The Atlas of God-language.

image (Hebrew צֶלֶם)

The word at issue. The multitude take it to mean bodily shape; Maimonides argues it names the natural or 'specific' form — a thing's essence — and so, in 'image of God,' the human intellect, not a divine body.

likeness (Hebrew דְּמוּת)

From the verb damah, 'to be like.' Maimonides shows that in Scripture it always means resemblance in notion or quality (grief, beauty, majesty) — never resemblance in shape.

corporealism — ascribing a body to God

The error Maimonides is uprooting: reading the anthropomorphic verses literally and so imagining God as a luminous super-body. The whole Guide is, in one sense, an extended refutation of tajsīm.

declaring God free of (bodily) attributes; transcendence

A term of Islamic theology Maimonides adopts. He notes that the corporealists thought a giant, glorious, non-fleshly body was the height of tanzīh — whereas true tanzīh requires removing corporeality altogether.

the specific form (essence)

The Aristotelian 'form of the species' — what makes a thing the kind of thing it is, its essence, as opposed to its matter or shape. This, Maimonides says, is what tzelem really denotes.

intellectual apprehension

Pure thought, employing no sense organ or limb. It is the human 'specific form,' and the sole respect in which man is 'in the image of God' — the imago Dei relocated from the body to the intellect.

an equivocal (homonymous) noun

A single word applied to wholly different things — the central tool of the Guide. Many scriptural terms are equivocal; the literalist's error is to fix on one sense (here, bodily shape) where another (essence) is meant.

an amphibolous term (said by gradation)

A word applied to several things in a primary and derivative way — not pure homonymy. Maimonides allows that even if tzelem is sometimes used for shape, it would be mushakkak: said primarily of form, only derivatively of shape.

outward form, figure (Hebrew תֹּאַר)

The Hebrew word that genuinely means shape and outline — used of Joseph's beauty, of drawing with a compass. Crucially, it is never applied to God. Maimonides sets it against tzelem to show that Scripture had a shape-word and pointedly did not use it of the divine.

the divine intellect

The intellect 'conjoined' to man, by virtue of which he is said to be in God's image. The phrase carries the whole weight of the chapter's resolution: the likeness is intellectual, not physical.

the notion / true meaning (vs. outward form)

Maimonides' refrain in this chapter: every scriptural 'likeness' is a resemblance fī l-maʿnā — in notion or meaning — not in shape (shakl) and outline (takhṭīṭ).

generally accepted opinions (endoxa)

The conventionally 'fine' and 'base' (ḥasan / qabīḥ) — propositions everyone grants but which reason neither proves nor refutes. Maimonides' key move: before the fall Adam lived among the intelligibles (maʿqūlāt), where things are simply true or false; eating from the tree plunged him into the mashhūrāt, the realm of mere opinion about good and evil.

the intelligibles — what reason knows as true or false

Necessary truths apprehended by the intellect, where the categories are 'true' and 'false' (emet / sheqer), not 'fine' and 'base.' One does not say the sphericity of the heavens is 'fine' or the flatness of the earth 'base' — only true or false. Adam's original perfection lay wholly here.

intellectual apprehension

The intellect that God made to emanate upon man — his 'final perfection' and the imago Dei. Adam possessed it whole before the fall; his disobedience stripped (salaba) it from him, and in its place came the apprehension of mere opinion.

to cause to emanate; the overflow (of intellect) from God

The Neoplatonic-Aristotelian language of emanation: the intellect is not man's own achievement but a fayḍ, an overflow, that God 'made to flow' upon him. Its loss is therefore a withdrawal of something divine.

innate, original disposition

Adam's God-given natural constitution, paired here with his 'intelligibles' as the state on account of which it was said 'Thou hast made him but little lower than God.'

disobedience, transgression

The act of the tree. Maimonides insists it was not a gaining of intellect but a turning away from it toward 'imaginative appetites and bodily pleasures' — so that the 'knowledge' Adam acquired was a fall, not an ascent.

an equivocal (homonymous) noun

Here the test case is elohim, applied alike to God, to angels, and to magistrates who govern cities — which is why Onqelos could render 'you shall be as elohim' as 'you shall be as rulers.' Recognizing the equivocity is the first step in dissolving the objection.

imaginative appetites

The pull of imagination and the bodily senses — 'that the tree was good for food and a delight to the eyes.' To incline toward these is, for Maimonides, the very content of Adam's sin and the cause of his loss of intellect.

form (Hebrew תְּמוּנָה) — an amphibolous term

The chapter's pivot. Temunah is said by tashkīk (amphiboly) of three things: (1) the sensible shape of a body, (2) the form held in the imagination after a thing is gone from the senses, and (3) the true intelligible notion grasped by intellect. Only this third sense is ever applied to God — 'and the form (temunat) of the Lord does he behold.'

pattern, built configuration (Hebrew תַּבְנִית)

Derived from banah, 'to build.' It denotes only a thing's built shape — the pattern of the Tabernacle, the form of a bird or a hand. Precisely because it means shape, Scripture never applies it to God in any description.

amphiboly — predication by gradation, not pure homonymy

A single term applied to several things in a primary and derivative way (cf. the mushakkak of chapter 1). Temunah is such a word: said primarily of intelligible form, and only derivatively of sensible or imagined shape — which is why its highest sense can be used of God.

the imagined form (present in the imagination)

The second sense of temunah: the residual image of a thing that the imagination retains once the thing itself is absent from the senses — as in a dream, 'a form was before my eyes,' i.e. an image facing the eyes in sleep.

the true notion (apprehended by the intellect)

The third and highest sense of temunah, and the only one used of God: not a shape of any kind but the true reality grasped by intellect. 'The form of the Lord does he behold' means 'the true reality of God he apprehends.'

metaphorical borrowing (of a word for a new sense)

The chapter's master concept: a word whose primary sense is sensory is 'borrowed' for an intellectual sense. Each verb of seeing first means ocular vision and is then transferred to intellectual apprehension; once you see the borrowing, every verse where God is 'seen' must be read as apprehension, not sight.

intellectual apprehension

The borrowed (and, for God, the only admissible) sense of every seeing-verb. 'And my heart has seen much wisdom' is apprehension, not sight; so too every place Scripture 'sees' God.

seeing with the eye (ocular vision)

The primary, literal sense of the three verbs — and precisely what is denied of God. The eye apprehends only a body in a place, with its accidents; God is not apprehended by any instrument.

accidents (color, shape, and the like)

What the eye perceives of a body besides its bulk — its colors, shape, and so forth. Since these belong only to bodies, and God is no body, He cannot be an object of sight.

a vision of prophecy (Hebrew מַרְאֵה הַנְּבוּאָה)

Maimonides' frame for verses like 'look now toward heaven': what is 'seen' there happens within prophetic vision — an intellectual, not a bodily, event.

apprehension of the heart (mind)

The borrowed sense of ḥazoh: the 'heart' as the seat of understanding, so that 'which he saw concerning Judah' and 'they beheld God' are acts of mind, not eye.

the chief of the philosophers (Aristotle)

Maimonides' standard honorific for Aristotle. He opens the chapter by invoking Aristotle's own apology for inquiring into obscure matters — a model of intellectual humility he then applies to the study of God.

rashly plunging in (beyond one's preparation)

The cardinal error of this chapter: rushing to speak of, or apprehend, the divine 'at first impulse' without the requisite training. The nobles of Israel 'plunged ahead' (tahajjamū) and apprehended God imperfectly.

to train, discipline (the soul)

The prerequisite: a man must 'train his soul in the sciences,' refine his character, and slay his imaginative appetites before approaching divine inquiry — the moral-intellectual askesis the Guide presupposes.

premises (of a demonstration)

True, certain premises — together with the rules of syllogism (qiyās) and the guarding against the mind's fallacies — are what one must possess before inquiry into God. The 'preliminaries' (tawṭiʾāt) that purify apprehension of error.

the nobles (of the Children of Israel)

Exod 24:10–11, 'the nobles of the Children of Israel… beheld God, and did eat and drink.' For Maimonides they are the cautionary case: they apprehended, but imperfectly, mixing in corporeality, and so 'deserved annihilation,' spared only by Moses' intercession.

man / woman (Hebrew אִישׁ / אִשָּׁה)

Laid down first for the human male and female, then extended to the male and female of any animal ('the male and his mate'), and to any two things made to be joined — even Tabernacle curtains coupled 'one to another.'

metaphorical borrowing (of a word for a further sense)

The mechanism throughout these chapters: a word's primary sense is 'borrowed' for related senses. Here ish/ishah travel from the human couple to animals to any coupled pair.

sister / brother (Hebrew אָחוֹת / אָח)

