Station: [102] Female Images of God

In the figurative language of the Old Testament—particularly in the Psalms and the Prophets—metaphors are used to describe the nature of God. Alongside male images of God, we also encounter female ones. Thus Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings; but you were not willing.” Jesus compares himself to a hen. Here are a few examples from the Old Testament: God as a loving mother in the book of Hosea: I was there for them like one who lifts an infant to her cheek. God as an “extremely emotional mother who defends her young”: I will attack them like a she-bear whose cubs have been snatched away. God is like a woman in labor, as it says in the Book of Isaiah:“Shall I remain silent any longer? Like a woman in labor, I will now cry out and groan.” And in another passage, God has breasts for us: “Rejoice with Jerusalem! Suckle and be satisfied at her breasts of comfort.” In the Book of Deuteronomy, God is both a father and a mother: You no longer thought of the Rock who begot you; you forgot the God who gave birth to you. In the Bible translation “Bibel in gerechter Sprache” (Bible in Just Language), God is therefore consistently addressed as both “he” and “she.”