Sapphiric God: - Dr. Wesley Muhammad

of the dark cloud-like body. Thus Synopse §371: “And around the throne are pure thunder clouds, which
give forth lightning flashes like jewels of taršîš.” The light flashing through the “cloud” therefore has the
appearance of taršîš. We recall the ANE tradition of sapphire light passing through the hairpits of dark-
skinned deities. Synopse §371 continues: “As the likeness of them both, sapphire and taršîš, thus is the
likeness of hašmal. It is like the appearance of fire, but it is not fire. Rather, it is like fiery flames of all
kinds of colors mixed together, and the eye cannot master their likeness.” The sapphire/ taršîš blue is here
likened to a flame-like substance of “all kinds of colors mixed together”. We are now in a better position to
understand the rather enigmatic description of the divine glory or its ‘surrounding splendor’ as similar to a
rainbow. 121 As Ezekiel described it: “Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on a rainy day, so
was the appearance of the surrounding splendor. This was the appearance of the likeness of the Glory of
the Lord (1:28).” Based on this passage a tradition developed regarding God’s rainbow-like body: “his
body resembles a bow, and the bow is (something) like the semblence of fire…” 122
The relationship between the rainbow-like appearance of God described by Ezekiel and the dark,
cloud-like body suggested in Shi‘ur Qomah and Kabbalah is apparently the same as that between a rainbow
and a rain cloud. As the cloud acts as a prism, refracting the sunlight and producing the beautiful colors of
the rainbow, the “dark body” refracts the luminance of the divine kābôd/pānîm, producing a rainbow-like,
or alternately, a sapphiric blue, “surrounding splendor (Ezek. 1:28).” As Elliot Wolfson so eloquently put
it: “The divine woman (i.e. the Shekinah, God’s corporeal manifestation) is an ‘optical apparatus’ that
refracts the light and renders the veiled image visible, like a rainbow that is manifest in the covering of the
cloud.” 123 The rainbow-like appearance of the kābôd’s/pānîm’s surrounding splendor therefore presupposes
the dark, cloud-like body. 124 This is surely the “crucial property” of the rainbow, rather than its ability to
span heaven and earth as Halperin opined. 125 The rainbow splendor and taršîš -blue should therefore be
121 See also Gen. R. 35.3; Exod. R. 35.6.
122 Synopse §367. Thus the Zohar interprets the Talmudic dictum not to gaze at a rainbow (b. Hag. 16a): “It is forbidden for a person
to look at the rainbow, for it is the appearance of the Supernal Image (3:84a).” See also Gen. R. 35.3, where “My bow (qashti) is read
as “My Likness (qishuthi).” On the significance of the rainbow in Jewish mysticism v. Wolfson, Through a Speculum, index s.v.
“Rainbow;” Halperin, Faces of the Chariot, 255-261.
123 Through a Speculum, 274. See also Zohar II, 23b: “a light that does not shine (Shekhinah) receives them (i.e. the shinning lights),
and these lights appear in it, as in a crystal ball against the sun.”
124 According to Lev. R. 23.8 clouds are a prerequisite for a sapphiric blue heaven. Without the clouds, the firmament is clear and free
of its “sapphiric” qualities.
125 Faces, 260-61.
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