Material images of God were once a normative feature of Israelite and Judahite religion – otherwise there would be no need for the ban. As the temple is the ‘house’ of god, the deity lives in it in much the same way as human beings live in their houses. Several consequences follow from this theology of a deity dwelling in the temple, which is an essentially anthropomorphic mode of speaking about the divine presence. A deity acts like a human being in his house: i.e. eating, drinking, sleeping, washing and dressing, are all part of this pattem of behaviour. it is the task of human beings, however, to take care of the deity’s feeding needs and his general well-being. The deity represented in his statue has to be provided with food and drink, his servants are there to wake him, clothe him and please him by buming fragrant incense. All this is minutely regulated by rituals, which can be understood as the social interaction between the priests and the divine statue (Cf. B. Gladigow, Prasenz der Bilder – Prasenz der Götter, Visible Religion 4-5 (1985- 86), 114-133).

1. Traces of a YHWH Cult Statue – External Evidence
2. There is no primary evidence of a YHWH cult statue, as far as the First and Second Temples of Jerusalem are concemed. This situation is in line with the fact that hardly any cult image from an ancient Near Eastem temple has been preserved. Cult statues usually consisted of a wooden core covered with gold and sil ver and adomed with precious stones; they were thus always prone to violation and looting by enemies and invaders. The sacking of the First Temple in 586 BCE did not spare YHWH’s cult statue either. üne important indication for the existence of cult statues in Samaria, the capital of Israel, can be found in primary sources. The Nimrud Prism of Sargon II, in its reference to the fall of Samaria in 721 BCE, for instance, states in lines 32-33 that among other pieces of booty such as people and chariots: ‘ … the gods, in which they trusted, as spoil I counted. ‘ 28 This text attests both to the existence of polytheism in Israel, and to the existence of divine statues.29 Among these divine statues was presumably one of YHWH too, because of Samaria’s character as the capital of Israel and YHWH’s position as national deity. The Israelites themselves placed their trust in these statues.30 In this context, it is interesting to note that the Old Testament also reflects the existence of divine statues and polytheism in Samaria (2 Kgs 18 : 34 LXX; cf. Isa 1O:9-11).31 Further evidence for the existence of YHWH cult images can be adduced from Arad and Elephantine. The excavations in Arad show that YHWH was venerated here in the shape of a stela (mşbh). This trait, in itself, is not an indication of an aniconic YHWH-cult, because the transition from stelae to cult figurines was a fluent one and both cult objects would have been treated theologically and ritually in the same manner (Cf. C. Uehlinger, Israelite Aniconism in Context, Bib 77 (1996), 540-549, esp. 543- 545).

This equation arises from the reception of the North-Syrian god Bethel in Israel, and from the transfer of this type of YHWH-Bethel veneration to Elephantine.33 Any indications of the cultic representation of YHWH in the temple of Elephantine must remain purely hypothetical, because the letters written about the destruction and reconstruction of this temple make no mention of a YHWH cult statue.34 YHWH’s presence alone is mentioned in different Elephantine papyri.35 The absence of any mention ofa YHWH cult statue may mean that YHWH was represented by a stone stela (mşbh) which, in comparison with the gold and silver vessels, was of no material interest to the spoilers and thus survived the destruction of the temple. From the post-exilic period there is a coin which shows a god sitting on a winged wheel. This coin is dated to the time before 450 BCE. Although the god is not identified by name, its Judahite provenance makes it likely that the deity represented was believed to be YHWH (Cf. for this view and a competent discussion of the coin D.V. Edelman, Tracking Observance of the Aniconic Tradition through Numismatics, The Triumph of Elohim (ed. D.V. Edelman; Kampen, 1995), 185-225).

Traces of a YHWH Cult Statue – Indications Given in the Old Testament:

As the existence of a divine image in the First Temple is inconceivable for most Bible scholars, they tend to reject the most simple and most plausible explanation of the phrase ‘to see the face of YHWH’, i.e. the existence of a divine statue (Cf. the critique in O. Loretz, Ugarit und die Bibel (Darmstadt, 1990), 212f). Ps 17: 15 shows that it really was possible for Israelites to gaze at a cult statue of YHWH. The parallelism of pnym ‘face’ and tmwnh ‘visible figure’ can only be explained logically by relating it to a divine statue of YHWH standing in the Temple (Cf. Loretz, Ugarit, 213f). A clear parallel is given in Num 12:4 in which Moses is granted the privilege ‘to see the form of YHWH’ (Cf. M.C.A. Korpel, A Rift in the Clouds (Münster, 1990), 91f; but cf. against an early date of this text H. Schmid, Die Gestalt des Mose (Darmstadt, 1986), 71f). This can also be explained solely by assuming the existence of a YHWH cult statue in the holy of holies. it has recently been shown that YHWH’s tmwnh has to be interpreted as the solarized YHWH who rises in the moming (Cf. Podella, Lichtkleid, 196-200). There is no contradiction in seeing YHWH’s statue and the rising sun to the east of the Temple as a symbol of jurisdiction in the moming (Cf. Podella, Lichtkleid, 160). The same reality lies behind Ps 63.3. If we pursue this track, we find other examples in the psalms. The upright will see YHWH’s face (f:ızh pnym, Ps 11 :7), the worshipper wants to ‘gaze on the loveliness of the Lord’ (lf:ızwt bn’m yhwh) and ‘to inquire in his temple’ (bqr bhykl, Ps 27 :4) and ‘to see the bounty of the Lord’ (lr’wt btwb yhwh, Ps 27,13). According to Ps 42:3, the worshipper wants to see the face of God (r’h pny ‘lhym) and Ps 84:8 allows the pilgrims to see the Lord of gods in Zion (r’h ‘l ‘lhym bşywn) (Cf. e.g. Mettinger, Dethronement, 121).