LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1998, Page 361

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THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS

Aramaic, or Syriac languages. In all three languages “spirit” has a femi-
nine grammatical gender. It is certainly further true that “spirit” in
Hebrew, when used of the Spirit of God, usually is accompanied by femi-
nine verbal forms (e.g., Gen. 1:2; Num. 11:26; t Sam. 10:6; Isa. 11:2; 63:14;
Ezek 2:2; Hag. 2:5). However, it is doubtful whether this agreement is any-
thing more than a normal grammatical agreement without any significance
for any gender specificity. This is so for the following reasons. First of all,
the grammatical gender of “spirit” in the Greek of the Septuagint and the
New Testament is neuter (v xvetia), and the verbal forms accompanying
“spirit” in these sources are in the neuter (e.g., John 1:32: “The Spirit com-
ing down [xvetya xatapaivoy] ...” %).However, whereas the Hebrew
names of God YHWH and Elohim are without exception accompanied by
masculine verbal forms in the biblical Hebrew, the word ruach when used
of the Spirit of God—although grammatically feminine—is at times accom
panied by verbal forms in the masculine gender. For example in 2 Sam.
23:2 the teat says: “The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me.” Here the word
for “speak” is the third masculine singular form (727).2 Other examples
occur in Ezek. 11:2, 5 where the word for the Spirit's speaking is third mas-
culine singular of the verb “say” (708). Finally in Isa. 40:14 we read,
“Whom did he {i.e., the Spirit of Yahweh) consult for his enlightenment... ?”
The form of the verb for “consult” is third masculine singular (yy%:).7
More significant, however, is the use of the personal pronouns and
personal suffixes. Although the evidence in the Old and New Testaments
of pronominal use referring to the Spirit is scanty, the evidence indicates
only masculine forms. No instance analogous with the phrase “I am he” or
‘You are he” occurs with the Spirit. In fact, neither the masculine pronoun
“he” (7) nor the feminine pronoun “she” (8°) occurs in the Old Testa-
ment in reference to the Spirit. There is, however, evidence in the New

® In Latin “spirit” is masculine. The grammatical gender of a word does not necessar-
ily correspond to the actual gender of the person to whom the word refers. See the discus
sion in Bruce K. Waitke and M. Connor, Ant Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona
Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 99-102. Waltke and O’Connor relate that in French there are
nouns which are ferninine in form but refer to men (le sentinelle, “the sentinel”; [a vigi, “the
night watchman”). Some nouns designating professions are masculine in form even when
referring to a woman (le professeur, “the professor”). A New Testament example of this
would be the case of Phoebe (Rom. 16:1), Here Phoebe is called “servant,” even though the
word for “servant” is &udovos a word whose grammatical gender is masculine.

In English, the gender of nouns may be either covert or overt. The noun “mayor,” for
example, has covert gender, Until the referent is known, one could not know whether the
mayor is female or male (“The mayor is ill“). On the other hand, nouns such as father, moth-
er, husband, and wife have overt gender; they clearly refer to someone of a specific gender.
English also has paired noun forms which possess overt gender. “Actor” usually refers to a
man, while “actress” always refers to a woman,

% In Piel perfect.

* Qal imperfect with waw consecutive.
¥ In Niphal perfect

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myself; now I will cry out like a woman in travail, | will gasp and pant.

Isa. 45:10:

Woe to him who says to a father, “What are you begetting?” or to a
woman, “With what are you in travail?”

Isa. 49:14-15:
But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.”

Cana woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion
on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.

Isa. 66:13:

As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; you shal be com-
forted in Jerusalem.

In his article Mayer Gruber intends to affirm the equality of the two
sexes with respect to references to God: “Hence to the very same extent
that the God of Israel can be compared to a father the God of Israel can and
shoud be compared also to a mother.” * However, these passages do not
justify his assertion that Israel understood YHWH to be “the Mother of
Israel.” * First of all, two of these passages, Isa. 42:14 and 66:13, are explic-
itly in the form of simile: God is like a woman in travail, or God is as a
mother who comforts. It is the function of simile to compare two or more
different things according to a limited, yet shared characteristic. For exam-
ple, “My mother is always smiling, just like Mr. Jones, the postman” is a
simile. In such a comparison, there is no intent to say “My mother is a
postman,” or ‘Mr. Jones is a mother.” Each person shares a particular fea-
ture—in this case, the habit of smiling—which allows them to be com-
pared. So also in Isa. 42:14 and 66:13, God is not said to be, nor is it implied
that God is a mother in travail or that God is a mother who is comforting.
Rather, like a woman in the labor of birth, God “will gasp and pant,” that is,
will exert himself for Israel’s redemption; and like a mother who comforts,
God “will comfort” Israel. That we do not have direct analogy, but the
imaginative comparison of simile, is indicated by the parallel simile of God
as a man of war (Isa. 42:13) and by the fact that God’s comforting (Is 66:13)
as a mother is nothing other than the restoration of Israel with Jerusalem as
its capital (see Isa. 40:1-11).

