Mourner, Mother, Midwife : Reimagining God's Delivering Presence in the Old Testament

Traditional understandings of God as deliverer depict God as a mighty liberator-warrior and wrathful avenger. Juliana Claassens explores alternative Old Testament metaphors that portray God as mourner, mother, and midwife--images that resist the violence and bloodshed associated with the dominant warrior imagery. Claassens discusses how metaphors of God as life giver began to develop in the aftermath of the trauma of Israelite exile. She offers compelling examples of how this feminine imagery still has the power to inspire hope amidst violence in today's world. She demonstrates that God's delivering presence helps people of faith cope with trauma and suffering on many levels--individual, community, national, and global--while bringing forth new life out of death and destruction.

L. Juliana M. Claassens is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Stellen-bosch University in South Africa. She previously taught in the United States at Wesley Theological Seminary and Baptist Theological Seminary. She is the author of The God Who Provides: Biblical Images of Divine Nourishment.