Memra: God's Creative Word Personified

Memra (= “Ma’amar” or “Dibbur,” “Logos”): “The Word,” in the sense of the creative or directive word or speech of God manifesting His power in the world of matter or mind; a term used especially in the Targum as a substitute for “the Lord” when an anthropomorphic expression is to be avoided.

In Scripture “the word of the Lord” commonly denotes the speech addressed to patriarch or prophet (Gen. xv. 1; Num. xii. 6, xxiii. 5; I Sam. iii. 21; Amos v. 1-8); but frequently it denotes also the creative word: “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made” (Ps. xxxiii. 6; comp. “For He spake, and it was done”; “He sendeth his word, and melteth them [the ice]”; “Fire and hail; snow, and vapors; stormy wind fulfilling his word”; Ps. xxxiii. 9, cxlvii. 18, cxlviii. 8). In this sense it is said, “For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven” (Ps. cxix. 89). “The Word,” heard and announced by the prophet, often became, in the conception of the seer, an efficacious power apart from God, as was the angel or messenger of God: “The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel” (Isa. ix. 7 [A. V. 8], lv. 11); “He sent his word, and healed them” (Ps. cvii. 20); and comp. “his word runneth very swiftly” (Ps. cxlvii. 15).

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Author: Jewish Encyclopedia

Keywords: Metonym for God, Metonym, Metonymy, Divine voice, Personification, Personified, God's word personified, Word of God, Word of the Lord, Memra, Divine Word, Logos, Lady Wisdom, Wisdom personified

Bible reference(s): Ps 33:6, Ps 33:9, Psa 105:19, Ps 147:18, Psa 148:8, Ps 119:89, Sirach 42:15, 2 Esdras 6:38, Wisdom 16:12, Wisdom 9:1, John 1:1-4, John 1:14, Rev 19:13

Source: Cyrus Adler, Isidore Singer, eds., The Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 8, “Memra,” (1906), pp. 464-466.

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