Nor in the other two passages, Isa. 45:10 and 49:15, is God said to be a
mother. In Isaiah 45 God asserts that he alone is the creator and the
redeemer of Israel. There is no God other than he. For that reason Israel
has no right to complain about the ways of God's dealings with Israel:
“Thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel and his Maker. ‘Will you ques-

Testament. In five instances in the Gospel of John the Spirit is referred to
through the use of the masculine demonstrative pronoun” (exeivog “that
one,” “he”; John 14:26; 15:26; 16:7, 13, 14). Finally, although no instance of
a pronominal suffix in the feminine could be located for the Spirit in the
Hebrew of the Old Testament, the use of masculine forms for the Spirit
does exist. For example, Isa. 40:13-14: “Who has directed the Spirit of the
Lord, or as his counselor has instructed him? Whom did he consult for his
enlightenment, and who taught him the path of justice, and taught him
knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?” In summary,
although the instances are relatively few, where pronominal use occurs for
the Spirit in the Old and New Testaments, the masculine forms obtain.”

B. Feminine Imagery: Controverted Texts

Some commentators claim that, because there are biblical passages
which use not only feminine imagery but also maternal imagery concern-
ing God, these passages justify the naming of God as our “Mother.” Nancy
Hardesty, for example, asserts that “it is not at all unbiblical to speak of
God as our Mother and Father.” ® What is to be said about this line of argu-
mentation?

First of all, the Bible does use feminine and/or maternal imagery for
God, but such usage is infrequent. Mayer Gruber argues that only four
passages in Isaiah explicitly compare God to a mother, “while throughout
the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures the Lorp is explicitly compared to a
father.” ' The four passages which Gruber cites are the following:

Isa. 42:13-14:
The Lord goes forth like a mighty man, like a man of war he stirs up his

fury; he cries out, he shouts aloud, he shows himself mighty against his
foes. For a long time I have held my peace, have kept still and restrained

An example of the desire for inclusive language running roughshod over the actual
language of the text is the way The Inclusive New Testament (Brentwood, MD: Priests for
Equality, 1996) renders John 16:7-16. Ina thoroughgoing way it renders the language about
the Paraclete/Holy Spirit in the feminine. For example: “When the Spirit of truth comes,
she will guide you into all truth” (v. 13). The word translated “she” in fact is excivog the
masculine form of the demonstrative pronoun. The Greek language has a feminine form,
exeivn, which could have been used in John 16 had “she” been intended. Here The Inclusive
New Testament is not an accurate translation of the text, but an intentonaily false translation.

> There are instances in the New Testament where pronouns referring to the Spirit are
in the neuter, But these instances are examptes of grammatcal agreement with the neuter
gender of the noun “spirit” in the Greek (for example, John 14:26).

* Nancy A. Hardesty, “Whosoever Surely Meaneth Me’: Inclusive Language and the
Gospel.” Christian Scholar’s Review 17 (1988):234.

‘Mayer I. Gruber, “The Motherhood of God in Second Isaiah,” Revue Biblique 90
(1983)-351-59.

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tion me about my children or command me conceming the works of my
hands?” (v.11). In this context, the prophet notes that the clay has no right
to complain to the potter and that the child has no right to complain to its
father or to its mother. In this verse God is not said to be the mother of
Israel, nor in this verse is God said to be the father of Israel. Finally, the
imagery of Isa. 49:15, although not in the explicit form of a simile (there is
no comparative “like” or “as”), is nonetheless a simile. God will remain
steadfastly present to Israel, like a mother who stays by her child. Indeed,
in this passage God is actually said to be unlike an earthly mother! An
earthly mother may forsake her child, but God will not do so.

The passages cited by Mayer Gruber do remind us that the biblical
authors can and do adduce images from human experience which arise
both from masculine and feminine experiences (see Luke 13:34; 15:8-10).
However, these images do not present more than the comparison of simi-
le. They do not denote the personal reality of God himself, any more than
the personal reality of St. Paul is revealed by his statements in 1 Thess.
2:7-8: “But we were gentle among you, like a nurse taking care of her chil-
dren. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with
you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had
become very dear to us.”

Nancy Hardesty adduces other passages which she alleges speak of
God as our Mother. For example, she refers to several passages which
speak of the “Creator as the One who ‘formed you from the womb’ (Isa.
44:2, 24; 49:1, 5; Jer. 1:5). It is not clear from her discussion whether she
believes the “womb” in these passages to be God’s womb. But it is clear
from the Hebrew that that is not the case. In the above passages, the word
for “form” or “fashion” is yatsar (“¥-) which comes from the realm of pot-
tery. The image is not that God is a mother who forms from within her
womb. The image is rather that of God working as potter whose hands
reach into the womb of an earthly mother, forming the child therein as
though it were a piece of clay. In Isa. 45:18 yatsar (“¥7, “to form”) is used
synonymously with and parallel to the verb bara’ (“to create,” #713). Hard-
esty further cites Isa. 46:3-4 as an example of the Bible speaking of God as
a woman giving birth. God is said to have borne Israel from birth. But the
Hebrew word here is nasa‘ (#Q}), which means to “carry” a load, to “bear”
a burden. It in no way refers to mothering a child.

Only one passage speaks of God directly in the image of a mother, and
that is Deut. 32:18: * “You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you, and
you forgot the God who gave you birth.” The faithful stability of God asa
Rock is in contrast to the unfaithfulness of Israel (see Deut. 32:4 f.). God is

“ Hardesty, “Whosoever Surely Meaneth Me,‘~ 234.

* See the discussion by Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1978), 62-64.

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