EE & R, 4_2: Manasseh Against the Prophet Isaiah: Other Gods
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4. Manasseh Against the Prophet Isaiah – Is Worship Without Knowledge Fidelity or Betrayal?
Since Hashem is unknowable, Manasseh turned to other gods, the ones he might learn to know. But what, in truth, are these “other gods”? Why are they known to the nations of the world, yet counted as unknown to Israel? And what passion can seize a soul and drive it to their service?
Ramban explains that the “other gods” of whom the Torah speaks are not mere illusions, but real spiritual forces, ministers of divine order appointed over the nations. Each people is allotted a share of heaven, a celestial prince who governs its destiny and reveals to it a particular aspect of the divine, whereas Israel is set apart to receive not a part, but the whole – to live under the direct governance of Hashem Himself, with no intermediary or cosmic filter:
“You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:3)... means that we should not recognize any god other than Hashem – not from among the angels, nor from the heavenly hosts, all of which are called Elohim (gods)... for Israel is the treasure of Hashem, which He set apart for Himself... It does not say this regarding the other nations, to whom the heavenly hosts have been allocated... The ancients began to worship the angels... Each worshipped its own minister, for the ancients knew them. These are what the Torah and all of Scripture refer to as “other gods.”1
Let us examine the nature of these lesser divinities assigned to the nations.
Hashem is the foundational order of all being – not one god among many, nor a force within the cosmos, but the transcendent source of reality: the origin, the sustainer, and the unity that underlies all opposites. Every principle – justice, beauty, strength, wisdom, fertility, time – reflects His will and emerges from the order He establishes. Yet none of these, alone or together, is Him, for He exceeds all attributes and is known only through their harmony.
Each nation, according to its history, temperament and place, touches a different facet of this divine structure. One is shaped by justice, another by war, another by desire and another by fear. These governing principles are not false – they are real. They mold civilizations. They inspire worship. Each is a partial order of reality, a compact articulation of one aspect of the divine ground, rendered intelligible by a people’s story. Each becomes a god to the nation that sees it clearly; yet each is also incomplete, and to mistake the part for the whole is the root of idolatry. To know only a part is to know a god, not God.
Thus, Ramban speaks of “other gods” not as imaginary constructs but as spiritual realities: ministers of order appointed over the nations. They are the means through which Hashem apportions His presence into history, through which He – as it were – fractures His divinity into finite, graspable forms. But they are not Him. Their order is partial, their knowledge bounded. They are known to the nations because they are visible, nameable, near – present in their lived experience and woven into the fabric of their history. But to Israel, summoned to stand before the Whole, they remain “other,” for Israel must never halt at a fragment or rest in a form.2
This is the doctrine of the Seventy Princes of which Tradition speaks.3 Just as the world is divided into seventy nations, each with its unique language, culture, and historical path, so too are there seventy celestial ministers through whom the divine order flows into the world in fragments. Each channels one distinct facet of reality, a partial revelation of the divine structure, assigned to a particular people and imprinted into the shape of its destiny.
These bounded gods are knowable and relatable; Hashem, in His infinitude, is neither. To know Hashem would require grasping the totality of all forms, laws, and truths as one indivisible reality – an act forever beyond finite cognition. Therefore, Hashem remains unknowable even while He alone is true.
But the soul aflame with yearning cannot rest in unknowing. One who desires to serve, to commit to an order beyond himself, to worship – needs a knowable god. If Hashem cannot be known, then to commit to His worship feels like committing to non-worship, to irreligion, to having no god at all. This, Manasseh could not accept. His aching spirit demanded a deity he could name, serve and feel. All men by nature desire to know a god; if that god could not be Hashem, Manasseh would seek one that could satisfy the deepest human desire: to know and to worship.
A conclusion emerged: Better to worship a fragment one can know than to chase a whole one can never reach. Better to align with one of the seventy ordered shards than to bear the intolerable burden of carrying the Name without ever seeing the Face. Manasseh’s reasoning is heretical but coherent: If Hashem is unknowable, then we must turn to what is knowable. As for the Torah’s sublime command to serve the One true God? That must wait for the day when the veil is somehow lifted, and the Face is at last seen.
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Note that although each nation has its respective god or ministering force, idolatry is strictly forbidden even to them. All people are expected to renounce idol worship and accept the yoke of Heaven – at minimum, as gerei toshav, righteous resident aliens. How these distinct national identities can be unified into the service of the One Hashem is a matter for later discussion.