Israel as Foundling: Abandonment, Adoption, and the Fatherhood of God

Paternity as a standard metaphor for God's relationship either to humankind or to Israel is striking for its absence in the Tanak before the rise of the Israelite monarchy. A set of daring oracles insisting that divine fatherhood can only be adoptive both illumines the earlier reticence and foreshadows the later importance of this metaphor.