00:00:10.440 - 00:00:21.510

So I want to begin with a clarification uh when I was asked to give this speech for the upcoming year, I admit I was a little bit confused . It's not every day you give one of these

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things. And I asked myself what exactly is a convocation speech to figure out what this thing I'm supposed to be doing today is. Uh and something which I recommend you all do it forever confused about everything

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. Anything I asked David johnson. Okay. So I emailed them and they gave a lot of helpful advice and I also looked it up on the web and before, before I begin my officially I want

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to share with you very briefly what this thing you're about to hear is. So we can all keep our expectations in check. Uh the clearest definition I found, which is not very clear, but Okay

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, was from the University of Chicago's website on their 500 convocation. So they must know a thing or two about giving one of these. Okay, and does not give a precise definition of what this kind

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of speech is. It does stay quote, the convocation address has shown a persistent focus on issues of substance rather than benign and perhaps occasionally welcome device for students. Okay, So following this description, what

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I'm going to present to you today is a speech on the issue of substance I hope, which is entirely lacking in advice. So no advice today. Okay, uh, you can come afterwards for advice

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. Okay. Uh, to be more specific in this speech today, I want to examine the love in the bible or more precisely in a part of the bible. Now, when many of us think

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about love and the bible, certain passages immediately spring to mind, at least to my mind, we might consider the simple yet powerful equation. God is love first john or perhaps we might recall the verse

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widely cited during the holidays. For God, so loved the world he gave his only son. Okay , johN 3 16. We may even lead to the lovely definition of love. And first Corinthians,

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my favorite love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not both. It's not proud. Okay. Suffice it to say . When many of us think about love in conjunction

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with the bible, we think primarily of the new testament bypassing for the most part, references from the first part of the scriptures known as the Hebrew bible or the old testament. There is of course a

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reason for this. Many seminarians tasked with a close reading of the old testament texts are surprised, traumatized even. Uh, and if you're not there yet , you will be maybe perhaps a little traumatized to

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discover. So it's coming that the God of the Hebrew scriptures is not always bathed in the warm and benevolent glow that they expected or want. Indeed, some students after reading parts of the Hebrew text,

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have even wondered aloud to me in a fit of quasi or perhaps full on Marcy and longings whether it would have been and perhaps still would be best to simply drop this part of the bible and the gods

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so prominently featured in it, needless to say loving is not the term that comes to mind when many of us think about the old testament or the old testament god, yet he is the Hebrew bible and

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the God featured in it truly lacking in love is love only found in the new testament are groups such as Westboro, as the Westboro baptist church, correct when they maintain that the god of the bible is

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one of hate, not love citing for support passages only from the Hebrew bible. If you go to their website, if not if they're wrong, what does love love look like in the Hebrew text?

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What do the Hebrew biblical writers say about love and what do they mean? And what is the relationship of love to humanity and to God? It's these questions that I want to discuss with you today briefly

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in the address, Not all of them in particular . I'm gonna focus since I only have about 30 minutes or so on something specific. I want to focus today on divine love. Okay. Does God

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love in the Hebrew bible? And if so, how and what does it look like now to get started? Some background. There are two main words in Hebrew. Don't worry. This will not go

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on very long. Okay, that means love. Okay. Aha. Which means to love. It's a verb or the an unsorted translatable word called has it? All right. Which is using a lot

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of organizational names because it's untranslatable. Okay. Uh , and it has and has, it can mean something along the lines of loving kindness, loyalty stuff as love. You see a variety of translations for

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the sake of limiting the discussion here and because has it is very wide and meaning we're going to focus today on a have okay to love okay or the , the now former java Okay. Now when it

00:05:01.500 - 00:05:15.530

comes to ha or ha have a uh, it is unsurprising that readers have been disappointed with the description of God's love or the lack thereof in the Hebrew text. The Hebrew scriptures when it comes to descriptions

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about God is rather silent about this particular quality. So for example the God is called by a variety of titles and needs in the old testament text. Uh, the Holy One writer of clouds writer having

