Emotional Responses by God to People

This is a worthy topic to dive into, but I would advise caution.

The original language may not make same distinctions of concern/sympathy as we read it in English. To illustrate, the verse you cite Exod. 3:7 ends with כִּי יָדַעְתִּי אֶת־מַכְאֹבָיו which translates surprisingly well to: (for / such that) I know their pain.

With words connoting emotion, there is an interpretative layer in English versions. Therefore, even if you could construct a search based on Logos tags, it would be secondary material. There is no replacement for digging into the original languages.

I realize this might not have been the answer you're looking for, but you might need modules like Bible Word Study, the original language texts (e.g. the forthcoming A Reader’s Hebrew and Greek Bible, 2nd ed.), and original language lexicons (e.g. A Dictionary of Biblical Languages w/ Semantic Domains: Hebrew, A Dictionary of Biblical Languages w/ Semantic Domains: Aramaic, A Dictionary of Biblical Languages w/ Semantic Domains: Greek), before diving into specific term searches involving verbs with God as (grammatical/referential) subject.

Dave Hooton

I had an idea of researching how God interacted emotionally with His people

A Basic Search for {Section <PreachingTheme ~ Suffering>} INTERSECTS <Person God> may be useful, but you have to look at each result to find the relevant passage.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1100851#Comment_1100851

Postscript - these books might be relevant and interesting:

Jesus' Emotions in the Gospels by Voorwinde

Emotions in Biblical Law: A Cognitive Science Approach by Kazen (not available in Logos)

David Paul

Not sure to what extent you are aware of the so-called "doctrine of impassibility". I'll let you read about it for yourself.

My two cents...it's nonsense on its face. YHWH constantly speaks of Himself as having emotional reactions. Those who say otherwise are basing their "conclusions" on theoretical (read "imaginative") theological assumptions that require "Yes, He said that, but He didn't mean it. He's just saying that to make it easy for us to comprehend Him." It's amazing how many well-entrenched theological doctrines rely on this kind of "thinking".

Exo. 20:5, Exo. 34:14; Num. 25:11, 13; Deut. 4:24; Deut. 5:9; Deut. 6:15; Deut. 32:16, 21-22; Josh. 24:19; Nah. 1:2; Zech. 1:14-15; Zech. 8:2...in the sense of being utterly without feeling.

And there's this, of course...1 Jn. 4:8...like a stone...an emotionless, cold stone.

I'll let you figure this one out for yourself...1 Cor. 13:4 NASB.

MJ. Smith

Those who say otherwise are basing their "conclusions" on theoretical (read "imaginative") theological assumptions that require "Yes, He said that, but He didn't mean it. He's just saying that to make it easy for us to comprehend Him." It's amazing how many well-entrenched theological doctrines rely on this kind of "thinking".

Please omit your theological straw-man arguments. They are against the spirit of the forum and may misrepresent others' views.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1100860#Comment_1100860

I support Martha's assertion, having seen the build up of text from 2 edits. It was unnecessary to introduce Doctrine as well as unhelpful.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1100862#Comment_1100862

Whoa there ... the whole 2nd Temple was stripping the language to match the doctrine. The Targums were the crowning achievement.

David Paul

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1100860#Comment_1100860

Impassibility insists that YHWH has revealed Himself to us in Our image...rather than His own. That's exactly what "anthropomorphism" is.

Run with that if you want to.

David Paul

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1100877#Comment_1100877

I was going to post the amazon link for this, but it's available in Logos.

https://www.logos.com/product/150255/god-is-impassible-and-impassioned-toward-a-theology-of-divine-emotion

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1101525#Comment_1101525

Hi Kenneth, you can build searches based on semantic fields lexical ranges with God as subject, agent or patient. For instance, in the NT, look up the broader umbrella that corresponds to emotions in Louw and Nida. Alternatively, see if you can use the Bible Sense Lexicon, moving upward or downward in the sense tree from the more specific to higher categories and then using the search link in the left panel to find where this sense has been tagged by Logos in the Bible.

Now, often certain types of searches cannot be directly combined. For instance, I can search for <LouwNida ~ LN 25> or <Sense feeling> verses in Bible search but apparently not in clause search and I can search for Agent:God OR Patient:God in the latter but not in the former. So, what you do each search, export them to passage lists and use the merge feature and select intersect to get those verses that are common to both lists and voilà!

Hopefully this helps. If you don't know how to do some of the things mentioned here, just keep asking your questions and we'll get you there.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1101528#Comment_1101528

Hi Francis,

Using the Louw-Nida numbers is a good way to approach this.

