Section Eight

Old Testament

The Bible is full of references to ‘children’ when the word is used as a picture. Groups, nations, people and generations are all said in some way to be like children. The comparisons sometimes are used to convey the idea of immaturity - the people that are being compared to children are behaving in a way you would not expect. At other times, the comparison to children is used to convey the sense of belonging, that people belong to the family of God the Father. Here are some examples from the Old Testament: 1. In the giving of the law, the reason presented for the laws is that the people are children of God. 2. In a song attributed to Moses, he says that a generation that is warped, crooked and corrupt are not God’s children. 3. Isaiah’s vision at the start of the book condemns Judah. It describes how they were children reared and brought up by God, but they rebelled. Because of this, they are described as ‘children given to corruption’. 4. Elsewhere in Isaiah, Judah is condemned again, being called ‘obstinate children’ and ‘deceitful children’ who are unwilling to take the proper instruction from God. 5. God is a creator and calls the anointed ones ‘my children’. 6. In praise of God it is noted that calls Israel his people and ‘children who will be true to me’. 7. In speaking God’s judgement against Israel, it is written that God would gladly treat Israel like his children. They could then call God ‘Father’ (although they do not do this and are instead unfaithful to God). 8. The people are fools and are described as ‘senseless children’. 9. The Israelites are told that in the land where it said to them ‘you are not my (God’s) children’, the people will instead call them ‘children of the living God’. 10. God will not show love to his children ‘because they are the children of adultery’.