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most high lord of hosts. Al Shaddai, there's an endless name. Okay. And though he is described in the hebrew bible as once protected. Refuge fortress, rock tower strength. Okay. He is

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never called by a title or described with the reference to the verb to law moreover, the old testament does not mention any theater for IQ names. These are names of personal names of people that reflect or

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describe an attribute of God. So for example, Emmanuel God is with us. Our R. E . O. The line of God. Uh, none. No three a foreign name in the bible

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utilize the verb to love in conjunction with God. So judging by the afford names and the titles of God in the hebrew bible, the writers of this text do not appear to have associated their God with

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Love very often or almost hardly at all. Okay . Yeah. Does this mean that the biblical writers okay, did not envision their God as loving in some way. Now to answer these questions, we

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have to ask a proceeding question, which is what does Love actually look like? What does it mean in the Hebrew bible? When we say the loving God of the old testament or to love? What

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is this keynote in the context of this particular Cannon ? And to answer this question uh there or to this question, academics and commentators have presented us with some answers. The usual answer that is given is

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that Love can noted something quite different in the Hebrew text. Unlike what we mean, what we mean today by Love. And unlike let's say the various kinds of loves you may be more accustomed to hearing

00:07:05.500 - 00:07:15.830

about such as those described in the new testament or in C. S. Lewis's the four. Love for example. Love in the old testament. According to many bible assist is mainly a political or legal

00:07:15.830 - 00:07:30.320

term connected with covenants and law codes. In other words, love is not something that can notes an emotion according to some scholars. Now, how does scholars come to this conclusion that love cannot is something

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political or legal? Well, this widely accepted definition as a result of a very persuasive and influential article by a famous scholar named William Moran. Published in 1963, Moran argued that in the book of Deuteronomy

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, um Love was a was utilized as mainly a legal or political term associated with treaties. Okay. And the way that he came to this result is that he noted that the frequent, he notes that

00:07:57.270 - 00:08:07.740

in Deuteronomy, you have the frequent command by God . For the Israelite to either love him or to love strangers to love other people. Okay, and Moran argued that love. That this command would be

00:08:07.740 - 00:08:22.490

very strange if love was imagined as an emotion. How can God demand that the Israelites feel a certain way towards him or other people? Hence more and positive love must have a different connotation in the hebrew

00:08:22.490 - 00:08:35.980

text from the emotional meaning it currently holds. He also noticed furthermore, that's similar to the commands to love in Deuteronomy other ancient near Eastern Susan vassal treaties and covenants also demanded that the vassal. Okay,

00:08:35.980 - 00:08:50.330

the underling love there. Susan, Okay. Therefore more and concluded love and Deuteronomy, as in other near Eastern trees must be a political or legal term . Ca noting political or legal loyalty, service and

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obedience. Such a meaning, Moran argue would explain why First Kings 5 15, for example, states that Hiram of Tyre was a lover of King David or why Job David General tells David who is grieving

00:09:03.640 - 00:09:18.480

the death of his rebellious son. Absalom tells him to stop hating those who love you. These references to love, our only sensible Moran asserted If love and lovers refer to those bound by legal or political

00:09:18.480 - 00:09:35.560

allegiances now, Moran's conclusions were highly influential, widely apply for many, many decades. It's only more recently hovered that scholars have attempted to modify a nu nuanced morons thesis. Some argue that his understanding and

00:09:35.560 - 00:09:52.490

conceptualization of love is a bit too neat and may even reflect a hidden bias. Now, unintentionally. Perhaps Moran's idea seems to imply or assume that the ancestor of the jewish people were overly legalistic or focused

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on the Law I love in the old testament, the biblical writers of the Hebrew text must mean law . So the argument seems to go indeed, a subtle comparison and contradistinction can be detected the works and

00:10:07.640 - 00:10:22.300

law of the old testament versus what the emotions believes . The faith of the new testament. Yeah, yeah. In other words, Moran, in his article seemed seems to assume a clear and clean separation

00:10:22.300 - 00:10:35.670

between emotions and actions. Okay. And the motion he assumed cannot be commanded because only actions can be commanded and everything was either an emotion or an action , but not both. Yet, when one examines

