The Generous Womb-Compassion of God

I recently read one of Marcus Borg’s notable books, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. It’s a fascinating, brief book on the “pre-Easter” and “post-Easter” Jesus. I’m wrestling with many of Borg’s ideas but I was captivated by his section on the Hebrew words for compassion and womb, which are really from the same three character root, רחם. Borg says, “In the Hebrew Bible, compassion is both a feeling and a way of being that flows out of that feeling.” Thinking of the compassion of God in relation to God’s posture towards us was something I knew I needed to dig into.

The word for womb can either be masculine (rechem) or feminine (beten) and variations are used to describe either a woman’s literal womb or the deep spaces in the human body, like the gut, abdomen, or bowels. For example,

• “When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he enabled her to conceive [literally, “opened her womb“] but Rachel remained childless.” Genesis 29:31
• “Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king’s belly.” Judges 3:21

Compassion, racham, is a plural form of the word used for womb. It’s used most often to describe God having or showing strong feelings of love for God’s people. For example, 

• “The Lord is gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion.” Psalm 116:5 
• “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;” Psalm 103:13

There are also instances where it is translated as mercy. Borg argues against this interpretation by pointing out mercy implies a different relationship than compassion does.

There are the verses that really caught my attention. 

• “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb,” Job 38:8
• “Is not Ephraim my dear son, the child in whom I delight? Though I often speak against him, I still remember him. Therefore my heart yearns for him; I have great compassion for him,” declares the Lord.” Jeremiah 31:20

We can see the authors of the Old Testament describe God’s compassion for creation. In using this word, the imagery of a womb is indirectly present. And in some cases, creation is explicitly described to have come from “the womb” of the Creator. Though we know God transcends gender and does not have a literal uterus, I think this linguistic connection is striking.  

Borg points out that this word implies God is like a womb. “Metaphoric and evocative, the phrase and its associated image provocatively suggest a number of connotations. Like a womb, God is the one who gives birth to us — the mother who gives birth to us. As a mother loves the children from her womb and feels for the children of her womb, so God loves us and feels for us,”. To say God is compassionate is to say that God feels so deeply for humankind. The love God repeatedly shows to Israel, and to us, comes from a place of deep, tender care and “yearning” as Jeremiah says. 

Feminine imagery is used yet again in the New Testament in the phrase from John’s gospel, “to be born again,” which attempts to describe the mysterious event of salvation. Nicodemus astutely acknowledges that we cannot reenter our mothers’ wombs and Jesus confirms there is another rebirth to occur. There is another spiritual womb to occupy, to be nurtured by, to be transformed by. 

Our understanding of God’s compassion will influence how we live with and share compassion among others. Borg summarizes his explanation by saying, “And, to complete the imitatio dei, to “be compassionate as God is compassionate” is to be like a womb as God is like a womb. It is to feel as God feels and to act as God acts: in a life-giving and nourishing way.” The rest of Borg’s third chapter goes on to discuss the ethical and social implications of living with “womb-ish” compassion.

I will be thinking on this for long time. It is both comforting and challenging to me. My spiritual director once described God as “infinitely knowable,” meaning we will learning about God for eternity. I think she’s right.

As you think on this for yourself, here are a few questions to guide your reflection. 

• Where have you experienced the generous, tender care of God?
• Using the image of a womb, what would it be like to be held by God in this way during Advent? 
• How does this grammatical perspective on the compassion of God impact the way you receive or share God’s love?

If this stirs something inside of you, I invite you to explore that experience in spiritual direction.

(This post is slightly modified from a previous newsletter of mine.)