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...since He obligated us to hate it — as in 'Six things the Lord hates' (Prov. 6:16), 'He hates robbery in burnt offering' (Is. 61:8), and He gathered several of these and said 'for all these things I hated, says the Lord' (Jer. 44:4).
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What we find said — that He is pleased and that He is angered — means: when some of His creatures merit happiness and reward, that is called His pleasure, as in 'The Lord is pleased with those who fear Him' (Ps. 147:11), 'You favored, O Lord, Your land' (Ps. 85:2).
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And when some of them merit misery and punishment, that is called His wrath, as in 'The face of the Lord is against those who do evil' (Ps. 34:17), 'His fierce anger against all who forsake Him' (Ezra 8:22).
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As for corporeal anger and pleasure, and corporeal love and hatred — these occur only in one who desires and fears; and it is impossible for the Creator of all to desire anything He created or to fear it. All the other imagined qualitative attributes are to be explained on this model.
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On the category of the relational: the Creator cannot have anything attributed or related to Him corporeally — for He always existed and nothing of what was made was related or attributed to Him; and now that He has made things, it is not permissible that His essence change so that things become corporeally related to and attributed to Him when they were not so before;
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What you see scripture calling Him — King, making people His servants and angels His ministers, as in 'The Lord is King forever and ever' (Ps. 10:16), 'Praise, O servants of the Lord' (Ps. 113:1), 'His ministers, flaming fire' (Ps. 104:4) — all this is for glorification and exaltation, since the most exalted being for us is the king,
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and meaning that He does whatever He wills and executes His commands, as in 'for where the king's word is, there is power, and who may say to him: what are you doing?' (Eccl. 8:4).
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And what we find scripture attributing to Him — friends and enemies — as in 'O lovers of the Lord, hate evil' (Ps. 97:10), and
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...'Those who hate the Lord will cringe before Him' (Ps. 81:16) — this is a figure by way of honor and degradation: it honored the obedient by calling them 'lovers' and debased the disobedient by calling them 'haters'; and similarly everything else of this kind.
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On place: it is not permissible that the Creator need a place to be in, for several reasons — first, He is the Creator of all place; and second, He always existed alone without place, so creating place cannot transport Him into place.
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And also: what needs a place is a body that occupies what it meets and touches — each of two touching bodies being a place for the other; and this is impossible for the Creator.
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What the prophets say — that He is in heaven — is for exaltation and glorification, since heaven is the highest thing we know, as it explained: 'For God is in heaven and you are on earth' (Eccl. 5:1), and also 'For the heavens and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You' (1 Kgs. 8:27).
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Likewise what is said about His dwelling in the Temple — 'I will dwell among the children of Israel' (Ex. 29:45), 'The Lord dwells in Zion' (Ps. 9:12) — all this is an honorific for that place and that people; though His created light did manifest there — the created being previously mentioned, called Shekhinah and Glory.
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On time: it is not permissible that the Creator have time — since He is the Creator of all time; and since He always existed alone without time, it is not permissible that time transport or change Him;
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and also because time is nothing but the duration of bodies' existence — so for what is not a body, time and duration are removed; and when we describe Him with persistence
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...and permanence — that is approximation, as I explained above. This is what we find scripture saying: 'From eternity to eternity You are God' (Ps. 90:2), and also 'Even from this day I am He' (Is. 43:13), and also 'Before Me no god was formed, and after Me there will be none' (Is. 43:10).
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All these temporal references refer back to an action of His. Those who said 'From eternity to eternity You are God' mean by it: You were always a helper from the beginning of time for Your worshipers — as in 'God is to us a God of saving acts' (Ps. 68:21).
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And His saying, blessed be He, 'Before Me no god was formed' — He means by it: before I sent My messenger, and after his mission, there is no god other than Me; for He preceded it with 'My servant whom I have chosen' (Is. 43:10).
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And in the usage of the community, it is proper for a person to say 'before me' meaning 'before my action' — as Joab said 'Let me not wait before you' (2 Sam. 18:14); and to say 'after me' meaning 'after my action' — as Nathan said 'I will come after you' (1 Kgs. 1:14).
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Likewise 'Even from this day I am He' — it points to a distinguished day, either the day of Sinai or the like, meaning: from that moment I am the One who commands you this and forbids you that and saves you from this — for He completed the statement with 'I act and who can reverse it?' (Is. 43:13).
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On ownership: since all creatures are His creation and product, it is not permissible to say He owns this one and not that one, or that His ownership of this is greater and of that lesser;
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What we see scripture say — that a particular people is His special portion, share, and inheritance, as in 'For the Lord's portion is His people, Jacob is the lot of His inheritance' (Deut. 32:9) — this is by way of honor and distinction, since for us every person holds their portion and share precious.
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Scripture even makes Him, figuratively, the portion and share of the righteous, as in 'The Lord is my allotted portion and my cup' (Ps. 16:5) — this too is by way of special designation and distinction. And on this model is the meaning of calling Him the God of the prophets and believers
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...'the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob' (Ex. 3:6), and 'the God of the Hebrews' (Ex. 5:3) — for He is the God of all, and this is His honorific for the righteous.
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On posture: since the Creator, blessed and exalted, is not a body, no posture whatever is permissible for Him — sitting, standing, or the like; indeed it is impossible, since He is not a body, and since He always existed with nothing else beside Him,
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and since posture is nothing but one body's extension alongside another, and since the modes of posture entail change and alteration in the one who is positioned.
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When scripture says 'The Lord sits as King forever' (Ps. 29:10) — it means permanence; when it says 'Rise, O Lord, and let Your enemies scatter' (Num. 10:35) — it means acting to help and to punish;
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when it says 'He stood there with him' (Ex. 34:5) — it means the light called the Shekhinah; when it says 'The Lord went away when He finished speaking' (Gen. 18:33) — it means the departure of that light; and all expressions like these are explained on this model.
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Section 12. On the agent: the Creator — although we call Him Maker and Doer — our meaning in this is not corporeal, since a corporeal agent cannot act on another until it acts on itself, moving itself first and then moving the other;
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while He — mighty and great — merely wills and the thing comes to be; this is always His manner of acting. And also because every corporeal agent needs material to work from, a place and time to work within, and a tool to work with — all of this