00:10:35.670 - 00:10:48.930

a religion that more directly arises from the Hebrew text , namely Judaism. This been tourism is not really there though, Judaism is a very complicated religion. It seems to be much more comfortable with the idea

00:10:48.940 - 00:11:00.400

that emotions and actions are tangled up together as Abraham Joshua, Heschel, the great jewish theologian, American , right? I, okay, as he makes clearness work, God is such a man and the

00:11:00.400 - 00:11:13.850

sabbath Judaism maintains that faith or belief without works is not enough. Rather as Rabbi, identifying notes, quote, our emotions or feelings are very personalities are crafted by our deeds and not the other way around

00:11:13.540 - 00:11:26.390

. Indeed, according to Jacob Neusner, another very famous jewish scholar, jewish writings such as a safe to have no qualms about commanding a person to control or change their emotions. Emotions in Judaism, he

00:11:26.390 - 00:11:41.160

argues, is not spontaneous, but an aspect of a person's judgment and as such day to how you feel can be wholly or it could be profane, ensure actions and emotions are intimately connected in Judaism.

00:11:43.640 - 00:11:56.640

Modern biblical cysts have also come around to similar conclusions . Okay, and have tried to put emotions back into this concept of love in the old testament, concluding that more and focused too much and too exclusively

00:11:56.640 - 00:12:09.260

on conduct commentators such as walter Brueggemann for example, argue that just because love in the bible has a political dimension, it does not necessarily rule out an effective dimension. Bill Arnold echoes Ruderman when he states

00:12:09.260 - 00:12:24.020

that Maran's argument reduces and strips love in due to Romney of all affection. All right, Jacqueline Lapsley more overstates thoughtfully that this vision of love, a vision that excludes affection and emotion takes away something essential

00:12:24.020 - 00:12:39.330

from the idea of humans loving God and God loving humans. She too knows that loyalty quote can and often does have a very strong effective quality. And indeed when we move outside of Deuteronomy and look at

00:12:39.330 - 00:12:52.150

biblical narratives which described relationship between human beings, such as that between husbands and wives, between parents and Children. Love does seem to keynote a kind of affection to give just a very few tales. A

00:12:52.160 - 00:13:03.980

few examples very briefly in genesis 24 67 we're told that Isaac love to his wife Rebecca. So also genesis 29 18 states that Jacob loved Rachel with the love that is greater than that he had for his

00:13:03.980 - 00:13:18.010

other wife. But Okay, okay, similarly, first Samuel 15 states that Samuel's father Elkin in loved his mother Hannah, Okay. And that the Persian king loved Esther more than other women in Esther to

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17. Okay, now it gets a little bit more disturbing from this four at this point, genesis 30 for three states that shut him the Lord of the Canaanite town love Dinah, the daughter of Jacob

00:13:28.740 - 00:13:41.360

, who he later rapes. Okay, so love does appear in these tales of rape. Second Samuel 13 1 states at Amnon David's son loves tomorrow, his half sister who he will also later burly rapes

00:13:41.540 - 00:13:54.080

. Okay, uh there is no into statements about love and sexual desire in the song of songs. If you have ever read that book, in terms of Children, genesis 25 28 states that Isaac loves

00:13:54.090 - 00:14:05.270

is a while. Rebecca loved Jacob that Israel or Jacob loved joseph more than his other Children. We find the genesis 37 3 that David loved. AMN in second Samuel 13 21 and most famously genesis 22

00:14:05.280 - 00:14:20.520

to states that Abraham loved Isaac. So when you move outside of Deuteronomy, love, Rojava seems to run a gamut of meetings having to do with affection of some sort okay, it can mean desire or

00:14:20.520 - 00:14:31.850

sexual attractions such as in the case of uh the song of songs maybe in the narratives about Dina. It's hard to know. It obviously has resonances of romantic feeling in love. As in the case with

00:14:31.860 - 00:14:43.780

Jacob and Rachel, it can mean something similar to a preference as we see with the Persian king of Esther and Jacob, Rachel, Isaac of ISA Rebecca , Jacob and so forth. Okay, in all

