The Weeping God

As I was doing some research this morning, I came across a text that, although quite unrelated to what I was looking for, I found very interesting. I thought I would share it here on my blog.

The text struck me as very similar to a passage of scripture from the (LDS) Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price. This passage, from Moses 7, portrays Enoch speaking with God in heaven after the city of Zion had been taken away from the earth and drawn up to God.  Part of the reason that the city was taken away (besides, of course, because of its righteousness) was because of the wickedness that surrounded it.  God then weeps because of the evil that reigns on the earth after Zion is removed:

28 And it came to pass that the God of heaven looked upon the residue of the people, and he wept; and Enoch bore record of it, saying: How is it that the heavens weep, and shed forth their tears as the rain upon the mountains?

29 And Enoch said unto the Lord: How is it that thou canst weep, seeing thou art holy, and from all eternity to all eternity?

32 The Lord said unto Enoch: Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency;

33 And unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood;

37 But behold, their sins shall be upon the heads of their fathers; Satan shall be their father, and misery shall be their doom; and the whole heavens shall weep over them, even all the workmanship of mine hands; wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer?

41 And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Enoch, and told Enoch all the doings of the children of men; wherefore Enoch knew, and looked upon their wickedness, and their misery, and wept and stretched forth his arms, and his heart swelled wide as eternity; and his bowels yearned; and all eternity shook.

When Enoch sees God weeping, he apparently doesn’t quite feel that this is appropriate, and asks God how He can weep when He is so holy.  The Lord responds by showing Enoch the wickedness of the people, God’s own creation, and the extent to which they will suffer. After seeing this vision of misery among God’s children, Enoch understands why God would feel this way and also begins to weep inconsolably.

The text I came across this morning is incredibly similar to this scene.  It is from Lamentations Rabbah, a midrashic (rabbinical interpretation of scripture) collection which is difficult to date, but was mostly likely written some time after the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD.  It describes a scene in which the Angel Metatron is conversing with God. We are told in the Enochic literature that Metatron is the angelified Enoch.  Enoch/Metatron is consoling God, who is lamenting the destruction of the Temple and the exile of his Shekinah (the Divine Presence).  Their conversation is portrayed as follows:

At that moment Metatron entered and fell on his face and said before him, “Master of the Universe, I will cry so that you don’t have to cry.” He [God] replied, “If you don’t let me cry now I will enter a place where you don’t have the authority [reshut] to enter and I will cry, as it is said, ‘If you do not heed, My soul will weep in the secret places because of your arrogance [Jer. 13:17] (Lamentations Rabbah 24).

That is the only section of the text I have seen, so I’m not sure what more is said.  But it is amazing that this exchange between Enoch/Metatron and God is preserved so similarly in the two sources.  Perhaps many Jews and Christians today would likely find both passages to be rather strange and the depiction of God weeping as peculiar, inappropriate, or even heretical.

Some differences or contradictions in the setting of the two texts may actually be surprising similarities.  In the Book of Moses, it is Zion that has been, in a sense, forced to flee, while in the midrash it is the Shekinah.  However, in Jewish literature, there is significant correspondence between Zion and the Shekinah. I don’t have time to go into it fully, but Zion is often described as female, the Bride of God.  The Shekinah, the Divine Presence, is a female noun in Hebrew, is associated with the female personified Wisdom, and is also described as the Bride of God.

Although the time period described seems to be different, there is, I believe, some association in the Enochic literature between the destruction of Solomon’s Temple and the destruction that came because of the fallen angels and the subsequent flood.  The rabbinical writers often compared the destruction of the temple by the Romans to the destruction of the First Temple.  So perhaps the rabbis are taking an older story of a conversation between Enoch/Metratron and God, something that happened before the flood, and applying it to God lamenting over the loss of the temple.

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