Maimonides notes that 'brother' and 'sister,' like ish and ishah, are equivocal by the same metaphorical extension — used of things paired or matched, not only of siblings.

to bear, beget (Hebrew יָלַד)

The base sense is giving birth; it is then borrowed for the coming-to-be of natural things, the earth's sprouting, the events time brings forth, and the opinions thought breeds.

metaphorical borrowing (of a word for a further sense)

Each new sense of yalad is an istiʿāra — a transfer of 'begetting' from bodily birth to natural generation, growth, temporal events, and intellectual production.

the sons of the prophets (i.e. their disciples)

Because a teacher who imparts an opinion 'begets' his pupil in respect of that opinion, the prophets' disciples are called their 'sons' — an equivocal use of ben Maimonides flags for later.

the (truly) human form

The 'image and likeness' of chapter 1: the rational form. Only Seth, taught and perfected by Adam, attained it; one in whom it never comes to be is 'an animal in the shape of a man,' with a greater capacity for cunning and harm than any beast.

place (Hebrew מָקוֹם); by extension, rank/standing

Primary sense: physical place. Extended sense: a person's rank or degree of eminence ('filling the place of his fathers in wisdom'). Of God it always denotes the rank of His existence, never a location.

rank, standing, degree (of being)

The figurative sense Maimonides assigns to makom when used of God: 'the rank of His existence, which has no equal or likeness.' Not a spatial position but a degree in the order of being.

the key (to reading the treatise)

Maimonides' stated method, declared here: in treating an equivocal noun he 'opens a gateway' and points only to the senses useful for his purpose, leaving the reader to apply the technique — assigning each equivocal noun to the sense its passage requires. This 'is the key to this treatise and to others.'

an equivocal (homonymous) noun

The recurring object of the lexical chapters: one word bearing several senses. The reader is to assign each occurrence the sense that befits its context.

throne; (lit.) chair (Hebrew כִּסֵּא)

Primary sense: a chair, the seat of kings; hence a symbol of greatness. Of God it denotes His majesty — never a literal seat — whether predicated of the Sanctuary, of heaven, or of Him directly.

the Sanctuary (Temple)

Called a 'throne of glory' because it indicates the greatness of the One who was manifested in it and let His light and dignity alight upon it.

to be manifested (of the divine light)

The Sanctuary and heaven are 'thrones' because the divine light was manifested (tajallā) upon them — a manifestation of glory, not a localization of God's body.

the language broadened (a word's use)

Maimonides' recurring formula for semantic extension: 'the language broadened' a term beyond its primary sense — here, kisse from a literal chair to a figure of majesty.

to descend / to ascend (Hebrew יָרַד / עָלָה)

Primary sense: a body's motion to a lower or higher place. Borrowed for a fall or rise in rank, and — of God — for the 'descent' of revelation or punishment and its 'ascent' (withdrawal).

revelation (prophetic inspiration)

One of the two figurative senses of 'descent' applied to God: the alighting of revelation (waḥy) upon a prophet. Its withdrawal — 'the lifting of the prophetic state' — is the corresponding 'ascent.'

the indwelling Presence (Shekhinah)

Its 'alighting upon a place' is expressed by 'descent,' its removal by 'ascent' — figures for the presence and withdrawal of God's manifestation, never for divine motion.

to visit, take account of (deeds)

The prophetic books preface a coming calamity by saying God 'visited' (iftaqada / paqad) a nation's deeds — then brought punishment 'down.' Hence 'descent' also figures the alighting of punishment; 'what is man that You take note of him' alludes to the same.

sitting (Hebrew יְשִׁיבָה); by extension, fixed permanence

Primary sense: sitting. Because the seated person is settled and fixed, it was borrowed for any abiding, unchanging state — and of God it denotes His permanence and immutability.

fixity, steadfastness, settledness

The bridge sense between sitting and permanence: that which is 'fixed and settled and does not change.' Jerusalem 'abides in her place,' the barren woman is 'settled and made steadfast.'

change, alteration (denied of God)

The chapter's doctrinal core: God 'does not change in any manner of change' — not in essence, not in any state, not in relation. 'Sitting' is the figure for this complete immutability.

relation

Maimonides denies God any changing relation: there is no real relation between Him and another that could alter. His 'relation' to the world of generation is to the perpetual species, not to perishing individuals — so even 'enthroned at the Flood' bespeaks no change.

rising, standing up (Hebrew קִימָה); also: confirming

Equivocal: literal standing-up (opposite of sitting), and figuratively the confirmation or execution of a matter. Of God only the latter applies.

the confirmation / making-good of a matter

The figurative sense carried by qimah of God: 'now will I arise' means 'now will I confirm My command, My promise, and My threat'; 'arise and have compassion on Zion' means make good the promised mercy.

metaphorical borrowing (of a word for a further sense)

From 'rising' for a deed one sets about, the sense was borrowed for God's executing His decree against those who 'rose up' deserving punishment — 'I will arise against the house of Jeroboam.'

standing (Hebrew עֲמִידָה); also: ceasing; enduring

Equivocal across three senses: (1) standing up or still, (2) desisting/ceasing, (3) enduring/abiding. Of God only the third applies.

endurance and abiding

The sense in which 'standing' is used of God: that which 'remained and abided and did not change.' 'His feet shall stand' means His causes (i.e. His effects) are made firm.

foot (Hebrew רֶגֶל) — forward cross-reference

Maimonides defers the figure 'His feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives' to the later chapter on the equivocity of regel ('foot'), reading the 'feet' as His causes/effects.

man / Adam (Hebrew אָדָם)

Three senses: (1) the proper name of the first man, derived from adamah ('earth'); (2) the human species; (3) the common people, set against b'nei ish, the elite.

earth, ground (Hebrew אֲדָמָה)

The text itself derives the name Adam from adamah, the earth from which he was formed — the etymology behind the proper-name sense.

the common people as opposed to the elite

The third sense of adam: the multitude, distinguished from b'nei ish, 'the sons of ish' — the elite. The contrast 'both the sons of adam and the sons of ish' turns on this.

to stand; to be set firm (Hebrew נִצָּב / יִצָּב)

Two distinct roots that share one meaning across all their conjugations. The noun is equivocal: (1) standing up and being erect, (2) being firm and enduring.

fixity and permanence

The sense in which 'standing' is used of God: firm and abiding, as in 'Your word stands fast in the heavens' (Ps 119:89). Never bodily erectness.

the ladder (Hebrew סֻלָּם)

Jacob's ladder, whose one end is in heaven and whose other is on earth. The angels who ascend and descend it are the prophets; that God 'stood upon it' means He is firm and abiding at its top.

the parable that is set forth

Maimonides cautions that his word 'upon it' is said in accordance with this parable — the ladder vision — not of bodily position.

rock (Hebrew צוּר)

Equivocal: (1) a mountain's name, (2) hard stone like flint, (3) the quarry-rock from which stones are cut — then borrowed for a thing's origin and source.

the origin and source of everything

The borrowed sense of tzur: just as quarried stones share the nature of the rock they were cut from, so 'look to the rock whence you were hewn' is glossed by 'look to Abraham your father.'

the efficient cause

Why God is called Tzur: He is the origin and efficient cause of everything other than Himself — 'the Rock, His work is perfect' (Deut 32:4).

the point of entry / access

'And you shall stand upon the rock' (Exod 33:21): lean and rely on the consideration that He is the origin — He is the avenue through which one reaches Him, as in 'behold, there is a place by Me.'

divine science (metaphysics)

Not only metaphysics, but most of physics too (al-ʿilm al-ṭabīʿī) is to be withheld from the multitude — paralleling the rabbinic ban on expounding the Account of Creation before two.

the (first) principles

The principles of generated, perishable beings are three: matter, form, and the privation specific to it. The ancients veiled their teaching about these and spoke of them in riddles.

matter, form, and privation

The three principles. Privation is always coupled to matter; without it, no form would come to be. When a form is attained its privation lapses and another privation couples to the matter — and so on without end.

the community of the religious / followers of the Law

If the philosophers, who risked no harm, still used borrowed names, how much more must the followers of the Law avoid declaring openly what the multitude cannot understand — or what would make them imagine the matter to be the opposite of what is meant.

approaching, touching, drawing near (Hebrew קְרִיבָה / נְגִיעָה / נְגִישָׁה)

Three nouns, each equivocal: a nearness or contact in place, and a nearness of apprehension — knowledge joining to its object.

the joining of knowledge to its object

The second, figurative sense: the knower draws near to what he had not apprehended before, as a body draws near a body — not a nearness of place.

the removal of corporeality

Once corporeality is removed from God, place falls away, and with it every nearness, distance, joining, separation, contact, or succession.

nearness to Him is by apprehending Him

It makes no difference whether one stands at earth's center or atop the ninth sphere: nearness to God is by apprehending Him, and distance from Him belongs to one who is ignorant of Him — and these admit of vast degrees.

full; to fill (Hebrew מָלֵא)

Equivocal: (1) one body filling another, (2) the completing of a measured span of time, (3) perfection and the utmost degree of an excellence.

perfection in an excellence

The third sense: 'He filled them with wisdom of heart' (Exod 35:35) — being perfect and at the highest degree of a virtue.

bears witness to His perfection

How 'the whole earth is full of His glory' is to be read: the whole earth testifies to and points to His perfection — not a body filling a place.

the created light

Alternatively one may take 'the glory of the Lord' as the created light everywhere called kavod — and it was this that 'filled the tabernacle' — and there is no harm in that.

high; lifted up (Hebrew רָם / נִשָּׂא)

Each equivocal between elevation of place and elevation of rank. Of God, only elevation of rank — majesty, honor, might — is intended.

elevation of rank

Majesty (jalāla), honor (karāma), and might (ʿizza). 'Be Thou exalted, O God, above the heavens' (Ps 57:6) — loftiness of rank, not of place.

the manifold attributes

For the perfected apprehenders, God is not described by many attributes: the many descriptions that signify greatness, might, power, perfection, and bounty all return to one notion — His essence, nothing external to it.