00:14:43.780 - 00:15:00.380

these cases, emotion seems to be present in the use of an understanding of law. So it seems that outside of Deuteronomy love does note something like, like affection in the Hebrew tax. Yeah, there's

00:15:00.380 - 00:15:13.130

a small problem with the above examples are the examples . I just gave you all the narratives in which the word love is used to denote something emotion, something emotional, involve human beings. When we turn

00:15:13.130 - 00:15:24.590

to descriptions about God and his love in the hebrew bible, the evidence is a little murkier. Okay , we do have direct statements in Deuteronomy about divine love, but the evidence from Deuteronomy again is a

00:15:24.590 - 00:15:35.670

little problematic because this, as Moran argued a has a large, largely a political or legal connotation. Okay, uh, so do draw to me it's not really helpful for trying to find evidence that God

00:15:35.670 - 00:15:46.860

loves an emotional kind of way in the old testament . What about when we look outside of Deuteronomy? Okay. Do we find something like affection expressed by God for his people? In other parts of the

00:15:46.860 - 00:16:02.130

bible, which shows that God loves in a more emotional sense. The closest we find is something akin to an emotional kind of divine love. In the Hebrew text are analogies used to describe the relationship between

00:16:02.140 - 00:16:15.560

God and Israel in the prophetic text. So, in the Jose Ezekiel and Jeremiah, God's relationship to Israel is likened to that between a husband and wife , usually adulterous, and at points between a father

00:16:15.560 - 00:16:29.290

and daughter and in one sort of disturbing little sequence . And Ezekiel, you get sort of a mixed metaphor, okay, you have Israel and God's relationship being likened to an adopted orphan daughter. Israel who

00:16:29.290 - 00:16:48.400

was raised and groomed by a father figure, God who later takes the child as his wife. Right , okay, moving onwards. Okay, can't solve all the riddles today. Okay, despite the inappropriateness

00:16:48.410 - 00:17:04.160

, clearly the use of these particular relationships as analogy to describe Israel and God's relationship shows that the feelings between between them were more than political. Okay, yet again, if we look closer things are not

00:17:04.170 - 00:17:17.550

quite as clear as we want them to be according to alexander, Toha luke, who wrote this very long dissertation on love in the old testament, the passages from these prophetic books where in God's love relationships

00:17:17.550 - 00:17:32.970

are analogized to emotional human relationships such as that between husband and wife, child and parent. These very passages oddly don't utilize the word to love. I have very much They use other words, but not

00:17:32.970 - 00:17:45.060

that one. Okay, moreover, the main book in the old testament about love, the song of songs never uses a have to describe or talk about God. Mhm. Rather the most frequent appearance of

00:17:45.060 - 00:17:59.570

the word to love in the prophetic materials is described relationships between Israel and her illicit lovers. Okay, that is other gods or other political allies with whom ? Yeah, we feels Israel is cheating on him

00:17:59.570 - 00:18:12.670

with. Okay, in these passages about the illicit lovers, love does appear and it seems to connect both something political. Okay, again, this legal Disloyalty, political disloyalty and also something emotional sense of

00:18:12.670 - 00:18:26.760

passages utilize this sort of very highly charged analogy of adultery. So, to briefly recap, okay, it seems that the biblical writers had some problems talking about You Always Love in a non political way.

00:18:27.440 - 00:18:41.460

The closest we come to a description about God's love and an emotional sense is in the prophetic materials, where God's relationship to his people is analogized to other human relationships in which affection and emotions must be present

00:18:41.340 - 00:18:53.380

. However, even in these prophetic passages, the word love, a hobby is rarely utilized, rather the most frequent appearance of the word to love in an emotional sense, outside of Deuteronomy is in prophetic

00:18:53.380 - 00:19:07.410

descriptions of Israel's illicit relationships with other gods and nations which are likened to adultery or whoring. So what is going on here? How do we make sense of the lack of the use of the word?

