Station: [102] Female images of God

In the figurative language of the First Testament, metaphors are used to describe the nature of God, especially in the Psalms and the prophets. In addition to male images of God, we also encounter female images of God, as Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I wanted to gather your children around me, just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing." Jesus compares himself to a hen. A few examples from the First Testament:God as a mother of hearts in the prophet Hosea: I was there for them like those who lift the baby to their cheeks.God as an "extremely emotional mother who defends her young:I attack them like a bear whose cubs have been taken away.God is like a woman giving birth in the book of Isaiah:Shall I keep quiet? Like a woman in childbirth I will now cry out and groan, and in another place God has breasts for us: "Rejoice with Jerusalem! In the book of Deuteronomy, God is a begetter and a mother: "You no longer remembered the rock that bore you, you forgot the Godhead that gave you birth." In the Bible translation "The Bible in Plain Language", God is therefore consistently addressed both as He and as She