Relationships(2): Relational Dynamics in the Old Testament

With this in mind, the singularity and plurality of God may be addressed and, hopefully, accepted in the creation narratives in Genesis 1 and 2 and the encounter that Abraham had with the LORD in Genesis18:1-33.
“In beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”.[1] “This is the genealogical annals of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens”.[2] “Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”[3]
There is only One God. This God is affirmed as being One in the opening of the Shema (or the “Saying”), a central teaching in Judaism: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one”.[4]
 
Prima facie, references to plurality of this one God, who is also one, can be inferred in the creation narratives by the words, “Let us make humankind”, “in our image, in our likeness”, “male and female he created them”.
It has been advocated by many that the plural “us” and “our” here is akin to the royal prerogative used by sovereigns in ancient times when addressing themselves. However, this cannot explain the distinctiveness and separateness of male and female, in humankind, made as image and likeness of God. This can only infer and suggest plurality in the singularity or one of God.
Adam acknowledged this male and female distinctiveness in humanity, even as he also acknowledged that the distinctiveness has a common source.[5] “And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”[6]
The word rib can also mean side.[7] Hence, the phrase “bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” makes sense if God took a side of Adam to make woman.
Immediately after Adam’s acknowledgement, God pronounced[8]: “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and join to his wife and they shall be one flesh.” – Two flesh becoming One flesh origination. This Two flesh becoming One flesh simple joint relationship can in some sense be viewed as an embryonic form of the joint and several bonding. Though the two are no longer two but one, yet in order to be one there must be the two and the distinctiveness of each in the two is acknowledged and accepted. What has not been fleshed out, however, is acknowledgement that any one of the two is able to act for and on behalf of all, and as all.


[1] Genesis 1:1 Hebrew Text: Westminister Leningrad Codex with vowels – Scripture 4 All Hebrew Interlinear Bible (OT), The Stone Edition Tanach

[2] Genesis 2:4 Hebrew Text: Westminister Leningrad Codex with vowels – Scripture 4 All

[3] Genesis  1:26,27 New International Version

[4] Deuteronomy 6:4

[5] Genesis 2;21-23

[6] Genesis 2:22,23

[7] Hebrew צֵלָע tsêlâʻ, tsay-law'; or (feminine) צַלְעָה tsalʻâh Strong’s Definitions H6763; from H6760; a rib (as curved), literally (of the body) or figuratively (of a door, i.e. leaf); hence, a side, literally (of a person).

[8] Genesis2:24, Matthew 19:5

​Babylonian law with regards to marriage obligations concerning debt reflects this Two One relationship. The married couple formed a single unit in terms of external responsibility, especially for debt. The man was responsible for debts contracted by his wife, even before her marriage, as well as for his own; but he could use her as a mancipium[1]. Hence the Code allowed a proviso to be inserted in the marriage contract, that the wife should not be seized for her husband's prenuptial debts; but enacted that then he was not responsible for her prenuptial debts, and, in any case, that both together were responsible for all debts contracted after marriage.[2]
This Two One relationship has a variation in Christian Medieval France and England.[3] “A person's liability for the debts of his or her spouse was once an invariable attribute of marital status. Two individual persons merged into one legal persona. The husband managed the legal persona and acted as the exclusive agent for both spouse.”[4] This is not a full mutual joint and several as only the husband, severally, can bind the wife but not vice versa.
 
In the instances above, with regards to God and humankind, joint and several can only be seen or inferred in the inter-relational dynamics exclusively within God or exclusively within humankind.
 
Also, it did not apply nor was it expressed in the inter-relational dynamics between God and humankind, as described in the Old Testament, which was fundamentally, in nature, several and distinct, even in the common and representative cases.
 
The following references in the Old Testament cases this.
 
Verses in Genesis 1 and 2, assert that: “In beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”.[5] “the Lord God made the earth and the heavens”.[6]
 
They also reference God’s creative acts throughout the heavens and earth, in particular, living things on the earth. They end with the creation of humankind, male and female, in the image and likeness of God.[7]
 
In these verses, distinction is made between Creator and creation, Creator and creature. God is God. Creation and creatures came into being solely by God’s creative acts.
 
With the exception of humankind, God spoke the rest of creation into existence. The Nature and Being of God is infinitely, essentially, fundamentally different and separate from that of creation and humankind. As such, the inter-relational dynamics between God and creation, with particular emphasis with humankind, could only be in a several, separate and distinct fashion.
 
In other cases in the Old Testament, prophets representing Yahweh God, by their prophetic utterances and the High priest representing man in his priestly functions are prominent illustrations of representative dynamics.
 
There are also instances recorded in the Old Testament of respective contributions being made by God and man towards common objectives and outcomes. Moses lifting the rod of the Lord in his hands to achieve victory over Amalek and God ensuring victory as long as Moses’ hands were up[8] is one. God saving Noah and his family with Noah having to build the ark[9]is another. In both cases, notwithstanding that all parties made contributions towards common goals, all parties remain distinct and separate. Respective contributions can be distinctly attributed and identified as having been from or belonging to the contributing party concerned.
 
Nowhere in the Old Testament is there any example of a simple joint relationship, where man and God are considered and inter-related together as jointly one. Consequently, joint and several inter-relational dynamics between God and humanity are non-existent.
 
All this changed, through an event happening, in our created time and history.
 
WORD became flesh.
 
GOD became a human being.


[1] If a debtor were seized for debt, he could nominate as mancipium, or hostage to work off the debt, his wife, child, or slave. The creditor could only hold a wife or child three years as mancipium. Hammurabi Code
 

[2] Source: gopher://gopher.vt.edu:10010/10/33 - Part of the source file for the Law code of Hammurabi
Author: Rev. Claude Hermann Walter Johns, M.A. Litt.D.
Original text source: Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910-1911.
 

[3] SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF ENGLAND 433-45
(William Carey Jones ed., 1915). In his commentaries, Blackstone noted that:
By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the
very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage,
or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband:
under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs everything;
and is therefore called in our law-French a feme-covert, foemina viro co- operta [married woman]; is said to be covert-baron, or under the protection
and influence of her husband, her baron, or lord; and her condition
during her marriage is called her coverture.
 

[4] In Good Times and in Debt: The Evolution of Marital Agency and the Meaning of Marriage. Marie T. Reilly, Professor of Law, The Pennsylvania State University Dickinson School of Law, University Park, Pennsylvania, mtrl2@psu.edu. “I acknowledge with gratitude the research assistance of Penn State Law students Ann Chen and Elizabeth Hunt”.
 

[5] Genesis 1;1

[6] Genesis 2:4 Hebrew Text: Westminister Leningrad Codex with vowels – Scripture 4 All

[7] Genesis 1:27, 2:22

[8] Exodus 17:9-11

[9] Genesis 6:13