![]() ![]() God the mother feeds God’s children in Isaiah Isaiah, son of Amoz, who prophesied in Jerusalem, is included among the prophets of the eighth century B.C.E. Preserving children also entails feeding them. In Isaiah 49:13-15, God responds to the people’s cry by reassuring them with the question, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb?” Israel’s cry to God, possibly recorded while in its Babylonian exile, offers imagery of how God as a mother preserves God’s child, Israel (Deuteronomy 32:18, see this explanatory note on the Song of Moses). Once mothers bring children into the world, they work to preserve and save their children from harm and death. Christ’s use of mothering imagery in the throes of death point to the new humanity that he brings forth for the sake of the world. Before his arrest and crucifixion, according to John 17:1, Jesus states that “the hour has come” -– a phrase that was used frequently to refer to the moment when active labor starts for a woman in childbirth. Jesus Jesus is the Messiah whose life, death, and resurrection are God's saving act for humanity More Christ speaks of himself in terms of birthing a new humanity. Such mothering language also underscores the nurturing vitality of God’s creation. In Paul’s famous imagery of female groaning in active labor, the creation groans as it labors towards redemption and new life in Romans 8:22. God also births Wisdom, as described in Proverbs 8:22-25.īirthing language continues as a description of how creation experiences sin and its future. More uses when she gives birth, or “produces” her son Cain The elder son of Adam and Eve, Cain murdered his brother Abel. The word, “maker” is the same Hebrew word that Eve The name of the first woman, wife of Adam. Genesis 14: 19 and 22 speak of God as the “maker” of the heavens and the earth. In other places, the language of birth and the female body is less clear, but ancient readers would have understood it as birthing language. More thus is not just a spoken event, but a birthing event that comes from the whole being of God. In the book of Revelation (which speaks of end times) the author declares that God created all things and. Genesis says that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Creation Creation, in biblical terms, is the universe as we know or perceive it. The sea leaps out of God’s womb (Job 38:8), and the ice is brought forth from God’s womb (Job 38:28-29). God’s mothering work begins in childbirth, as most mothering work does. But such imagery is not without some tension. The Bible offers a picture of God who mothers through the work of birthing, preserving, and nurturing God’s children.
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