(a) In seeking to establish these propositions in more detail, we may look first at what is said of the Person of God. It was an unavoidable neces- sity that even in this period the analogy of the human personality should still be used to give a clear, nay even an intelligible, idea of the nature and working of the Divine personality. Even we, who stand on Christian ground, must have recourse to the same analogy if we wish to set up the concept of a living, energetically active, Per- sonality. Hence even the prophets resort not infrequently to anthropomorphisms and anthropo- pathisms, which, in early times (cf. above, p. 627°) owed their origin to the naive belief in Jahweh’s possession of a human bodily form. But there is not a single trace that they continued to share that naive belief. When Isaiah, in the vision which marked his call to the prophetic office (6°), beholds Jahweh seated upon a throne high and lifted up, no doubt a human form is here thought of. But it must be remembered that this is a vision, a sight beheld with the spiritual eye of the prophet, and, moreover, he says nothing more about the figure on the throne than that it had a long flowing train. He does not thus go beyond the simple indication of a splendidly - clothed, majestically-enthroned, ruler.
We must by no means conclude from the above single instance of the localizing of J ahweb in the earthly temple [for nothing else can be thought of, in view of the ‘house’ of Is 6* and the altar of y.5], that during this period the notion was still retained that Jahweh dwelt in a grossly material fashion in the sanctuary. The temple, it is true, and Zion in general, is the spot where Jahweh manifests Himself: He has Himself founded it as a precious corner-stone of the theocracy (Is 28%), as a refuge for the afflicted of His people (14); He roars from Zion, and causes His voice to be heard from Jerusalem (Am 12); He dwells on Zion (Is 818), where, in the form of the sacrificial hearth, he has His fire and His furnace (Is 31°; cf. also 291-, where drivel probably stands for ‘hearth of God’). Hence, in praying, one readily turns towards the city and temple of Jahweh (1 K 8** “, but ef. also v.?*). But numerous other passages leave no doubt that, notwithstanding all this, heaven was regarded as the proper dwelling-place of Jahweh, as had already i the case even in the preceding period (cf. above, p. 646°f.). What dwells on Zion is not the Person of Jahweh in the most real sense, but a more or less secondary representation of this, such as His ‘glory’ (cf. above, p. 639°f.) or His ‘name’ (ef. the references, especially those from Deuteronomy, p. 640°f.). He Himself is enthroned in heaven. From there He spoke already to the people at Sinai (Ex 20”, Dt 486); there is His holy dwelling- place (Is 31%, Mic 1? [where the
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‘holy palace’ must, in the light of y.°, be under- stood of heaven], Dt 26, 1 K 8%); there He hears the prayers of His people (1 K 8% *4 etc.), when they spread forth their hands towards heaven (v.24), But it comes to be strongly felt that this localizing of Jahweh in heaven, if taken literally, amounts to an unworthy limitation of His bound- less being. Hence it is more than once stated emphatically that not only the heaven to its utmost heights, but also the earth with all that it contains, belongs to Him (Dt 10") ; that He alone is God in heaven above and on the earth below (Dt 4, Jos 2"), Nay, in 1 K 8”, in the prayer of Solomon at the consecration of the temple, it is positively declared that heaven to its utmost bounds cannot contain Him, not to speak of the earthly house which Solomon has built for Him. When, again, in Jer 23% Jahweh asks, ‘Do not I fill heaven and earth?’, it is true that we must be careful not to give to this question anything of a pantheistic sense, for this would be in the sharpest conflict with the OT conception of God. But, on the other hand, the above question cer- tainly contains a protest against the crass notion of Jahweh as the God of heaven, and at the same time shows an approximation to that conception which is so very difficult to the human mind—the conception of ‘a purely spiritual being. A clear formula for the notion of pure spirituality, such as we find in Jn 4%, was beyond the reach of the Old Testament. But when Isaiah (313) exclaims, ‘The Egyptians are men, not God ; and their horses are flesh, not spirit,’ he manifestly contrasts man and perishing flesh with God, who is spirit. In like manner, the analogy of the human personality in the matter of the so-called anthropopathisms is denied ; ¢.g. Nu 23" (1 S 15¥), where it is declared that ‘God is not a man that he should lie, nor a son of man that he should repent’ (cf. also Hos 11°).
The great advance in the spiritualizing of the notion of God shows itself clearly in two other points—