ABSTRACT
Throughout Scripture this theme of divine transcendence is repeatedly affirmed. Thus the sixth century BCE prophet Isaiah proclaimed:
Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to dwell in (Isa. 40:21-22)
Later in same book Isaiah declared that God is beyond human comprehension:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts (Isa. 55:8-9)
In the book of Job the same idea is repeated – God’s purposes transcend human understanding:
Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty? It is higher than heaven – what can you do? Deeper than Sheol – what can you know? Its measure is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea. (Job 11:7-9)
According to the author of Ecclesiastes, God is in heaven whereas human beings are confined to earth. Thus the wise person should recognize the limitations of his knowledge:
Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in
heaven, and you upon earth; therefore let your words be few. (Eccles. 5:2)
Despite this view of God’s remoteness from his creation, He is also viewed as actively involved in the cosmos. In the Bible his omnipresence is repeatedly stressed. Thus the Psalmist rhetorically asked:
Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend into heaven, thou art there! . . . If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there thy hand shall lead me. (Ps. 139:7-10)
In the rabbinic period Jewish scholars formulated the doctrine of the Shekhinah to denote the divine presence. As the in-dwelling presence of God, the Shekhinah is compared to light. Thus the midrash paraphrases Numbers 6:25 (‘The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you’): ‘May he give thee of the light of the Shekhinah’ (divine presence). In another midrash the ‘shining’ of the Shekhinah in the Tent of Meeting is compared to a cave by the sea. When the sea rushes in to fill the cave, it suffers no diminution of its waters. Likewise the divine presence filled the Tent of Meeting, but simultaneously filled the world. In the third century the Babylonian scholar Rab said: ‘In the world to come there is no eating nor drinking nor propagation nor business nor jealousy nor hatred nor competition, but the righteous sit with their crowns on their heads and enjoy the brightness of the Shekhinah’ (Ber. 17a). Again, the Talmud states: ‘Come and see how beloved Israel is before God’ for wherever they went into exile the Shekhinah went with them; in Babylon, the Shekhinah was with them and in the future, when Israel will be redeemed, the Shekhinah will be with them’ (Meg. 29a).
