BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Theological-Political Treatise
It can also denote the power, force or virtue of God, as at Job 33.4,‘the
spirit of God made me’, i.e., the virtue or power of God, or if you prefer,
the decree of God; for the Psalmist, speaking poetically, even says,‘by the
command of God the heavens were made, and all their host by the spirit’or
breath‘of his mouth’ (i.e. by his decree, as if it were expressed as a breath).
Likewise at Psalm 139.7,‘whither shall I go’ (that I may be) ‘beyond your
spirit, or whither shall I £ee’ (that I may be) ‘beyond your sight’, that is (as
is clear from the way the Psalmist continues here),‘whither can I go that
I may be beyond your power and presence’
Finally,‘the spirit of God’ is used in Scripture to express the sentiments
of God’s heart, namely, his kindness and mercy, as in Micah 2.7: ‘surely the
spirit of God’ (i.e. the mercy of God) ‘has not been straitened Are these’
(dreadful) ‘things his works’ Likewise Zechariah 4.6,‘not by an army, not
by force, but by my spirit alone’, that is, by my mercy alone. In this sense,
too, I think, we must understand 7.12 of the same prophet:‘and they made
their hearts hard as rock, 8 so that they would not obey the Law and the
commands which God sent from his spirit’ (i.e., from his mercy) ‘by means
of the ¢rst prophets’. In this sense too Haggai says at 2.5,‘and my spirit’ (or
my grace) ‘remains among you; do not be afraid’.
27 The phrase of Isaiah at 48.16,‘but now the Lord God and his spirit have
sent me’, can also be understood of God’s kindness and mercy, though it
might refer rather to God’s mind as revealed in the Law. For Isaiah says:
‘From the beginning’ (that is, as soon as I came to you, that I might preach
the wrath of God and the judgment he has pronounced against you) ‘I have
not spoken secretly; from the time that the sentence was’ (pronounced),
‘I have been with you’ (as Isaiah himself had testi¢ed in ch. 7); ‘but now’, he
continues,‘Iam aglad messenger,sentbythe mercyofGod,thatI maysing of
your restoration.’ This passage may indeed, as I said, be understood of the
mind ofGodas revealedin theLaw:on this interpretation,Isaiah has come to
warn them (in obedience to the command of theLaw atLeviticus 19.17), and
does so in the same conditions and in the same manner as Moses had done,
and ends, like Moses, by predicting their restoration. However the former
interpretation[that it refers to God’s mercy] seems to me the more probable.
[26] To return, after all this, to our main point: scriptural expressions
such as ‘the spirit of God was in the prophet’,‘God poured his spirit into
8 Reading cautem as suggested by Fokke Akkerman.
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