Void Words

1.       In the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible, Numbers 23:19, we read the following:

a.       God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken and shall he not make it good?

2.       The Jewish Publication Society (JPS) in their publication of the Tanakh (Old Testament) present a somewhat clearer reading, though largely consistent with the KJV:

a.       God is not man to be capricious, or mortal to change His mind. Would He speak and not act, Promise and not fulfill?

3.       A closer examination of the passage in question as it reads in the Masoretic Text (Hebrew source-language text) renders the following:

a.       Not a man that lies is God, nor a human that regrets; doth he say and not do, or speak and not fulfill?

4.       There are two points that are worth noting between the more careful translation and the KJV and JPS versions. The KJV and JPS translations appear to draw an essential distinction between God and man, that distinction being that God is not “a” man or even “man”. From this distinction it follows that he, God, does not behave as man does.

5.       This idea of the non-anthropomorphic (un-human-like) nature of God seems to be reinforced as the verse continues for the KJV and JPS read that God “is neither the son of man, that he should repent”, “or mortal to change his mind”.

6.       The Masoretic (Hebrew) text does not so much establish a mutually exclusive proposition, namely, that to be God is not to be a man (and logically vice versa), but contrasts the behavior or ability of God to man’s behavior or inclination, to wit, not following through with one’s stated objectives or of refashioning (instead of fulfilling) one’s stated objectives. Consequently, God’s great wisdom and truthfulness are underscored, for God does what he says he will, and God fulfills what he speaks forth.

7.       The second point I wish to make here is that the Masoretic text does not conclude that God is neither a man nor human (son of man), because these lie; the Masoretic text emphasizes that God is not the type of man or human who does lie. One could conclude therefrom that God is a man and is human, simply not the type who lies. This final conclusion is interesting when compared to  Leviticus 19:11:

a.       Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another.

b.      The implication of being commanded not to lie (as with the other commandments) would seem to be a command for man to be, not a lying man, but the kind of man who does not lie, even the kind of man that God is. Then the declaration of Psalm 82:6 is more relevant: “I have said, Ye are gods: and all of you are children of the most High.”

8.       There is a third and for now final point I wish to make regarding the Masoretic text of Numbers 23:19. In the Book of Moses 4:30 from The Pearl of Great Price (or in Inspired Version of the Holy Scriptures, Genesis 3:30), Joseph Smith recorded a passage (of one many) that he felt inspired to declare had once been in the original text written by Moses, but through centuries of transmission had been lost. Irrespective of one’s view of the assertion, the verse in question reads as follows:

a.       For as I, the Lord God, liveth, even so my words cannot return void, for as they go forth out of my mouth they must be fulfilled.

b.      The verse, in the voice of the Lord God, asserts that God’s words cannot become void (null) nor go unfulfilled. This declaration is the same one made in Numbers 23:19, and the same echoed whenever any man or woman has been moved upon by the Spirit of God to speak. However one wishes to take these verses is the reader’s prerogative. They are, though, actually textual.

Were they [mankind] created of nothing or were they themselves the creators? Or did they created the heavens and the earth? Nay, they have no firm belief.

(Qur’an 52:35-36)