First, in the Old Testament
there is a close relationship between the spirit and power, but in two
apparently contradictory directions. On the one hand, as a wind רוח can be
something that lacks substance, and the term can be used of that which is
worthless and deceptive. This use is found most notable in Ecclesiastes, often
in association with the similar term הבל, but is also used in Isa 41.29 of
divine images. The Babylonian idols are רוח ותהו, which NRSV translates as
“wind and confusion”. On the other hand, the wind is a powerful, but invisible,
force in the natural world. In addition, since L74 gives life, it is the
animating power in people and animals. Numerous biblical texts trace the origins
of this life back to God himself who also has a רוח. God’s רוח can be presented
as a potent force or as the annulment of power and might.
The power of God’s רוח is
expressed in what is often considered a genuine Isaianic oracle where the
prophet contrasts the human to the divine and the flesh to the spirit:
The Egyptians are human and not
God their horses are flesh and not spirit (31.3).
The prophet’s intent is not to
articulate a flesh-spirit dualism, but simply to warn those who would seek
support from Egypt. In comparison to the power of the spirit, the flesh is weak
and feeble. Similarly in Zech 4.7 God’s spirit is the antithesis of
reliance on human resourcefulness: “not by might, nor by power, but by my
spirit”. The power of God’s spirit is also vividly depicted in the effect that
it has on individuals. The prophet Ezekiel describes how the spirit lifts (נשא)
him from the ground and transports him to another place (Ezek 3.12, 14; 8.3;
11.1, 24; 43.5; cf. 37.1 [יצא]). A possibly more violent version of the same
imagery is found in the story of Elijah. He too can be miraculously lifted (נשא)
by the spirit and transported elsewhere (1 Kgs 18.12). When Elijah is taken
into heaven by a whirlwind (סערה), the prophetic band offer to look for him
reasoning that he might have been lifted up by the spirit and thrown down on a
mountain or in a valley (2 Kgs 2.16).18 The Elijah narratives emphasize not
only the power of God’s spirit, but also its unpredictability. As an expression
of the divine will, the activity of the spirit cannot be foreseen by human
beings.
The power and, arguably, the
unpredictability of God’s spirit is ingredient to the stories in the book of
Judges and 1 Samuel. The spirit of YHWH rushes (צלח) upon Israel’s leaders
enabling them to undertake their mighty acts of deliverance (Judg 14.6, 19;
15.14; 1 Sam 10.6, 10; 11.6; 16.13; 19.20, 23; cf. Judg 3.10; 6.34; 11.29; 1
Sam 19.20, 23). Niditch neatly summarizes the portrayal of the spirit in these
books,
“The Spirit of Yhwh” is powerful,
empowering, dangerous, and difficult to control, endows the hero with the
charisma to defeat his enemies and confront other challenges; it is a criterion
of various kinds of leadership roles including judgeship, prophetic status, and
kingship. (NIDITCH, Judges, 133)
The examples of Samson and Saul
suggest not a permanent endowment, but an enabling that comes upon the leader
for a specific purpose. In the case of Samson the spirit comes upon him time
and again as he does his mighty deeds. (Nathan MacDonald, “The Spirit of YHWH:
An Overlooked Conceptualization of Divine Presence in the Persian Period,” in Divine
Presence and Absence in Exilic and Post-Exilic Judaism, ed. Nathan MacDonald
and Izaak J. De Hulster [Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2.Reihe 61; Studies of
the Sofja Kovalevskaja Research Group on Early Jewish Monotheism 2; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013], 99-100,
emphasis in bold added)
