423 THE HUMAN DIVINE hmj DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AND If blood is, in fact, the substance alluded to in the descriptions of God’s liquid hmj then, again, we see that the focus of divine hmj is on anger’s consequence and not God’s experience of anger. By modifying God’s hmj with the verb “to pour”, a verb that more aptly describes the consequences of His hmj — the blood that is poured out of those felled by the sword — the Bible focuses its description of God’s hmj on the experience of God’s provokers (Jer 44,3-6; Ezek 9,8.14.19-22). Similarly, by describing God forcing people to drink from His cup of hmj, the Bible portrays the people swallowing the consequences of their own guilt — their blood that is spilt by the sword 21. By identifying God’s hmj with its consequences, the Bible communicates that the people have caused their own downfall. * * * Studies from the fields of religion and psychology suggest that anthropomorphic depictions of divine anger would possess certain features that align closely with biblical descriptions of human anger, and other features that diverge from the human model in order to highlight the distinctive nature of God’s divinity 22. In support of these studies we have proposed that the syntactic differences between human and divine hmj reflect broader theological differences regarding the nature of God’s anger. We suggest that these differences reveal the Bible’s reluctance to cast God as emotionally vulnerable. By applying a recognizably human emotion to God and accompanying it with depictions of divine reprisal, the Bible conveys the danger of transgressing God’s will. At the same time, by underplaying allusions to God’s inward experience of anger, the trods upon grapes in a winepress. Notably, the passage incorporates anger language into its description of winemaking (ytmjb μsmraw ypab μkrdaw) and wine language into its description of anger (ytmjb μrkçaw ypab μym[ swbaw). By using the term “eternity” within both descriptions first, to describe the wine that Yahweh sprays on His clothes (ytlaga yçwblm-lkw ydgb-l[ μjxn zyw) and then, to describe the blood of the people (μjxn ≈ral dyrwaw) the passage suggests that the sprayed wine represents the spilt blood. See also Hab 2,15. 21 See, for example, T. FRETHEIM, “Theological Reflections on the Wrath 22 of God in the Old Testament”, Horizons in Biblical Theology 24 (2002) 1-26 and P. MALLERY – S. MALLERY – R. GORSUCH, “A Preliminary Taxonomy of Attributions to God”, The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 10 (2000) 135-156.