Word and Image<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jenson observes that \u201cIsrael knew itself as created by God's word, in the exact sense in which we until recently spoke of \u2018a gentleman's word.' Yahweh\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/11\/word-and-image\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Word and Image\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jenson observes that \u201cIsrael knew itself as created by God's word, in the exact sense in which we until recently spoke of \u2018a gentleman's word.' 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{"id":17710,"date":"2015-11-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-13T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=2535"},"modified":"2015-11-13T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-11-13T00:00:00","slug":"word-and-image","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/11\/word-and-image\/","title":{"rendered":"Word and Image"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<\/head>

This, he argues, highlights the significance of the second commandment, which, he points out, \u201cfollows hard on the first.\u201d The connection between the two means \u201cany god of whom an image can be made is merely thereby shown to be another god than Israel\u2019s\u201d (37).<\/p>\n

And the reason for that is revealed in the third commandment\u2019s stress on Yahweh\u2019s name: \u201cGod has revealed his name, and the temptation to misuse this revelation must be resisted. But whereas God\u2019s name may be misused, his image is always misused. For with the name we address God, and just so give ourselves over to his freedom. The statue or picture, on the other hand, is our object, which we put where we choose; and if the promises of God are guaranteed by the presence of this object, then the past revelation that gave us the object puts the promised future in our control. Just this attempt at control is the confusion of Yahweh with other gods,\u201d the confusion that Israel fell into with their \u201cobjectification of God\u2019s presence, the temple\u201d (37).<\/p>\n

The prohibition of images thus reinforces the difference of Yahweh and other gods with regard to the future. For Jenson, it highlights the fact that God\u2019s eternity is not persistence from the past but faithfulness for the future.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"