00:19:07.410 - 00:19:18.960

I have to love to talk about the relationship between God and Israel and an emotional, not political sense . And yet the odd occurrence of it to describe the illicit relationships between Israel and its other gods or

00:19:18.970 - 00:19:30.760

allies, Why is God rarely set to love his people in an emotional way? And the old testament now to answer these questions, I have to get a bit speculative, since there's little direct evidence,

00:19:30.770 - 00:19:41.600

okay, but like a good businesses, I'll try to give you some textual support, so it doesn't look like I'm making stuff up. Um so I maintain that the reason that God is rarely such love

00:19:41.600 - 00:19:56.790

as people, an emotional sort of sense in the hebrew text is because love or a hobby Rojava in this affectionate kind of way was viewed as something essentially human. It is because love in this emotional sense

00:19:56.790 - 00:20:11.520

was viewed as something quintessentially something very, very a human act that the love relationship between Israel and God is only analogize, only described as similar to only likened to that between human beings. Indeed, I

00:20:11.520 - 00:20:26.560

maintain that biblical writers deliberately shied away from utilizing the word to love even when they analogize God and Israel's relationship to that of human beings, precisely because love in this sense was so closely tied to humanity.

00:20:27.040 - 00:20:41.710

A beautiful passage from the song of songs lend some support to these conclusions. The very famous passage frequently cited at weddings, that's a song songs 86 The poet commands his beloved to set set me as a

00:20:41.710 - 00:20:52.790

seal upon your arms. I think it's usually translated and before ending with a moving description of the strength of love, which reads as the following. And this is a mix of my own translations and sort

00:20:52.790 - 00:21:06.670

of usual translations. Okay, for love is as strong as death, Passion, as cruel as she whole. It's flashes are flashes of fire like the very flaming blade of the Lord. Now there's very

00:21:06.680 - 00:21:15.230

many interesting aspects of this. 1st I'm going to go into it. Okay, what is most striking and relevant here? What I want to focus on ? Its a comparison between the strength of love to

00:21:15.230 - 00:21:27.420

that of death. Okay, love is as strong as death. Now the word strong or strength odds coming different things in hebrews, like this fierceness, harshness, cruelty might. Okay, I would translate

00:21:27.420 - 00:21:42.660

here as as fours. Okay, so maybe a re translation is loss force is like that of death . Okay, Hence what is juxtaposed enlightened in this first is the force of love to that of death

00:21:44.640 - 00:21:59.390

and that such this verse seems to imply two things . First, the emotional pull, the emotional maybe , and also physical pool of love and that of death are connected intertwined somehow very similar. And second

00:21:59.390 - 00:22:12.490

considering this bind connection, a likeness between love and death they in some way are linked to and therefore perhaps can elucidate the other. In other words that put it much more simply songs eight Sixes I would

00:22:12.490 - 00:22:26.400

interpret. It seems to imply some kind of intimate association between death and love and if so if there is this link this first, at least when I read it raises an important question. If love is

00:22:26.400 - 00:22:40.160

connected to death, can someone or something that does not die understand love? Or to ask the question a bit differently, can God who does not die ? Was not physical experience and understand love in the

00:22:40.160 - 00:22:52.960

same ways we humans can't? Or is this verse implying that love in this emotional forceful sense is something that is particular to humans, to those who are bounded, limited, physical and impermanent to those who

00:22:52.960 - 00:23:08.520

can understand and experience the power of death. Engineer , Eastern text such as the story of Gilgamesh, points to humanity's ability to die as one of the key aspects that separate humanity from the gods. Okay

00:23:08.530 - 00:23:18.230

, this idea is also subtly present in the beginning chapters of genesis, where it describes how the first human beings as soon as they eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil are kicked out

00:23:18.230 - 00:23:32.050

of the garden. So to prevent their eating from the tree of life to do so for human beings to eat from both trees would make them not just like the gods, but probably gods. Okay,

00:23:32.060 - 00:23:45.670

they will know good and evil and they will also be immortal or unable to experience that. Hence, according to Jennison and to Gilgamesh, uh that seems to be something that is essentially a human thing.

