on a passage in which God is giving voice to his anger against the people of Israel and his judgment on them, declaring that they will reap the consequences of the evil they have sown. Such language, and the passion that surges through it, is unmissable and as unpalatable to us in reading it as it must have been to the Israelites on first hearing it. But what kind of anger is this? Is it the rage of someone simply lashing out vengefully at anyone who gets in the way? Is it the hot temper of a cosmic