His essence

The single notion to which all the attributes reduce: His essence itself, not a thing outside the essence. Chapters on the names and attributes will follow.

to pass, pass by (Hebrew עָבַר); cf. Arabic ʿubūr

First sense: a body's displacement in place. Then borrowed for traveling sounds, the alighting of prophetic light, excess, and overshooting one aim for another.

deletion of the construct-term

Onkelos's method: wherever a verse ascribed to God would imply corporeality, he supplies a deleted construct-noun and assigns the relation to it — rendering it 'glory' (yeqara), 'Shekhinah,' or 'Memra' as the place requires.

glory / Indwelling / Word (the Targum's substitutes)

'And behold, the Lord stood above it' → 'the glory of the Lord stood above him'; 'the Lord watch' → 'the Memra of the Lord watch'; 'the Lord passed' → 'the Lord made His Shekhinah pass.' Maimonides supplies a fourth here: 'a voice.'

seeing the face / seeing the back

The apprehension Moses sought ('but My face shall not be seen') and the lesser one he was granted ('and thou shalt see My back') — i.e. knowledge of the acts ascribed to God, not His essence.

coming, entering (Hebrew בִּיאָה); the verb bo

Laid down first for an animal's coming toward a place or person, and for its entering a place. Then borrowed for incorporeal matters.

the alighting / befalling of a matter

The borrowed sense for what is no body at all: 'when thy word cometh to pass' (Judg 13:17); 'from these things that shall come upon thee' (Isa 47:13) — even of a privation, 'and evil came' (Job 30:26).

the alighting of His Indwelling

When 'coming' is ascribed to God it means either the alighting of His command or of His Shekhinah: 'lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud' (Exod 19:9); 'for the Lord, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it' (Ezek 44:2).

the fulfilment of His promises

'And the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee' (Zech 14:5): the alighting of His command, or the fulfilment of the promises He pledged through His prophets — as though to say, 'the word of the Lord my God shall come by the hand of all the saints.'

going out (Hebrew יְצִיאָה); the verb yatza

The counterpart of biʾah ('coming'): a body's going forth from a place where it had settled — then borrowed for the emergence or appearing of an incorporeal matter.

the emergence / appearing of a matter

The borrowed sense: 'the word went out of the king's mouth' (Esth 7:8) means the carrying-out of the command; 'for out of Zion shall go forth the law' (Isa 2:3); 'the sun was risen upon the earth' (Gen 19:23) — the appearing of light.

the lifting of the Indwelling

What 'I will return to My place' (Hos 5:15) figures: the withdrawal of the Shekhinah that was among us, followed by the lapse of providence over us — 'and I will hide My face from them, and they shall be devoured' (Deut 31:17).

by His will alone

'By the word of the Lord were the heavens made' (Ps 33:6) likens His act to kings who need speech to carry out their will. But He needs no instrument: His act is by His will alone, with no speech at all.

walking, going (Hebrew הֲלִיכָה); the verb halakh

First a specific animal motion ('and Jacob went on his way'); then borrowed for the spreading of finer bodies, then for the spreading-abroad of an incorporeal matter, then for moral conduct.

the spreading-abroad of a matter

The figurative sense even for what is no body: 'it shall go like a serpent' (Jer 46:22); 'the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden' (Gen 3:8) — it is the voice that is said to walk.

the withdrawal of providence

Of God, 'walking' figures either the spreading of His command or the withdrawal of providence — like an animal's turning away — as 'hiding the face' figures the same: 'and I will surely hide My face' (Deut 31:18).

the excellent way of conduct

'Walking' is also borrowed for conduct in the virtuous way, with no bodily motion at all: 'and thou shalt walk in His ways' (Deut 28:9); 'ye shall walk after the Lord your God' (Deut 13:5).

to dwell, abide (Hebrew שָׁכַן)

Its known sense is residing — the prolonged staying of a living thing in a place, even while it moves about within it. Then borrowed for whatever abides in another thing.

the perpetuity of His Indwelling

What 'dwelling' means of God: the perpetuity of His Shekhinah — His created light — in some place, or the perpetuity of His providence over some matter: 'and the glory of the Lord abode' (Exod 24:16).

a matter that abides and persists

The borrowed sense: anything that abides and clings to another thing is said to 'dwell' on it, even if neither is a place or a living thing — 'let a cloud dwell upon it' (Job 3:5), a cloud being no living thing and no body, but a portion of time.

His created light

Every instance of this verb ascribed to God means the perpetuity of His Indwelling — His created light — in a place, or the perpetuity of His providence over some matter, each according to its place.

the Torah speaks in the language of men

The Sages' dictum that comprehends every kind of figurative interpretation: Scripture frames God in terms all people can grasp at first thought.

the imagination of the multitude

Why eating and drinking are denied of God but motion is ascribed: not by reason, but by the imagination of the multitude, for whom only the former counts as an imperfection — though motion, too, is resorted to only out of need.

possessed of divisible magnitude

It has been demonstrated that everything in motion has divisible magnitude, and it will be demonstrated that God has no magnitude; hence He has no motion, nor can He be described by rest — for only what is apt to move is described by rest.

the removal of corporeality

With corporeality removed, all the verbs of animal motion ascribed to God fall away together: descend, ascend, walk, natzav, ʿamad, 'cause,' sit, dwell, go out, come, and pass.

Onkelos the proselyte

Master of Hebrew and Aramaic, author of the Targum. His fixed rule: any scriptural description tending to corporeality he interprets according to its true sense, rendering verbs of motion as 'revealing' or as the appearing of created light (Shekhinah).

self-revelation, manifestation

How Onkelos renders 'the Lord came down': 'the Lord revealed Himself' (itgeli) — never the literal 'descended' (neḥat). His consistent device against corporeality.

the report of what was said

Why Onkelos kept 'descend' at Gen 46:4: that verse describes what was said within a night-vision, not an event that occurred (unlike 'the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai'); reports of speech in a vision are left as spoken.

the messenger of God

An angel relays God's words to a prophet in the very phrasing of God's own address, with the construct-term deleted: 'I am the messenger of the God of thy father.' Hence Onkelos could read the 'God' who said 'I will go down' as an angel.

foot, leg (Hebrew רֶגֶל)

Equivocal: (1) the limb ('foot for foot'); (2) following in one's train ('the people that are at thy feet'); (3) causality, 'on account of.'

causality, being the occasion of

The sense of 'on account of me': 'the Lord hath blessed thee on my account' (Gen 30:30); 'at the pace of the work before me' (Gen 33:14). 'His feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives' is the firmness of His causes — the wonders He brings about.

Jonathan ben Uzziel (the Targum of the Prophets)

He renders 'His feet shall stand … on the Mount of Olives' as 'He shall reveal Himself in His might … upon the Mount of Olives,' and so translates every limb or term of violence as 'His might' — meaning the acts that issue from His will.

the throne of His glory

Onkelos refers the pronoun of 'under His feet' (Exod 24:10) to the throne, rendering 'under the throne of His glory' — ascribing the throne not to God (which would imply sitting on a body) but to His glory, the Shekhinah, a created light.

pain, grief (Hebrew עֶצֶב)

Equivocal: (1) pain and suffering ('in pain shalt thou bring forth children'); (2) anger ('his father had not angered him'); (3) opposition and rebellion ('they vexed his holy spirit').

anger, wrath

The second sense of עצב. 'His father had not angered him' = lo atzavo; 'the king was grieved' = anger on his account. Applied to God only figuratively (chapter 36 will limit divine 'anger' to idolatry).

opposition and rebellion

The third sense: 'they rebelled and vexed his holy spirit' (Isa 63:10); 'they provoked him in the wilderness' (Ps 78:40).

