LXX: καὶ ἐκάλεσεν Αγαρ τὸ ὄνομα κυρίου τοῦ λαλοῦντος πρὸς αὐτήν Σὺ ὁ θεὸς ὁ ἐπιδών με· ὅτι εἶπεν Καὶ γὰρ ἐνώπιον εἶδον ὀφθέντα μοι.
Brenton: "And she called the name of the Lord God who spoke to her, Thou art God who seest me; for she said, For I have openly seen him that appeared to me."
NETS: "And Hagar called the name of the Lord who was speaking to her, 'You-are-the-God-who-looks-upon-me,' because she said, 'For truly I saw him face to face when he appeared to me."
5 comments:
https://langhamliterature.org/books/seeing-the-face-of-god
Thanks for the reference. The blurb for the book says in part when speaking about the face of God, "While some scholars dismissed the expression as merely a metaphor with little significance, others have compared it to the ‘face’ of gods and goddesses of the ANE religious context"
I must take issue with the blurb for a couple of reasons: 1) There is nothing "mere" about metaphorical speech; 2) Just because an expression is metaphorical does not mean it has little/no significance; 3) the "face of God" is either metaphorical or anthropomorphic, given what we know about the biblical God. "He" is not a man, but he is spirit, and does not have a corporeal body. "God is not a man that he should tell lies" and the heavens of the heavens cannot contain him, much less an earthly temple.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321826173_The_concept_of_God's_face_as_an_anthropopathism_in_the_Old_Testament
Have not read the book yet, but here are some comments:-
In viewing "the face of the Lord" and "the glory of the Lord" as referring to the physical, corporeal presence of God, Satyavani presents an intriguing study of the self-revelation of God which challenges received views of divine personhood. Chloe Starr PhD Assistant Professor, Asian Christianity and Theology Yale Divinity School, New Haven ... the virtue of this work is its insistence on situating these texts within the wider narrative sequence of the Pentateuch-an approach long overdue in the long running discussion of this important topic, "Seeing the Face of God". David Shepherd PhD Assistant The Professor of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Loyola Institute, Trinity College, Dublin
Well, Jehovah's Witnesses believe that YHWH has a spiritual body that has been manifested corporeally in the past, in visions or theophanies. The ancient cloud apparently represented God's glory and scripture speaks of God's face shining on his servants. However, as we know, Moses was warned about seeing God's face, and other men quaked in fear when they saw Jehovah's angels.
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