not often
remembered image of God is one in which Yahweh is described by an analogy to the
action of a female bird protecting her young (Ps. 17:8; 36:7; 57:l; 91: 1,4; Isa.
31:5; etc.). The sustaining care of Yahweh for Israel is represented in Dent.
32:11-12 by the words: "Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over
its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions,
the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no foreign god with him." In a
similar reference in Matt. 23:37 (Luke 13:34) Jesus says: "O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem ... ! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen
gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!" Other passages compare
the love of God with the love of a mother for her child, or the loyalty and
affection of a wife for her husband (Dent. 32:18; Isa. 46:3; 51:1; 49:14-15; Ps.
131: 2).70 We need to remind ourselves of the importance of three words used in
the femine gender in Hebrew tradition which stress feminine attributes of God:
Shekinah or the glory of the presence of God on earth; Torah or the guidance of
God; Chokmah or the pre-cosmic divine wisdom . In the New Testament, Jesus is
associated with all three of these attributes, Thus in Matt. 18:20 we read: "For
where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of
them." With this we may compare the saying in PirkeAbo ' th: "When they sit
together and are occupied with the Torah, the Shekinah is among them. " In I Cor.
1:24, 30, Paul calls Christ the Wisdom of God . From this we can conclude that
both feminine and masculine characteristics play a part in the description of
Yahweh and Christ. In the Bible when God has to be described metaphorically,
both male and female imagery is used. "Now will I scream like a woman in labor",
says God in Isaiah. "Gather her brood under her wings", says Jesus to the
people. "Having ten pieces of silver and losing one", is the Woman who seeks
diligently for the lost soul. "As a nurse cherisheth her children", says the
evangelist in the epistles. In Proverbs and elsewhere the female figure,
'Wisdom' personifies the Divine. " How beautiful Sarah is!
Her long soft hair her bright eyes and her radiant face,
her full breasts and her delicate hands,
her round hips and her thighs!
There is no woman more beautiful than Sarah,
no woman who ever stood under the canopy to be wed to a good man.
Excellent is her beauty,
fair is she under the wide sky. Yet this is not why she attracts our love: it is her wisdom,
her prudence, and the graceful way she moves her hands."
~Genesis Apocryphon and Jubilees
The Hebrew matriarch Sarah is one of the most renowned of the heroines of the Jewish nation. She is the inspiration for the wise and virtuous woman of the proverbs. She was nearly a century old when she bore her child, who transformed that nation into Israel. But it was not her motherhood that made her great and beloved. It was her wisdom, based on inner strength and knowledge.