Thursday, January 6, 2022

Daniel L. Belnap on the womb/birth metaphor in the Old Testament, including Psalm 90:2

  

Norman Habel has pointed out the similarity between this sequence and the birth process. See Norman Habel, The Birth, the Curse and the Greening of the Earth: An Ecological Reading of Genesis 1-11, earth Bible Series (Sheffield, MA: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2011), 31-33: “The implication of this reading that a womb/birth metaphor lies behind the imagery for the setting and appearance of Erets [earth] on day three may seem surprising, given the tendency of many interpreters to view tehom and the waters as evidence of primal chaos. That Erets has been viewed as a mother in some biblical passages is well known (Ps. 139:13-15). Job cries out, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked I shall return there’ (Job 1:21). A primal birth image is explicit in passages such as Job 38:8 where sea comes forth from a primal womb to be clothed and constrained by God. Immediately relevant is the imagery of Ps. 90:2 where the psalmist asserts that El, the creator God, was present before the mountains were born (yld) and before Erets and the inhabited world came to birth and was brought forth in labour (chwl). This passage quite explicitly speaks of the origin of Erets at the hands of the maker-midwife in terms of a birthing process—a tradition that I suggest is also reflected in Genesis 1. . . . If we recognize the validity of the birth metaphor, the progression from Gen. 1:2-10 becomes clear. A form, like an embryo, is located in the waters of the deep. These waters suggest a placid womb rather than a raging sea. Light and space are created so this form can be revealed. At the ‘birth’ moment, the waters separate/burst as a newborn child. God names the form Erets, looks at her and responds with delight.” We thus see God portrayed in terms of Father and giver of life in the creation. (Daniel L. Belnap, “In the Beginning: Genesis 1-3 and Its Significance to the Latter-day Saints,” in From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament Through the Lens of the Restoration, eds., Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade [Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021], 6-7 n. 7, emphasis in bold added)