Patrick F

I'm wondering if people here can help me out. I was re-reading Leviticus 9-10 where Aaron and his sons are making a few rather official sacrifices. Suddenly something described as "the glory of the Lord" appears and "consumes' the sacrificed animals.

There is a description of this concept from Ezekiel 1:26 where “the glory of the Lord” is described in a very elaborate and fantastical way. However, in a conversation with some Christians they say that the “glory of the Lord” that would have made it’s appearance in this story would not have looked like that. In Exodus 24:17 “the glory of the Lord” seems much more mundane. I'm trying to figure out why there are such dramatic differences in the descriptions.

Does anyone have info about this? Here’s the quote from both Leviticus and Ezekiel:


Leviticus:

Moses and Aaron then went into the Tent of Meeting. When they came out, they blessed the people; and the glory of the LORD appeared to all the people. 24 Fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed the burnt offering and the fat portions on the altar. And when all the people saw it, they shouted for joy and fell facedown.



Ezekiel:

Above the expanse over their heads was what looked like a throne of sapphire, [f] and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. 27 I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. 28 Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.


Exodus:

When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, 16 and the glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai. For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the LORD called to Moses from within the cloud. 17 To the Israelites the glory of the LORD looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain.

Toto

LDS Bible Dictionary Presumably, the divine can manifest itself in a variety of phenomena.

Why do your Christians friends think that the glory of the Lord has limitations?

Patrick F

To be honest, I think they're embarrased by the Ezekiel description and want to confine it to an apocalyptic vision. At least that's the vibe I got. I mean, I don't think you want people thinking that God is going around commonly looking like gleaming metal from the waste up and fire from the waste down. How that fits in with looking like a man is hard to figure out.

Littlejohn

Carefully reading Ezekiel, we can derive a very important data, which confirms the upsetting of hebraic cult of the origins, essentially polytheistic, in order to obtain from it a monotheism (probably on the model of what did, about 6 centuries before, Akhenaten in Egypt) . Combining this data with what you can achieve through Jewish Kabala, you can also understand why Isaiah (or who for he) speaks of "suffering servant", relatively to primitive concept of "messiah" (of course according to the Jewish perspective and NOT the Christian one!)


Littlejohn
.

Cesc

This "Glory of the Lord" or sometimes "spirit" or "presence of the Lord" is a manifestation of YHWH travelling in a cloud. It "dwells" in YHWH's home, the Temple, by the Ark of Covenant and its cloud sometimes envelopes (or 'overshadows') people in connection with theophanies (Moses), or when conceiving in the case of Mary.
Later Jewish writers then unified this concept as the "shekinah" (from the Hebrew verb "to dwell"), a feminine word, and obviously as a representation of the feminine aspect of YHWH.

The Shekinah's Christian equivalent would be the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit being the divine Mother, God's consort, Christ's mother.

If YHWH is the Creator, then it makes sense - in the ancient fertility worldview - that he would have to have a feminin aspect aswell, perhaps the role of the "spirit over the waters" in Genisis 1, which creates (or gives birth) to the earth.
The "Glory/Spirit" might originally have played the same role as the feminine lifepower of the mother- or fertility goddess, Aphrodite, Venus, Eros, Cupid, the Ankh, etc.

I'd like to know if "glory/spirit/presence" in the OT are Hebrew feminine words or masculine.