The Motherly Father God

Back in the day (say, 1910), dads didn’t think much of the idea of Father’s Day. They didn’t relate to the sentimental gifts given to mothers on Mother’s Day. But as fathers have softened over time, they’ve also learned to accept a holiday in their honor.

What we love about fathers now is typically a mix of masculine and feminine qualities. A man with a soft heart is likely to be a great dad by all definitions (see here and here and here).

And isn’t that what we love about God the Father, too? Or is He the silent Tough Guy we might think of when we read the Old Testament?

Surprisingly, the authors of early Scripture paint a Father God with a strong feminine streak, just as Jesus would refer to in the first century. Here are the broad strokes.

God the Father Creates Children and All Creation

 These verses show Father-God as Creator, a typically feminine role:

“Is he not your Father, your Creator, who made you and formed you?” Deut. 32:6b

“Do we not all have one Father? Did not one God create us?” Mal 2:10

“Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew?” Job 38:28

Though fathers do participate in raising children, they have a more removed role in fetal development and birth. Yet Father and Creator are used interchangeably in these verses, almost like saying “Father” and “Mother” at the same time. Job pulls in El Shaddai’s role in all creation, not only humans. Note that Job uses the title Shaddai 31 times, which we’ve established means Breasted One in Hebrew.

God the Father Carries His Child

Deut. 1:31 says, “ …There you saw how Yahweh carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.”

You can kind of see God the Father with a baby sling, hiking up a mountain or through the desert. It’s the very present, empathetic dad who carries and does not insist that a child walk even if they can.

God the Father is Compassionate

Psalm 68:5 says, “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.”  I love how in this verse the psalmist sees God as taking the role of adoptive father to those without one.

We don’t ever see God as a distant, angry father but always as compassionate. Psalm 103:13 underscores this with the Hebrew word for compassion, rechem, which literally means womb-love:

“As a father has compassion on his children, so Yahweh has compassion on the one who fears him.” 

God the Father Tenderly Calls His Children

The most common reference to God as Father in the Old Testament is simply God calling Israel to a father-son relationship, as though it were radically new good news, a kind of proto-gospel. This good news is intimacy, trust, and nearness.

Jeremiah twice proclaims this, first in 3:19: “‘I thought you would call me ‘Father’ and not turn away from following me,’ declares the Lord.” And, again in 31:9: “because I am Israel’s father, and Ephraim is my firstborn son.”

The psalmist in Psalm 2:6 says, “I will proclaim Yahweh’s decree: He said to me, ‘You are my son; today I have become your father.” And, again in Psalm 89:26, “He will call out to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, the Rock my Savior.’” 

Isaiah has the Israelites say, “But you are our father, though Abraham does not know us or Israel acknowledge us; you, Yahweh, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name” (Is. 63:16).

Isaiah also has titled the coming Messiah as “Everlasting Father” in the context of other titles (Wonderful, Counselor, Prince of Peace) which indicate a nurturing, peaceful God who leads, much like a shepherd or shepherdess (9:6).

Jesus’ Abba

It is these verses that Jesus must have recalled when praying to Yahweh as Father, and even once in his distress, using the more intimate term Abba (Mark 14:36). When Jesus taught the Twelve to pray, He led them also into this kind of trusting relationship with the motherly Father of Scripture.

Looking more closely at what we call The Lord’s Prayer, we see a thread of the feminine within it. “Give us this day our daily bread,” calls to mind one of Jesus parables in Luke 13:20-21, where God is a baker-woman adding yeast to flour and kneading to create sustenance. Bread-making was always a feminine activity, yet this detail escapes us too often.

After Jesus tells His followers how to pray to the Father, he tells a parable in which a man (God) gives bread to a neighbor who persistently asks for bread for guests (Luke 11:7-8). From there Jesus begins to describe the actions of a good parent as giving of food, particularly fish and bread. Jesus describes God as one who nourishes even more readily than human parents, and by implication like a father and a mother, the baker of bread.

Have a Motherly Father’s Day

So, on Father’s Day, let’s celebrate the fathers who follow Christ’s example by emulating the motherly Father of Scripture.