the only reason why they speak of Thee thus is in order to make known to the sons of men, but not in order to compare Thy kingdom with a human kingdom, for Thy kingdom is eternal, “a kingdom for all ages.” It is done merely to bring the matter before the human understanding and for no other reason.

When the Bible attributes to Him pride, which is an ignoble quality in man, as is said, “Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord,” the meaning is that man should not boast of any excellence or good quality, for all comes from God, and a man should not boast of that which does not belong to him. As regards wisdom, the Bible says, “For the Lord giveth wisdom”; also, “That turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish.” This explains that human wisdom is worth nothing, and that wisdom comes from God and from no one else. Nor should a man boast of wealth, for that is not his either, as David says, “For all things come of Thee, and of Thine own have we given Thee.”

Similarly kingdom and all exalted station and excellence come from God, as the Bible says, “Thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and Thou art exalted as head above all.” And the Rabbis say, “Even the overseer of wells is appointed from heaven.” The blessing concludes, “Both riches and honour come of Thee, and Thou rulest over all.” That is, since everything comes from God, and man alone has nothing which is not due to the will of God, for in His “hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all,” he should not boast of that which does not belong to him and is not in his power. Therefore pride is becoming only to God from whom everything comes. Hence the Bible attributes pride to God when it says, “The Lord reigneth; He is clothed in majesty,” and in the words of Moses, “I will sing unto the Lord, for He is highly exalted”; which Onkelos translates, “Because He is exalted above the proud, and pride is His.”

Therefore if a person boasts of some quality which is not his, it is proper that the quality should be taken away from him, as an indication that the honor and the excellence which he enjoys do not come to him from himself, but from God and by the divine will. Thus we find in the case of Nebuchadnezzar who boasted of glory and royal status, that the Bible expresses itself as follows: “But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was hardened that he dealt proudly, he was deposed from his kingly throne and his glory was taken from him … till thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will … and setteth up over it the lowest of men.”

The same is true of the prince of Tyre, who boasted of being a god. The Bible says about him, “Because thy heart is lifted up, and thou hast said: I am a god.… Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee: I am God? But thou art man and not God, In the hand of them that defile thee.” This shows that God punishes all those who boast of that which is not theirs. If one boasts of royalty God takes his kingdom away from him and gives it to the lowest of men, so that all may know that royalty does not belong to man and is not in his power. Similarly if one boasts of divine power and makes himself a god, God punishes him and delivers him up to be killed. This is an appropriate punishment for one who boasts of being a god, as it exposes him to shame, since he can not save himself. For it is the way of God to revive the dead, “To deliver them that are drawn unto death and to rescue those that are ready to be slain.” God is also eternal. But here it is the opposite. God hands him over into the hand of a slayer to show that he is no god since man can prevail over him to kill him and he has no power to save himself from death. But as to God, in whose hand is the soul of every living thing—He puts to death and brings back to life, He gives perfection to every existing thing, but He does not get any perfection from any one else, like kings, whose perfection comes from some one else. For the royalty of kings is exalted because of the honor which is shown them by others. If not for the honor shown him no one would know that he is a king and that he is superior to others. It is therefore as if honor ruled over them. But not so God, He rules over honor, therefore He is called, “King of glory.”

The majesty of the king is dependent upon the multitude of the people, the more people the greater the glory. But God, being king over glory, is not exalted because of any one else nor does His kingship change or diminish as those subject to Him are diminished or changed. Thus the Psalmist says, “The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve, and strippeth the forests bare, and in His temple all say: ‘Glory.’ ” The meaning is that even when God executes judgment and destroys the forests and the animals, His royalty and His glory are not diminished thereby, for in His palace, i. e. in His degree of existence, all is glory. And the proof of this is that “The Lord sat enthroned at the flood; Yea, the Lord sitteth as King forever.” That is, God existed in the time of the flood, and though of the world before the flood, which was full of men and animals, all things were destroyed, Noah alone and those with him in the ark remaining, nevertheless God’s kingdom did not change in extent, hence “the Lord sitteth as King forever.” The reason it says “sitteth” and not “is,” is because sitting better expresses the idea of permanence, as Maimonides says where he discusses the scriptural homonym yashab (=to sit). For this reason the prophet, too, ascribes to God the attribute of sitting more frequently than other attributes. Thus he says, “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up,” and not simply: “I saw the Lord upon a throne high and lifted up.” The explanation is that since sitting implies permanence, without change, it is attributed to God, though neither standing nor sitting applies to Him, as the Rabbis say in the treatise Hagigah, that up above there is neither sitting nor standing, etc. A similar interpretation must be given to all the expressions of corporeal affections ascribed to God in the Bible. They are used in order to bring the matter before human understanding, but not to indicate that it is so in reality. The Rabbis have a general maxim in this connection, “The Torah uses human expressions.”