'to his heart' / 'in his heart'

An inner resolve a man does not utter to another; said of God for a will He carries out without announcing it to a prophet ('and it grieved Him at His heart,' Gen 6:6; 'the Lord said in His heart,' Gen 8:21). Ties to lev = 'will' (see I:39).

'the Torah speaks in the language of men'

The rabbinic principle (b. Berakhot 31b) that Scripture frames matters in ordinary human idiom — the license for its anthropomorphic and anthropopathic speech.

to eat (Hebrew אָכַל)

Equivocal: the primary sense (an animal taking in food), then two metaphors — destruction (the eaten thing's form perishes) and knowledge/learning (the body grows and endures by food).

stripping away of form (destruction)

The first metaphor: 'eating' as every destroying and annihilating — fire and sword 'consume.' 'He is a consuming fire' = he annihilates rebels as fire annihilates what it seizes.

intellectual apprehensions

The second metaphor: knowledge sustains the human form as food sustains the body — so 'eat,' 'honey,' and 'sweet to the taste' stand for wisdom.

water = knowledge

By extension the Sages named knowledge 'water' ('every one that thirsteth, come to the waters'), and 'hunger'/'thirst' the lack of it ('a famine … of hearing the words of the Lord').

Jonathan ben Uzziel (the Targum of the Prophets)

He renders 'draw water out of the wells of salvation' (Isa 12:3) as 'receive a new teaching from the chosen of the righteous' — reading every word of the verse for knowledge and learning.

the human intellect

Like the senses and bodily powers it has a fixed range: some things barred to it entirely, others apprehended only in part. The whole chapter argues this limit.

limit, boundary

'The human intellect has, beyond doubt, a limit at which it stops.' The disparity among minds is real but not endless.

disagreement, divergence of opinion

Whatever is known by demonstration admits no disagreement; perplexity is very many in divine matters, few in physics, absent in mathematics.

habit and upbringing

Maimonides' fourth cause of error, added to Alexander's three. Men cling to inherited opinions as the desert-dweller prefers his hardships to the comforts of the city — the root of popular corporealism.

Alexander of Aphrodisias (c. 200 CE)

The Peripatetic commentator. His three causes of disagreement: love of dominion and victory; the subtlety of the subject; the inadequacy of the inquirer.

corporealism (ascribing a body to God)

The error into which the multitude fell through habit and a literal reading of texts whose plain sense was meant as parable and riddle.

doubt, perplexity

When a genuine doubt arises, halt at it — do not deceive yourself that there is a demonstration where there is none, and do not rush to deny the undemonstrated.

human perfection

Attained precisely by respecting the intellect's limit — the rank of Rabbi Akiva in the Pardes.

Rabbi Akiva

Of the four who entered the Pardes, he alone 'entered in peace and went out in peace' (b. Ḥagigah 14b) — the model of disciplined speculation in divine matters.

Elisha 'the Other' (Elisha ben Abuya)

He overreached in speculation and apostatized — 'cut the shoots.' The Sages applied to him 'eat honey enough for thee, lest thou vomit it' (Prov 25:16).

the honor of his Maker

'Whoever has no regard for the honor of his Maker' — i.e. who rushes to deny what he cannot yet demonstrate. To 'have regard' is to restrain oneself and halt.

imaginings, false images

When the intellect's light is extinguished by overreaching, the imaginings take over — as false images crowd weakened sight in the sick. The seedbed of vice.

the divine science (metaphysics)

Beginning one's education with it is 'very harmful' — it presupposes the whole order of logic, mathematics, and physics first (cf. I:34).

the mysteries of the Torah

The true opinions were hidden and made riddling — not because they hold any 'evil interior' or undermine the Law, but because untrained intellects cannot yet receive them. Hence also 'secrets' (sodot).

acceptance on authority

What the young, women, and the multitude are given in place of demonstration — correct belief that sets the mind straight toward a thing's existence, short of its essence.

the Account of the Chariot (metaphysics)

Expounded 'not to an individual unless he be wise and understands of his own knowledge,' and then only in 'chapter headings' (rashei peraqim) — the rabbinic rule Maimonides reads as a pedagogy of restraint.

'wise and understanding of his own knowledge'

The two conditions for a student of the secrets: that he have acquired the preparatory sciences (ḥakham), and that he be sharp enough to seize a meaning from the slightest hint (mevin mi-daʿto).

quiddity, essence

The goal of the perfected mind: to conceive things 'by their realities' — their essence — rather than by the imaginings and likenesses given to the beginner.

five causes

The chapter's frame: five causes prevent opening instruction with the divine matters — intrinsic difficulty, deficient minds, long preliminaries, temperament, and bodily distraction.

preliminary studies, propaedeutic

The preparatory sciences that must precede metaphysics. Men crave the 'ends' and reject the preliminaries — but without them the inquirer 'falls into a deep pit.'

logic (first of the preparatory sciences)

Maimonides' order of study: train first in logic, then in mathematics, then in physics, and only after that in the divine science.

in potentiality (vs. bi-l-fiʿl, in actuality)

Man's final perfection is only potential at birth — 'born a wild ass's colt' — and not every potential is brought out to actuality; impediments and lack of training leave most in deficiency.

the moral virtues

Demonstrated to be preliminaries to the rational virtues: perfect intelligibles come only to a man trained in character, of tranquillity and calm (the fourth cause).

natural predispositions, temperament

Some constitutions — too hot-tempered, too lustful, too frivolous — bar perfection 'even with the utmost training'; to strive with such in this science is sheer ignorance.

the Account of the Chariot (metaphysics)

The rabbinic name for the divine science; transmitted only to one wise, humble, sound of temperament — and old enough (R. Eleazar: 'I am not yet old enough'). Cf. I:33.

'the remnant whom the Lord shall call' (Joel 3:5)

The few individuals who can reach the end — and even they only after the preliminaries; 'one of a city, and two of a family.'

the denial of corporeality

NOT among the secrets — it must be declared openly and taught to all, even children and the simple, exactly like the unity of God.

affections, passivity (being acted upon)

Denied of God along with corporeality: 'affection is change, and He is not befallen by change.' No deficiency, hence no affection.

equivocation of the name (homonymy)

His existence, life, and knowledge differ from ours not by degree but in the very species of existence; 'existence' is predicated of God and creatures only homonymously.

the (true) unity of God

Impossible without removing corporeality, since a body is composite of matter and form, 'two by definition,' and divisible — so it cannot be one.

the (divine) attributes

How they are denied of Him and what the ascribed attributes mean — THIS is among the secrets, with creation, providence, will, prophecy, and the divine names. Taken up later in Part I.

the mysteries of the Torah

The genuinely esoteric topics — spoken of only in 'chapter headings,' and only to a qualified person. The denial of corporeality is expressly excluded from them.

idolatry, alien worship

The sole object of Scripture's language of divine 'anger,' 'jealousy,' and 'enmity.' God is never called 'enemy' or 'hater' save of the idolater.

unbelief, infidelity

Defined here as 'believing a thing contrary to what it is.' Its gravity scales with its object: error about God outweighs all error about the cone, the sun, or the sphere.

corporealism (believing God a body)

The chapter's climax: to believe a corporeality or any 'state of a body' of God is graver than idolatry, for it falsifies His very essence.

intermediary

The idolater's real rationale: no one ever thought the cast or carven image created the heavens — it was worshipped as a likeness of an intermediary between man and God ('the first cause according to them').

the Targum of Onkelos (and of Jonathan)

Both Targums 'remove corporeality to the utmost' — their very existence leaves the corporealist without excuse.

to pronounce an unbeliever

Maimonides' precise verdict: 'I do not pronounce an unbeliever one who does not demonstrate the denial of corporeality, but I do pronounce an unbeliever one who does not believe its denial.'

face; presence; divine countenance

The chapter's subject: an equivocal Hebrew term whose most philosophically significant senses are presence (sense 3) and essence-beyond-grasp (from 'my face shall not be seen').

presence, personal station

Maimonides' technical gloss for the third sense of panim: to stand panim el-panim means to be in ḥaḍra — in direct presence, without a mediating intermediary.

intermediary, medium

The absence of a wāsiṭa defines true face-to-face encounter. When Scripture says Moses spoke with God panim el-panim, Maimonides reads it as: presence-to-presence, without an intermediary.

the Separate Intellects

Maimonides, following Onkelos, identifies 'my face' as pointing to the Separate Intellects — the highest created beings, always in God's presence yet themselves beyond human comprehension.

care, oversight, providence

The sixth sense of panim: bearing one's face toward something in concern. 'May the Lord lift His face toward you and give you peace' (Num 6:26) means: may He extend His providential care to you.

