Myśl Żydowska do Samuela I 25:26

It is manifest that God is identical with His attributes and His attributes with Him, so that it may be said that He is the knowledge, the knower, and the known, and that He is the life, the living, and the source of His own life, the same being true of His other attributes. This conception is very hard to grasp, and thou shouldst not hope to thoroughly understand it by two or three lines in this treatise. There can only be imparted to thee a vague idea of it.⁵⁸For an exhaustive discussion of the theories which M. merely mentions here, see Moreh, I, 50-51, on the attributes of God. See Munk, Guide, I, 50, p. 179 ff., passim; Kaufmann, ibid., p. 418 ff.; Cohen, Charakteristik, etc. in Moses ben Maimon, I, pp. 89-90. Now, in consequence of this important axiom, the Hebrew language does not allow the expression Ḥe Adonai (the life of God) as it does Ḥe Fara'oh⁵⁹Gen. XLII, 15. (the life of Pharaoh), where the word ḥe (in the construct state) is related to the following noun, for the thing possessed and the possessor (in this case) are two different things. Such a construction cannot be used in regard to the relation of a thing to itself. Since the life of God is His essence, and His essence is His life, not being separate and distinct from each other, the word "life", therefore, cannot be put in the construct state, but the expression Ḥai Adonai⁶⁰Ruth, III, 13. (the living God) is used, the purpose of which is to denote that God and His life are one. ⁶¹Cf. Yesode ha-Torah, II, 10, and Moreh, I, 58 (beg.). See Munk, Guide, I, p. 302, n. 3. The expressions חֵי אלהים (II Sam. II, 27), חֵי אל (Job XXVII, 2), and especially חֵי יהוה וחֵי נפשך (I Sam. XX, 3; XXV, 26, and II K. II, 2), and Jer. XXXVIII, 16 substantiate this novel linguistic argument of M. Amos VIII, 14 חֵי אלהיך דן is used in reference to the gods of idolators.