Kinah - An Angry God?

Kinah – Anger / Jealousy – literally: smoke comes from His nostrils!

This problematic anthropomorphic description of God in Deuteronomy 29:19 was the topic of last week’s Torah Study. It is difficult to think of God as having similar strong emotions like humans. And even more difficult to visualize God's nose.


I thought it would be good to see what Rashi & Rambam might have looked like to try to grasp the differences in their interpretations.

Rashi – simply explains this as a metaphor

Rambam / Maimonides – explains that the message is written this way because it is the level of intelligence that people could grasp at the time.

Suggested Book:
The Personhood of God: Biblical Theology, Human Faith And the Divine Image by Yochanan Muffs