Onkelos's interpretation / Targum

Onkelos renders 'my face shall not be seen' as 'that which is before Me shall not be seen' — interpreted by Maimonides as pointing to the Separate Intellects, a level of existence beyond human comprehension.

back, behind; that which follows

The chapter's subject. Its second sense — following in the track of someone's way — allows Maimonides to read 'you shall see My back' as 'you shall see what follows from Me,' i.e., God's effects in creation.

tracing the track, following in the footsteps

The technical gloss for aḥor in its second sense. To walk 'after God' (aḥarei Adonai) means to trace His acts and assimilate to His attributes of action.

My creatures, that which I created

Maimonides' gloss on 'you shall see My back': the existents God has created are what one may apprehend — they are the 'back' of God, the trace left in the wake of His governance.

following, consequence, aftermath

The existents that follow from God's being are what the prophet may apprehend. 'My back' = that which comes after Me, in the ontological sense of downstream effects.

heart; intellect (dominant philosophical sense)

The chapter's subject. In every Scriptural occurrence where lev is attributed to God, Maimonides reads it as al-ʿaql (intellect), not as the blood organ.

the intellect, reason

The sixth and philosophically central sense of lev. 'A man devoid of lev will become wise' (Job 11:12) — the lev here is the intellect that makes a person truly human.

thought, reflection, inner attention

The third sense of lev: mental attention or deliberative thought. 'My heart was not with me' means: I was not attending in thought to what occurred.

will, desire, intention

The fifth sense of lev, and the sense in which lev is attributed to God in most passages. 'As it is in My heart and in My soul' (1 Sam 2:35) means: according to My will and My purpose.

opinion, considered judgment

The fourth sense of lev: settled opinion or judgment. 'All the remnant of Israel, of one heart to make David king' (1 Chr 12:39) — meaning: of one opinion.

powers, faculties

Used in Maimonides' gloss on 'with all your heart': the heart is the origin of all the body's powers; to love God with all one's heart means to direct all those powers toward apprehending Him.

wind; breath; spirit; divine overflow

The chapter's subject — one of the most semantically rich words in the Hebrew Bible. Every ruach attributed to God falls under the fifth sense (intellectual overflow to prophets) or the sixth sense (will/purpose).

the divine intellectual overflow

The fifth sense of ruach: the emanation that descends on the prophets enabling prophecy. This is Maimonides' bridge from the lexical chapter to his later theory of prophecy.

air (the element)

The first sense of ruach — the elemental air. 'And the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters' (Gen 1:2) is taken here in the elemental sense.

purpose and will

The sixth sense of ruach attributed to God. 'The spirit of the Lord spoke in me' becomes an expression of divine purposive ordering, not a description of a divine substance or organ.

prophecy

The context for the fifth sense of ruach. Maimonides promises a fuller discussion 'when we speak of prophecy' — a pointer to Part II of the Guide.

soul; life-principle; person; will

The chapter's subject. All five senses are attested in Scripture; when attributed to God, nefesh always means will (al-irāda).

the rational soul, the human form

The third sense of nefesh: the specifically human form that constitutes the person. This is the sense in which 'the Lord made this nefesh for us' (Jer 38:16) is read by Maimonides.

blood

The second sense of nefesh, derived from the identification of life with blood: 'you shall not eat the nefesh with the flesh' (Deut 12:23) — meaning the blood.

will, desire, intention (sense of nefesh when attributed to God)

The key theological sense. Every divine nefesh in Scripture expresses purposive will, not a soul-substance. 'As it is in My heart and in My soul' = according to My will and purpose.

the Aramaic Targum of the Prophets

Jonathan's Targum is cited here as an instance where the translator took nefesh in its first (animal) sense and produced an anthropomorphic rendering that Maimonides finds theologically problematic.

living; life; intellectual perfection

When attributed to God, ḥai cannot mean biological life (which would imply a body). It means the intellect in its most perfect and unqualified operation.

the acquisition of knowledge

The dominant metaphorical sense of ḥayyim in Scripture: 'life' = the acquisition of true knowledge and correct opinions. The righteous 'live' because they have acquired the intellect; the wicked are 'dead' because they have not.

severe illness, near-death sickness

The second sense of ḥai: recovery from severe, near-fatal illness. 'Nabal's heart died within him' (1 Sam 25:37) means he fell into this near-death state, not that he literally died.

correct opinions

What 'life' (ḥayyim) ultimately means in the metaphorical sense: correct opinions = intellectual perfection. 'Wrong opinions' are correspondingly called 'death.'

wing; hem; extremity; concealment

The chapter's subject. When attributed to God or angels, kanaf means sitr (concealment/shelter), not a literal wing.

concealment, shelter, hiddenness

Maimonides' key gloss — following Ibn Janāḥ — for kanaf when applied to God or the angels. 'To take refuge under His wings' means: to seek shelter in His hidden protection.

Rabbi Jonah ibn Janāḥ (d. ca. 1050), grammarian of Arabic Jewry

Maimonides relies on Ibn Janāḥ's lexical analysis to establish the concealment sense of kanaf — citing his comment on 'and your teacher shall no longer hide (yikanef) from you' (Is 30:20).

the angels (= Separate Intellects)

For Maimonides, the angels are not corporeal beings — they are Separate Intellects. The wing-imagery in prophetic vision is purely metaphorical, serving to convey their mode of existence.

his face and his feet (of the seraph)

In Isaiah 6, the seraph covers its face (its cause of existence — unknowable) and its feet (its effects — equally hidden), with two wings each. The third pair of wings alone is for flight — the only aspect Scripture attributes openly.

eye; spring; providential care

The chapter's subject. In its third sense (ʿinaya = providential oversight), ʿayin is the dominant mode of its use when attributed to God in Scripture.

providential care, oversight, attention

The decisive theological gloss for ʿayin when attributed to God. 'The eyes of the Lord your God are upon it' (Deut 11:12) = His providence encompasses it.

intellectual apprehension

When ʿayin appears with an explicit verb of seeing, the sense is intellectual apprehension — not sensory perception. God perceives through intellect, which involves no affection or alteration.

affection, passivity, being acted upon

The defining characteristic of all sensation: every sense organ undergoes change through stimulation (infiʿāl). Since God is pure act and wholly unaffected, He cannot have sense organs in any literal sense.

hearing; heeding/accepting; knowing

The chapter's subject. Three senses — literal audition, acceptance of prayer, and intellectual knowledge. Only the second and third apply to God.

acceptance, favorable response (to prayer)

The second sense of shemaʿ. When God 'hears' a cry or prayer in Scripture, it means He has responded favorably — or, in negative constructions, that He has withheld response.

knowledge and understanding

The third sense of shemaʿ. 'A nation whose language you do not know' (Deut 28:49) — literally: whose language you do not comprehend. When attributed to God, hearing = intellectual knowledge.

the metaphors, figures of speech

The collective term for all the anthropomorphic expressions studied in these chapters. The chapter's closing promise is that their meanings will all become clear in a subsequent fuller treatment.

guiding to the existence (of a thing)

The chapter's opening distinction: guiding someone to the existence of a thing (via accidents, actions, or distant relations) is entirely different from establishing its quiddity or essential nature.

the sultan (figure in Maimonides' parable)

The central parable: one can identify a sultan to someone who does not know him via many indirect pointers — none of them convey his essential nature, yet all point to his existence.

the multitude, the common people

Those for whom the Torah's corporeal language was primarily intended: people who can only conceive existence through corporeality, life through motion, and knowledge through the senses.

the corporeal instruments (organs)

The bodily organs metaphorically attributed to God. Each organ points to an action; the action points to a perfection; the perfection points to God's nature — without any of the organs being literally present.

the overflow of the intellects upon the prophets

The true referent of divine 'speech' (lips, tongue, voice): not literal phonation but the emanation of intellectual content to the prophetic faculty — the mechanism of prophecy.

the Rabbinic midrash on Genesis

Cited at the chapter's close for the saying 'Great is the power of the prophets, who liken the form to its Creator' — which Maimonides reads as the Sages' explicit disclaimer that prophetic imagery depicts created forms, not the Creator's essence.

to borrow (a term), use metaphorically

The key verb throughout: Scripture 'borrows' or 'appropriates' terms for God that would in their literal use imply bodiliness, but which in their metaphorical sense can convey legitimate attributes.

deficiency, imperfection

The criterion for whether a term may be applied to God: anything the multitude perceives as implying deficiency is excluded; anything perceivable as a perfection may be borrowed.