00:23:45.140 - 00:23:56.480

Okay, the very thing that makes us not like the gods. Okay. And if so, and if then is intimately connected to love according to the verse from the song of songs, then doesn't this

00:23:56.480 - 00:24:11.550

mean that love or at least as force is something that is in essence human as death is essentially human thing. So then isn't love perhaps a better way to think about. It is not to ask whether

00:24:11.550 - 00:24:25.860

God does or does not love, which sounds kind of offensive, but to ask whether the biblical writers imagine God to love as humans do. Did the biblical writers imagine some difference between divine and human love

00:24:26.340 - 00:24:34.990

and to this question? Okay, Which I think is an easier question I would answer. Of course they did. They had to okay, as evident by the descriptions in the hebrew bible detailing the precautions

00:24:34.990 - 00:24:47.350

the high priest must take to ensure he's not struck dead by God when he is allowed to enter the temple one time during the year. Favorite passage among students, I'm sure. Okay, uh it's clear

00:24:47.360 - 00:25:00.610

that the Israeli writers imagine their god is very, very holy and therefore very, very distant and very different from human beings according to this world view, God as a holy being is not like us is

00:25:00.610 - 00:25:15.630

completely separate from us. Hence all those maneuvers to get close to God and as such, according to such a worldview, the biblical writers must have believed that God experienced emotions such as love or even as

00:25:15.630 - 00:25:30.260

love in qualitatively different ways from how humanity, how these physical limited profane beings experienced them. Indeed, the local writers might have felt that God's love was also affectionate somehow, but love from God for being

00:25:30.260 - 00:25:44.470

without physicality and without the possibility of death. This love. Divine love was probably still envisioned as in essence is similar to that of human beings. This conclusion explains why the word I have to love is

00:25:44.470 - 00:25:56.560

not utilized in prophetic writings or God's relationship with Israel is analogized to human relationships. Love as a human emotion or act and thus connected to human beings, things connected to human beings such as death, sex

00:25:56.560 - 00:26:11.830

society. Uh love was probably viewed by the biblical writers as improper and profane when describing their god even to refer to how he felt about Israel. As a result, God's feelings towards Israel are only analogize

00:26:11.830 - 00:26:25.680

, only likened to human relationships, and the word love is not used to describe God's feelings, feelings which are said to be similar to, but in essence different from human from human love. Conversely,

00:26:25.690 - 00:26:38.250

there's also, this conclusion also explains why the verb is utilized, Okay to describe Israel's illicit affairs with foreign gods and countries. If a have a love was seen as a human physical profane thing, then

00:26:38.250 - 00:26:49.690

it would make sense that this verb will be used to describe relationships which the biblical writer viewed as also dirty or profane somehow. Indeed, by using a hub, the writer belittles these foreign gods and nations

00:26:49.690 - 00:27:03.870

their feelings with the use of the word of God is suddenly contrast to those of the Holy God of Israel, whose emotions are too holy to be described . In conclusion. I want to ask a final

00:27:03.870 - 00:27:18.410

question if love is imagined as human tainted or human somehow, and if the bible, uh the Hebrew Biblical Tax fails to mention God in relation to the verb to love. Does this mean that the hebrew

00:27:18.410 - 00:27:33.660

scriptures does not convey or reflect divine love? Okay , Or is there glimpses of divine love in the Hebrew text? I would maintain there is. But again, I think the key is an analogy.

00:27:34.440 - 00:27:48.860

The old testament is filled with stories about human beings in relationship with each other. Indeed, the truthful and vivid descriptions of these relationships is what makes the old testament so difficult and also so interesting to read

00:27:49.640 - 00:28:03.790

. I think that it is through these stories about human relationships, the very relationships which the prophetic writers utilize as analogies to describe the relationships between between God and his people. It is through, and somehow

00:28:03.800 - 00:28:19.200

in these stories that God's emotional love for his people are reflected or to put it differently. We know that God loves in the hebrew bible not because we have a lot of direct descriptions or statements, but

00:28:19.200 - 00:28:34.480

because we have stories about human beings loving each other in all their sort of messy, terrible and glorious ways. And these stories somehow in some way reflect and are said to be like the way that God