Idiom of the Week #1: Yahweh's Nose Burns
The Wrath of God Revealed
What are the most common images of God's wrath? There's thunder and lightning, plagues, dark clouds, and hellfire. Human language creatively expresses God’s fierce anger, for mankind has always feared the displeasure of deity. In Hebrew, a common idiom for the wrath of God is “Yahweh’s nose burned”.
Af Yahweh Yecherah literally translates to, “Yahweh’s nose burned”. The HALOT lexicon entry defines the term as, “his nose became hot = his anger was kindled”.1
As I worked on Deuteronomy, I kept coming across this phrase. I wanted to know, what kinds of passages does this idiom appear in? Why is this image of God’s wrath so commonly used, and so significant in the Old Testament? First, I ran a search through Accordance.
Where does this idiom appear?
This specific phrase occurs in the Old Testament 117 times.
A variant of this idiom, “Yahweh’s nose smoldered” (af and ashan), occurs 12 times in the Old Testament.
What Kinds of Passages Use this Phrase?
Here is a particularly striking occurrence of Yahweh’s nose burning, following the Shema in Deuteronomy 6:
You will not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who surround you, for Yahweh your God in your midst is a jealous God, lest the nose of Yahweh your God burns against you and he destroys you from the face of the earth.
Deut. 6:14-15
This idiom commonly follows explicit statement on who Yahweh is, and what his will is. The wrath of God, here expressed with this idiom of nose-burning, is an essential aspect of his self-revelation to us. Fire, since the burning bush of Exodus 3, then the guiding pillar of fire, is the very presence of God.
Why did the Biblical Authors use this idiom?
When I think of a nostril burning or flaring, I think of exaggerated cartoon characters. Yet we cannot blithely anthropomorphize Yahweh in the same way. God's nose is not literally burning with fire. Nevertheless, it is clear that Yahweh's anger does manifest physically, which man and angel have experienced.
"Yahweh's nose burned" is an idiom that helps us comprehend the degree and depth of his anger. His anger towards sin is no mere hand-swat at an insect, nor is it an internal, unvoiced annoyance. Yahweh's wrath is sure (2 Pet 3:9). Yahweh's wrath is externalized, for he cannot restrain his holy wrath.
So, I know I’ve been talking about posting for a while, but then I moved three times in two months, and grad school classes started. I do have a handful of posts drafted and lined up, and now that I’m semi-settled in, I will begin to post regularly.
I’m currently working on Isaiah, and I have a lot to discuss about Old Testament Poetry and how it’s portrayed in evangelical sermons and English translations.
“אַף,” HALOT, 1:76.