perception, apprehension

Used broadly for all cognitive contact with an object — sensory or intellectual. The chapter argues that all five senses are equally 'deficient' as categories of divine perception; only certain ones are attributed to God because their attribution misleads less.

imagination, fancy

Maimonides contrasts khayāl (imagination) with fikr/fahm (rational thought). God is not attributed raʿyon (the Hebrew equivalent of imagination/fancy) but is attributed maḥshavah and tevunah, which the multitude associates with intellect.

the senses

All five senses are, in Maimonides' analysis, equally deficient as forms of perception — they are passive, receptive, and dependent on physical contact or distance. The chapter explains why Scripture attributes hearing, sight, and smell to God but never taste or touch.

the Targum of Onkelos

The authoritative Aramaic translation of the Torah, which Maimonides treats as a rigorous philosophical commentary. Onkelos systematically removes anthropomorphic implications by paraphrase.

before (Aramaic), 'before the Lord'

Onkelos's standard device: instead of 'the Lord heard,' he writes 'it was heard before the Lord' — turning the active divine hearing into a relational state, not a sensory act.

it was revealed (Aramaic)

Onkelos's preferred paraphrase when 'seeing' is connected with oppression or distress: 'it was revealed before the Lord' — implying that God's awareness entails response and commitment to justice.

to perceive, apprehend (Aramaic)

An Aramaic verb that functions as a polyseme: it can indicate both sensory seeing and intellectual apprehension. Onkelos uses it for neutral contexts; Maimonides notes that its range of meaning makes it theologically safer than a direct 'he saw.'

manuscript copy, recension

Maimonides refers to variant manuscript copies of the Targum. His suspicion that three anomalous passages reflect scribal error shows his method of textual criticism applied to paratextual tradition.

separate intellects, intellects separate from matter

Maimonides' philosophical category for angels: they are not bodies, not in matter, but pure intellects created by God. The terminology comes from Aristotelian-Islamic philosophy (the separated intelligences of the celestial spheres).

the prophetic vision

The visionary state in which prophets perceive angels. Maimonides insists that all the anthropomorphic descriptions of angels — including wings and human form — occur only within this state, not as reports of literal physical reality.

the imaginative faculty

The faculty responsible for prophetic visions. Maimonides locates all angelic imagery within it: the prophetic imagination clothes the reception of intellectual forms in bodily images.

wing

Wings are attributed to angels not to describe their anatomy but to hint at the nature of their existence — they are alive and active, with a mode of rapid presence analogous to flight. Wings appear in different numbers according to the number of causal factors in the entity's motion.

the living creatures (of Ezekiel's vision)

The four-faced figures in Ezekiel 1 — with faces of man, lion, ox, and eagle. Maimonides reserves their full interpretation for a later section; here he notes only that the animal features serve a deliberate purpose of distinguishing angelic from divine existence.

belief, conviction

For Maimonides, genuine iʿtiqād requires first forming a correct mental conception (taṣawwur) and then affirming that this conception obtains in reality. Recitation without conception is not belief at all.

divine unity, the oneness of God

Maimonides distinguishes mere numerical oneness from true tawḥīd, which means God is unique in kind — there is no composition, division, or multiplicity of meanings in His essence whatsoever.

mental conception, representation

The necessary precondition of genuine belief: one must first form the concept (taṣawwur) before one can affirm it (taṣdīq). Without conception, speech is empty.

certainty, demonstrative knowledge

The highest epistemic state: a belief such that its opposite cannot even be conceived, nor can any mental space for doubt be found. Maimonides distinguishes this from mere opinion (ẓann).

first intelligibles, primary rational principles

Self-evident propositions that require no proof, analogous to first principles in mathematics. Maimonides classifies the non-identity of an attribute with its subject as a first intelligible — the bedrock of the anti-attribute argument.

accident (in Aristotelian logic)

A property that is additional to the essence of a thing and not constitutive of it. If God had essential attributes additional to His essence, they would be accidents — implying composition and multiplicity, which is impossible in a truly simple being.

simplicity, non-composite nature

The positive formulation of divine unity: God is absolutely simple — no composition, no multiplicity of meanings, no divisibility in any direction. True tawḥīd requires affirming basāṭa maḥḍa (pure simplicity).

composition, compositeness

The philosophical impossibility Maimonides seeks to exclude from God: any composition — whether of body and form, substance and attribute, or essential properties — implies that something is prior to the composite and constitutes it.

states, modes (theological concept)

A position advanced by some mutakallimūn: attributes are 'states' (aḥwāl) — neither identical to the essence nor extraneous to it. Maimonides dismisses this as an empty verbal formulation, existing only in language, not in any coherent ontology.

definition (logical)

In Aristotelian logic, the complete definition that states the essence of a thing. Maimonides shows it cannot apply to God because a definition implies causes that constituted the thing defined — but God has no prior causes.

quality (Aristotelian category)

Aristotle's highest genus for the category of quality, encompassing four sub-genera: habits/dispositions of the soul (including knowledge, character), natural powers (softness, hardness), passional affections (anger, color), and quantitative properties (length, curvature).

relation, relational attribute

The fourth type of attribute: predicating a thing's relation to time, place, or another entity. Maimonides argues that true relations require that the two relata share a common genus — but God shares no genus with any creature; hence no real relation obtains.

attribute of action

The only admissible type of divine attribute: predicating not what God is but what He does. 'God created the heavens' or 'God is merciful' (in the sense that He acts mercifully) — these describe His actions, not an internal state or quality. Multiple such attributes imply no multiplicity in His essence.

necessary existent

God's ontological status: His existence is not received from another, not possible, but necessary in itself. This is why relational attributes produce no symmetrical reciprocity with creatures — necessary existence is in an entirely different ontological category.

those who truly affirm divine unity

Maimonides' self-description for his own position and that of genuine philosophical monotheists: those who affirm not merely verbal oneness but the radical metaphysical simplicity that rules out any attribute additional to the divine essence.

attributes of His actions

Maimonides' conclusion: all the attributes mentioned in Scripture refer to God's actions, not to any quality of His essence. 'Merciful,' 'gracious,' 'jealous,' 'avenging' — all these describe patterns of divine action observable in creation.

the rational faculty

Maimonides' analogy: the human rational faculty is one simple power, yet it produces carpentry, weaving, architecture, geometry, and governance. Similarly, God's one simple essence produces all the diverse effects in creation.

the four attributes (life, power, knowledge, will)

The standard essential attributes affirmed by most mutakallimūn: ḥayy (living), qādir (powerful), ʿālim (knowing), murīd (willing). Maimonides argues that each, upon analysis, refers to God's relation to creatures, not to an internal quality of His essence.

imitation, assimilation to

In the context of the chapter's moral conclusion: a human ruler should imitate (tashabbuh) the divine attributes — acting mercifully, graciously, and with restraint not from passion but from considered judgment of what is fitting.

ways (of God), divine patterns of action

Moses asks 'Make known to me Your ways' — not God's essence but His patterns of action in the world. Maimonides shows that 'ways' and 'attributes' (middot) are synonymous: both refer to the actions God performs, from which names are derived.

attributes, measures, qualities (of divine action)

The rabbinic term for the thirteen attributes of Ex 34:6–7. Maimonides notes that the Sages use middot broadly for character traits (e.g. 'four middot among almsgivers') — here it means the thirteen patterns of God's action.

the thirteen divine attributes (Ex 34:6–7)

Merciful, gracious, long-suffering, abundant in lovingkindness, true, keeping lovingkindness, bearing iniquity, transgression, and sin, not clearing (the guilty), visiting iniquity upon children and grandchildren. These are not God's qualities but patterns of His action in creation.

the ruler of the city, statesman

The chapter's moral target: the prophet-statesman must emulate the divine attributes. He must act with mercy and severity according to what justice requires, not according to his passions — this is what 'imitating God' means in practice.

imitation, assimilation (to God's attributes)

The chapter's ethical conclusion: the highest human aspiration is to imitate God's thirteen attributes in one's actions — acting from considered judgment, not passion, as God acts without passion or inner change.

four categories (of what must be negated of God)

The four types: corporeality, affective states and change, potentiality (anything 'potential' rather than actually present), and similarity to creatures. Anything implying any of these four must be negated of God by strict demonstration.

affective state, passivity, being acted upon

Every passional or emotional state is an infiʿāl — a being-acted-upon. Maimonides argues that this entails that some other being is the agent causing the change; hence God, who has no external cause and does not change, cannot have any infiʿāl.

potentially and actually (Aristotelian)

Potentiality (quwwa) and actuality (fiʿl) — the Aristotelian distinction. Maimonides argues that anything possessing potentiality is necessarily deficient, because potential being implies the possibility of not-yet-being, and requires an external agent to actualize it.

