Yahweh’s Winged Form in the Psalms: Exploring Congruent Iconography and Texts

The impressive image of the winged Yahweh is encountered in six psalms. The scholars argue about the background and the meaning of the picture with the arguments that it 1. compares the Israelite deity to a bird, 2. points to the winged sun disk, 3. uses Egyptian symbols for protection, 4. the picture of winged ones Goddesses conjured up or 5th to the winged cherubim in the temple or on the ark. These various arguments illustrate the need for a clearer way to interpret biblical images in the context of Middle Eastern art. This volume further develops the iconographic methods by looking at the image of the winged Yahweh in the middle of the literary images of a psalm. Various overlaps with Syro-Palestinian iconographic material can be discovered. These overlaps include: 1) the winged sun disk, 2) the Horus falcon, 3) winged suckling goddesses, 4) winged deities in battle. There is not a single idea behind the picture of the winged Yahweh. The winged Yahweh is an excellent example of a multi-layered literary image that is reminiscent of several iconographic motifs.