Aligned sentence by sentence
, ,
...the inorganic, the vegetable, the animal, the celestial bodies, and the angels — and scripture negated all five from resembling the Creator or being resembled by Him:
, ,
Regarding the most precious of the inorganic — gold and silver — it says: 'To whom will you liken Me, equate Me, compare Me, so that we resemble each other? Those who lavish gold from the pouch and weigh silver with the balance' (Is. 46:5–6);
, .
His saying, exalted be His majesty, 'to whom will you liken and equate Me' negates that anything resembles Him; and His saying 'compare Me, so that we resemble each other' negates that He resembles anything.
, .
Regarding the most precious of vegetation — cedar and oak — it says: 'To whom will you liken God, and what likeness will you set beside Him? The idol cast by a craftsman, overlaid with gold by a smith — shall the poor choose for an offering wood that will not rot?' (Is. 40:18–20).
.
Regarding all the animal kingdom it says: 'Watch yourselves very carefully, since you saw no form on the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire — lest you act corruptly and make a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal on earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish in the water below the earth' (Deut. 4:15–18).
.
Regarding the celestial bodies it says: 'To whom will you liken Me, that I should be equal? — says the Holy One. Lift your eyes on high and see: Who created these, who brings out their host by number?' (Is. 40:25–26).
. ,
Regarding the angels it says: 'For who in the heavens can be compared to the Lord? Who among the sons of the mighty resembles the Lord?' (Ps. 89:7). Scripture thus gathered all existing things and negated that they resemble the Creator or that the Creator resembles them.
, ,
These explicit statements are the foundations to rely upon, and every ambiguous expression must be referred back to them, interpreted in light of what agrees with them from the figures of language,
, ,
Among these is scripture's saying: 'God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him' (Gen. 1:27) — I will demonstrate that this is in the mode of honorific distinction:
,
for just as all the lands belong to Him yet He distinguished one of them by saying 'this is My land,' and all the mountains are His yet He distinguished one mountain by saying 'this
Aligned sentence by sentence
, , .
...is My mountain' — so too all forms belong to Him yet He distinguished one form by saying 'this is My form,' by way of specific designation, not corporealization.
, ,
Among these is scripture's saying: 'For the Lord your God is a consuming fire' (Deut. 4:24) — I will demonstrate that it means He is like fire in punishing and destroying those who deny and lie;
, . .
and I find in the language comparison without 'like' (the explicit comparative particle), as in 'who brought you out of the iron furnace' (Deut. 4:20) — meaning 'as from an iron furnace'; and also 'after a dead dog, after a single flea' (1 Sam. 24:15) — meaning 'like a dead dog, like a single flea.'
. .
And also: 'the faces of a lion — their faces, of the Gadites' (1 Chr. 12:9) — meaning 'like the faces of a lion.' So too 'a consuming fire He is' means 'like a consuming fire He punishes.'
, , . ,
Then: regarding 'substance' — I say that the meaning of substance entails two things that cannot be said of the Creator: first, measurable length, width, and depth; and second, parts and joints that separate and connect with each other;
.
and none of this can be said of the Creator — as proven by rational inference, by scripture, and by received tradition.
, , .
As for the rational proof: these joints and compositions are precisely what we sought a Creator for — as our intellect demanded, and we found Him — so that nothing of them remains without having entered under the meaning that He is their maker.
, . , ,
As for the scriptural proof: it is as I set out above — 'lest you act corruptly,' and the rest of the passage. As for the proof from received tradition: we find that the sages of our community — those whom we entrust with our religion — wherever they encountered such anthropomorphism, never translated it corporeally but referred it to what agrees with the established principle;
, ,
for they were the disciples of the prophets and more perceptive of the prophets' words — had they understood these expressions in their corporeal sense they would have translated them as they are; but what the prophets conveyed to them, beyond what their intellects told them, was that
Aligned sentence by sentence
,
...these corporeal expressions were intended to convey noble and exalted meanings — and so they translated them according to what was established for them:
- , - , - , - , .
Among these: they translated 'Behold, the hand of the Lord' as 'Behold, a stroke from before the Lord'; they translated 'beneath His feet' as 'beneath the throne of His glory'; they translated 'at the mouth of the Lord' as 'at the word of the Lord'; they translated 'in the ears of the Lord' as 'before the Lord' — and so with all that resembles this.
. . , ,
Section 10. Having demonstrated that rational inference, scripture, and received tradition all agree in negating anthropomorphism from our Lord, I will now enumerate the corporeal expressions and say they are ten:
, , , ,
Head — as in 'a helmet of salvation on His head' (Is. 59:17); Eye — as in 'the eyes of the Lord your God are on it' (Deut. 11:12); Ear — as in 'for you wept in the ears of the Lord' (Num. 11:18); Mouth — as in 'at the mouth of the Lord' (Num. 9:18);
, , , , , .
Lip — as in 'what issues from my lips I will not retract' (Ps. 89:35); Face — as in 'may the Lord make His face shine toward you' (Num. 6:25); Hand — as in 'Behold, the hand of the Lord' (Ex. 9:3); Heart — as in 'the Lord said to His heart' (Gen. 8:21); Bowels — as in 'therefore My bowels stir for him' (Jer. 31:20); Foot — as in 'and bow down at His footstool' (Ps. 99:5).
, , ,
These expressions and their like — products of the extension and expansiveness of language — each one lands on a meaning, and the interpretation of this is something we find in contexts other than the meanings of the Creator; we thus know that the nature and way of language is precisely to extend itself, borrow, and use figures,
, , ,
just as it extends and says that the heavens speak: 'The heavens declare the glory of God' (Ps. 19:2); and that the sea speaks: 'for the sea says: I have no fear, as the sea said' (Jer. 5:22); and that death speaks: 'Abaddon and Death said' (Job 28:22); and that the stone hears: 'Behold, the stone