likening God to creatures

The fourth category that must be negated: any similarity between God and any creature. Scripture explicitly states 'To whom will you liken Me?' — establishing that unlike all four categories of attributes, this negation is one that even the general public intuits.

natural science, natural philosophy

Maimonides insists that without natural philosophy one cannot properly understand the four negations — specifically the concepts of potentiality/actuality and the principle that potential being entails deficiency and dependence on an external mover.

relation, ratio, proportion

The foundational concept of the chapter: no ratio or relation of any kind holds between God and any other existing thing. Without relation, similarity (tashābuh) is equally impossible.

resemblance, similarity

Similarity requires shared genus-membership. Because God belongs to no genus, no resemblance with anything else is conceivable.

pure homonymy / absolute equivocity

Terms like 'existent,' 'living,' 'knowing' are applied to God and to creatures with no shared meaning whatsoever — they share only the word-form.

pros-hen equivocity / analogy of attribution

Terms said of things that share a partial resemblance in some respect. Maimonides explicitly rules out even this weaker form of predication for God.

essential attributes

Attributes allegedly intrinsic to God's essence — 'existing, living, powerful, knowing, willing.' Maimonides argues these cannot be predicated of God in the same sense as of creatures.

the Necessarily Existent

The technical Avicennan term for God: the being whose non-existence is impossible, and in whom existence is not an accident added to essence but identical with it.

His existence is His essence

The identity of wujūd and dhāt in God: for all other beings existence is an added attribute; in God the two are one.

eternal / pre-existent

Technically a relational term involving time, and therefore improper for God — but permitted as a necessary linguistic approximation to negate God's having come-to-be.

one, not through oneness

Maimonides' precise formulation: unity is a quantity-predicate that cannot be added to God's essence; He is one, but not by possessing the attribute 'unity.'

absolutely simple

The Aristotelian/Neoplatonic attribute of having no composition whatsoever — no matter/form, subject/attribute, genus/differentia. God is 'simple in the extreme of simplicity.'

negative attributes

The only legitimate mode of describing God: each negation excludes a deficiency, bringing the mind closer to the truth without ever adding anything to the conception of the essence.

affirmative / positive attributes

Positive predications that are inadmissible for God's essence because they imply composition — either a part of substance or an accident added to it.

particularization / specification

The logical work of a predicate: both positive and negative attributes 'particularize' by excluding some range of possibilities, but only negative attributes do so without revealing any positive content.

composition, multiplicity of parts

Any positive attribute of essence implies that the described thing is composite — that the attribute is an addition to the essence. This is impossible for the absolutely simple God.

thatness / existence-as-fact

We apprehend only God's anniyya (that He exists) — never His māhiyya (what He is). No attribute of essence is therefore possible, because essence-attributes require knowledge of the quiddity.

negation by proof / demonstrated negation

The key distinction between genuine theological progress and mere verbal denial: a negation demonstrated by rational proof brings the knower one degree closer to God.

silence is praise (Ps 65:2)

The Psalm verse that Maimonides treats as the philosophical apex: silence that arises from understanding the inadequacy of all positive praise is the highest form of worship.

My name that is unique to Me

Rabbi Ḥanina's principle about the Tetragrammaton, invoked here to underscore that even the liturgically fixed praises were only accepted under two constraints of necessity.

apostasy and blasphemy

Maimonides' verdict on piyyuṭim (liturgical poems) that describe God in unauthorized positive terms: those who hear them commit inadvertent blasphemy; the author who understands their deficiency and recites them commits willful sacrilege.

the elite / the intellectually accomplished

Those for whom true veneration of God consists not in multiplying verbal praise but in understanding as much as the intellect can — the contrast class to the multitude (al-jumhūr).

the ship (the parable-object)

The parable-object used to illustrate how accumulating negations progressively specifies even without any positive content. The last person in the series comes closest to grasping the ship's nature.

the name / the nominal

Maimonides asks whether a name falls on a substance or an accident — what the name actually denotes. The positive-attribute theologian ultimately fixes the divine name onto an 'absolute non-existent.'

subject bearing predicates

The Aristotelian subject-predicate structure: to say God is a 'subject with attributes' is to impose composition on absolute simplicity, and thus necessarily implies multiplicity.

pure non-existence

The devastating conclusion: one who predicates positive attributes of God has affixed the divine name to a concept that describes nothing real — pure non-existence.

degree (of cognitive proximity)

Each demonstrated negation advances the knower by one degree in the direction of God — not physical nearness but epistemic proximity.

proper noun / name coined for the referent alone

A technical Arabic grammatical term for a name coined directly for its referent without derivation from a descriptive root. Only the Tetragrammaton is such a name for God.

derived name / descriptive noun

A name derived from a verbal root that carries descriptive content — like Elohim (from governance), Shaddai (from sufficiency), Adonai (from lordship). All divine names except YHWH are of this type.

the Explicit / Specified Name

Rabbinic designation for the Tetragrammaton: the name that specifies God's essence alone, without being shared with any creature.

My name unique to Me

The rabbinic formula for the Tetragrammaton's uniqueness: it belongs to God alone, shared with no creature, because it carries no descriptive borrowing.

My Lord (substitute for the Tetragrammaton)

Maimonides notes that Adonai with qameṣ-nun is a generalized form of the possessive 'my lord' (adoni with ḥiriq-nun). Even this familiar substitute is a derived, descriptive noun — unlike the Tetragrammaton itself.

The 12-Letter Name

Maimonides argues this was not a single 12-letter word but a substitute phrase of two or three words totaling 12 letters — used in place of the Tetragrammaton in provincial liturgy when its direct pronunciation had already been restricted.

The 42-Letter Name

A sequence of multiple words totaling 42 letters — a theological formulation conveying divine knowledge. The Talmud requires exceptional character qualifications for transmission, showing it was intellectual content not magical letters.

swallowing / absorbing into the melody

The priestly technique of pronouncing the 12-letter name by burying it within the melody sung by fellow priests — an early form of esoteric transmission.

dissolute persons / scoundrels

Those who abused knowledge of the 12-letter Name, prompting its restriction. Maimonides uses them as a type for all magical misuse of esoteric traditions.

I am what I am / I will be what I will be (Ex 3:14)

Maimonides reads this as the grammatical encoding of necessary existence: the subject and predicate are identical, declaring that the essence is the existence — the Existent that is simply the Existent.

the Necessarily Existent — enciphered in the name

The name 'Ehyeh asher Ehyeh' encodes the philosophical concept of necessary existence: the being whose non-existence is impossible and whose existence is identical with its essence.

the Sabians / star-worshippers

The dominant religious system Maimonides ascribes to the ancient Near East: claiming prophetic authority from spiritual influxes of planets and heavenly spheres. Moses' mission was the first to claim divine authority from God Himself.

Almighty / He who suffices Himself

Maimonides derives Shaddai from the root 'di' (sufficiency): 'He whose existence suffices for everything He brought into existence without needing anything beyond Himself.'

What is His name?

The question Moses anticipated from the Israelites — not a request for phonetic information but a challenge to Moses' theological credentials: 'Who is this God that sent you?'

the Name of God — three senses

Maimonides distinguishes: (1) pure naming; (2) the divine essence; (3) the divine command/word. Failing to distinguish these produces errors about divine speech and the prophetic office.

the Glory of God — three senses

Maimonides distinguishes: (1) the created light at Sinai/Tabernacle; (2) the divine essence itself; (3) the honor all creation gives God through demonstrating His wisdom. The confusion of senses 1 and 2 creates the false impression of divine corporeality.

the whole earth is full of His glory (Isa 6:3)

Interpreted through the third sense of kavod: all of creation gives honor to God by demonstrating through its very nature the power and wisdom of its Maker.

for My name is in his midst (Ex 23:21)

Maimonides reads this as 'My word/command is in his midst' — shem in the third sense of divine utterance/command. This resolves the apparent paradox of an intermediary bearing the divine name.

speech and utterance

The two Hebrew verbs dibber and amar, both meaning 'to speak/say.' Maimonides establishes they are equivocal: their literal sense is vocal articulation; their metaphorical sense, when attributed to God, is will or creative decree.

will and volition

Divine 'speech' in Scripture is ultimately a metaphor for divine will. The word 'And God said' in Genesis means: God willed that this thing come into existence.

created voice/sound

When the prophets 'heard' divine speech — as at Sinai — what they received was a created acoustic phenomenon, not emanation from a divine mouth. The voice was made, not eternal.

metonymy, figurative expression

The technical rhetorical term for indirect or figurative speech. Maimonides uses it to describe how prophetic locutions about God 'speaking' are to be read: not literally but as kināya for something non-acoustic.

equivocation, homonymy

The Arabo-Hebrew technical term for a word that bears multiple unrelated senses — here applied to dibber/amar: the same verb covers both physical speech and metaphorical divine decree.

the work/act of God

Literally 'the handiwork of God' — here interpreted not as manual fabrication but as direct natural causation, contrasted with human conventional manufacture (ṣināʿa).

the finger of God

Metaphorical for divine action/power. As Maimonides showed earlier (I:46), 'finger' attributed to God is a metonym for efficacious act, not a literal limb.

natural, not conventional/manufactured

The key distinction: 'the work of God' means natural — arising directly from God without human craft — as opposed to tablets shaped by artisans.

the Aramaic Targum of Onkelos

Onkelos renders 'written by the finger of God' as 'written by a command of the Lord' — an audacious paraphrase that Maimonides examines for its philosophical motive.

ceased, desisted

The primary verb describing God's Sabbath rest (Gen 2:2–3). Maimonides interprets it as cessation of creative activity, not rest from weariness.

rest, repose

A synonym of shavat in the Sabbath context. The chapter traces multiple senses of the root nwḥ in Scripture — cessation of speech, physical resting — and shows how each applies to God only metaphorically.