Now, Kenneth said he might want to start with the OT. By some happy "coincidence" this thread explores how to order DBL Hebrew in semantic domains, by the Louw-Nida categories. A couple of intermediate steps are involved but the result is worth it.

Hi Kenneth,

Please review some of the answers to your question. There's a big sale going on right now, and some relevant resources may be in it, e.g. DBL Hebrew.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1101555#Comment_1101555

A couple of intermediate steps are involved but the result is worth it.

Do you know of a way to combine the results of this ordering of DBL with a query such as that which Kenneth asked about? The cross-referenced thread does not speak directly to that and for now I can't think of how this could be done (same with NIDOTTE's semantic fields which regrettably do not have an assigned reference number -- for the whole semantic category -- that makes it searchable like LN).

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1101562#Comment_1101562

I'm just raising this as a possibility...

Bring up three resources:

1. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (aka Louw-Nida)
2. A Dictionary of Biblical Languages w/ Semantic Domains: Hebrew (OT)
3. NIDOTTE

Would it be possible to do Cited-By reverse linkage between (2) and (1) - as detailed in this thread, and forming a link between (2) and (3)?

I'm not sure and I could just be scratching the surface here. Maybe Denise can chime in.

(Kenneth, if you're still following) did I mention there's a sale going on?

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1101571#Comment_1101571

1. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (aka Louw-Nida)
2. A Dictionary of Biblical Languages w/ Semantic Domains: Hebrew (OT)
3. NIDOTTE

Would it be possible to do Cited-By reverse linkage between (2) and (1) - as detailed in this thread, and forming a link between (2) and (3)?

A direct linkage from (2) to (1) is affected by clicking on the LN number!

There could be a link between (2) and (3), but not on LN domains. I would need NIDOTTE to comment further.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1101589#Comment_1101589

Thanks, Dave. I hardly use those features so I'll have wait for Denise to clue me in.

Meanwhile, I wonder if the Biblical Word Senses Dataset can be a good jumping off point for words of emotion, words of perception, possibly in lieu of Louw-Nida categories.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1101601#Comment_1101601

Denise to clue me in.

Like Dave, I don't have NIDOTTE, so I'm not sure what might happen when the CitedBy searches it. I assume NIDOTTE has LN numbers for each entry? The index wouldn't work well.

I might add, from 'MJ-teachings', that Swanson's cross-ref'ing hebrew to NT greek semantic groups had its self-limiting aspect (NT greek), as well as linguistic violations (indoEuropean vs Semitic). But Swanson saw it as in the ballpark.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1101609#Comment_1101609

I nearly reached the goal. I'd need Denise's skills with Cited By to hit home.

I was able to put DBL Hebrew and NIDOTTE into a set, so that they can be listed in parallel. However I was clicking around Cited By and not quite getting what I needed.

I fear I can't experiment too much because it could mess up my workspace.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1101612#Comment_1101612

I nearly reached the goal.

Good idea. If one wanted an LN-ish semantic sort, then link an LN TOC on the front to the CitedBy. I didn't think about using a MultiView as the final connect.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1101609#Comment_1101609

I assume NIDOTTE has LN numbers for each entry?

No.

This is what the header line looks like in NIDOTTE:The referenced numbers are G/K Hebrew numbers:

This is what a semantic fields index entry looks like:

Again only G/K numbers cross-referenced. The semantic field is not searchable as such.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1101619#Comment_1101619

No

But Lee's solution works.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1101620#Comment_1101620

But Lee's solution works.

What do you mean? For me the discussion has always been about finding solutions to the sort of query Kenneth proposed. This requires semantic fields that can be targeted in searches so that they can be combined with other arguments. I still don't see any other solution beside LN and BSL. Perhaps I missed something?

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1101623#Comment_1101623

Actually, not to be too technical, but Kenneth's question was how to find. Dave got the ball rolling with a search approach. The more traditional TOC groupings (like LN) are also avenues, along with grouped topic type resources (which often were included in personal Bibles). Ergo Lee's solution.

Kenneth L Tyler

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1099144#Comment_1099144

I wish to thank Graham and the good number of other contributors each of whom have given me a lot of insight into the depth of Logos 8 when it comes to detailed study. I'm relatively new to this level of research so I may be back again with followup questions. I have saved a copy of this thread to explore in-depth. At this time I'm deciding the best place to start and branch out from there.

Thank you all once again,

Angela Meister

Great topic.