According to Shimon Bar-Efrat (2004:47-53), the narrator can ‘shape’
characters in two ways, directly and indirectly. In the first
instance, the direct shaping of a character, the narrator ‘tells’ his audience that
a character has specific qualities. This is not a tool biblical narrators’
often used and whenever it is employed, it is done so with a purpose. So, if
one come across a direct description of some sort, one need to take note, as it
will have some significance for the story later on.
Direct descriptions can be divided into two major groups,
description of a character’s outward appearance and description of
his/her inner personality. In Genesis 27, we are told, for example, that
Jacob was hairy whereas his brother was smooth. This ‘insignificant’
observation by the narrator later becomes very important when Jacob and his
mother concoct a plan to ensure the Jacob and not Esau receives Isaac’s
blessing.
If direct descriptions of characters’ outward appearances are
generally scares in the Bible, it is even more so for God. It probably have to
do with the fact that God do not allow people to meet him face to face and that
anyone who would do so would die (Ex 33:20). No wonder those who experienced a theophany
(a vision of God) usually react in fear (Jdg 6:22; Is 6:5; Rev 1:17).
What is interesting is that when somebody saw God and
describes him, is the use of similes. God is often described with the use of
similes. Now, a simile is comparing one thing with another without the one
being the other. Although the one is not the other, there is, however, an
‘overlap’ in meaning in the sense that the one show some resembles of the
others – one is like the other. Daniel 10:6 provides us with a
short example:
Now his body was like
turquoise, and his face was like the appearance of lightning, and
his eyes were like torches of fire, and his arms and his legs
were like the gleam of polished bronze, and the sound of his
words was like the sound of a multitude. (see also Ez 1:26
and Rev 1)
It seems that when Daniel wants to describe what he saw, he can only to
do it by means of comparison or simile.
Thus, it seems then, that when we do get a ‘direct description’
of God’s ‘outward appearance’, it is quite vague. The best those who had a
vision of him can do is to describe what they saw in terms of something else. What
they saw was so indescribable that they had resort to imagery. In doing this,
the narrator wants to communicate the majesty, the holiness, the greatness, the
otherness, etc., of God. Maybe it also has to do with the fact that God forbid
the worship of images – even an image of him.
Bar-Efrat, S. (2004). Narrative Art in the Bible.
London; New York, NY: T & T Clark International.
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