'and He was refreshed/rested' (Ex 31:17)

The most anthropomorphic of the Sabbath verbs: nefesh in its sense of desire or will. Maimonides reads it as 'and His will/purpose was complete' — not a recovery of energy.

the createdness/origination of the world

The kalam technical term for the doctrine that the universe had a temporal beginning — the opposite of qidam (eternity). The Sabbath is the weekly commemoration of this bounded creation event.

the bringing-into-existence, creation ex nihilo

The creative act described in Genesis 1–2: God originating existence where there was none — not shaping pre-existing matter but bringing matter itself into being.

intellect / intellector / intelligible

The triad of Aristotelian noetic terms: the faculty (ʿaql), the subject who exercises it (ʿāqil), and the object known by it (maʿqūl). In God these three are numerically one.

in potency and in act

Aristotle's distinction between potential and actual intellect. When intellect is in potency it is two things (faculty + potential object); when in act the intellect and its object are identical. God is pure intellect in act, with no potency at all.

no potentiality in Him whatsoever

The crucial premise: God has no potentiality, no unrealized capacity. He is entirely and always in act. This is why the usual tripartite distinction does not apply to Him.

numerically one (identical)

Not merely generically or specifically the same, but numerically identical — one in number. In God, intellect, intellector, and intelligible are not three things that resemble one another but are the very same thing.

cause and reason

The Aristotelian four causes: material, formal, efficient, and final. The philosophers called God 'cause' (ʿilla) to subsume all three roles He plays: efficient, formal, and final cause.

the form of the world

God is called the form of the world not in the sense of a form inhering in matter, but as the ultimate ground that gives existence to all forms — as form gives a thing its being and definition.

the end of ends, ultimate final cause

Every finite purpose leads back to a further purpose, until one reaches the ultimate final cause. That final cause is God Himself — or, more precisely, the perfection that is His essence, toward which all things tend.

the Life of the worlds

A divine epithet whose philosophical import, Maimonides explains, is that God is the life of the world — just as a form gives a composite its life and existence, God sustains the entire cosmos.

rider of the heavens

The divine epithet from Deut 33:26 and Ps 68:5. Maimonides reads 'riding' as mastery and governance — God controls the outermost sphere as a rider controls a mount, without being a force within it.

the highest heaven

Identified by the Rabbis (b. Ḥagigah) as the uppermost of seven firmaments; Maimonides equates it with the outermost celestial sphere (al-falak al-aqṣā), which encompasses and moves all the others.

separate, transcendent (not immanent)

A key philosophical term: God is mufāriq — separate from the sphere, not a force within it. The Rabbis' choice of 'dwelling above it' (shokhén ʿālāv) rather than 'within it' (shokhén bo) encodes this philosophical point.

chariot; a group of riding animals

The Rabbis called the divine Throne-chariot merkāvāh, by analogy with four horses pulling a chariot — the four ḥayyot of Ezekiel's vision. The term also applies literally to a four-horse team.

the practitioners of kalām (speculative theology)

Islamic (and later Jewish) theologians who used philosophical argumentation in defense of religious doctrine. Maimonides distinguishes two schools: Muʿtazilites (more rationalist) and Ashʿarites (more traditionalist).

the science of kalam, speculative theology

The Islamic discipline of rational theology, characterized by Maimonides as building arguments in reverse order: starting from desired conclusions (creation, unity, incorporeality) and constructing premises to support them.

the eternity or createdness of the world

The central question around which kalam revolves: was the world eternal (qadīm) or temporally created (ḥādith)? Maimonides argues this question is unresolvable by demonstration, but that God's existence can be proved using either assumption.

demonstration vs. dialectic

Aristotle's distinction between apodictic proof (certain from true premises) and dialectical argument (persuasive but not necessary). The mutakallimūn, Maimonides charges, conflate these: their proofs are dialectical dressed as demonstrations.

the Muʿtazilites and the Ashʿarites

The two main schools of Islamic kalam. The Muʿtazilites (rationalist) and Ashʿarites (traditionalist, more voluntarist). Maimonides notes that Jewish thinkers like the Geonim and Karaites borrowed from both schools.

a single individual

The key claim of the chapter: the entire universe is 'a single individual' in the way a human being is a single individual — not an aggregate but an organic unity with one principle of governance.

the outermost sphere

The outermost celestial sphere in Aristotelian-Ptolemaic cosmology, which encompasses all others and whose daily rotation drives the motion of all subordinate spheres. Analogous to the heart in the human body.

the fifth body (quintessence/aether)

The Aristotelian fifth element — the material of the celestial spheres, distinct from the four sublunary elements (earth, water, air, fire). Unchanging, capable only of local motion.

the acquired intellect

The highest level of human intellectual development — the intellect that has fully actualized its potential by acquiring the intelligibles. It is genuinely separate from the body, not a force within it. Maimonides uses it as the best analogy for God's relation to the world.

the atom, the indivisible substance

Premise 1: the basic unit of matter is an indivisible particle — the kalām atom. This is distinct from Aristotelian matter, which is infinitely divisible. The atom is the foundation of kalām physics.

the void

Premise 2: empty space (the void) exists. Required for atomist physics to explain motion: atoms must have empty space to move into.

an accident does not persist for two moments

Premise 6: accidents (properties) are recreated by God at every moment — they do not persist. This is the basis for the occasionalist doctrine of continuous divine creation.

the permissibility principle

Premise 10: whatever is imaginable is possible; whatever cannot be imagined is impossible. Maimonides devotes the longest discussion to refuting this, arguing that imagination is not the criterion of possibility.

premises, propositions

The technical term for the premises of an argument. The chapter's structural term: the twelve muqaddimāt of the kalām, each stated and then elaborated.

the createdness / temporal origination of the world

The key kalām doctrine: the world had a beginning in time. The mutakallimūn devote seven methods to proving this, which Maimonides summarizes and critiques.

specification, particularization

Method 5, the mutakallimūn's favorite: the world has a specific form when it could equally well have had another — someone must have specified this particular form. This argument from divine specification is Maimonides' own preferred argument as well.

possible in existence, contingent

A being whose existence is merely possible, not necessary — the world is such a being. Used in Method 6 to argue for creation.

divine unity, monotheism

The second great kalām project after proving creation: demonstrating that the Creator is numerically one. The mutakallimūn employ five methods, which Maimonides subjects to critique.

mutual hindrance, mutual obstruction

The most popular kalām proof of unity: if there were two gods, each could hinder the other's will, making the universe ungovernable. Maimonides shows this presupposes the kalam premises on atoms and accidents.

differentiation, mutual otherness

Method 2: any two distinct entities must share a genus and differ in some specifying property; two gods would require such differentiation, which implies composition incompatible with divinity. Maimonides notes this is genuinely philosophical — he will return to it when presenting the philosophers' proofs.

corporealism, anthropomorphism

The doctrine — firmly rejected by Maimonides and the mutakallimūn alike — that God has a body. Chapter 76 reviews the kalām refutations of tajsīm, which Maimonides considers the weakest part of the kalām system.

likening, resemblance to creatures

Method 2 against corporealism: God cannot resemble His creatures; if He were a body, He would resemble bodies. Maimonides exposes two objections: (a) the premise that God does not resemble creation in any respect is unproven, and (b) the celestial bodies are 'body' only equivocally, opening a sophisticated corporealist rebuttal.

the philosophical premises

The premises of the Aristotelian philosophers, as distinct from the kalām premises; the starting point of Part II, where Maimonides will demonstrate the three theological conclusions (existence, unity, incorporeality) on genuinely philosophical grounds.