"The servant's instruction to his master's God are remarkably detailed. No one, to this point in the Lord God's story, has come remotely this close to bossing the Lord around. The servant is polite in his dealings with the Lord, yet he does not blush to give him instructions. It is as if he imagines himself to be dealing with a different kind of being than the august and imperious one we have seen in action with Abraham, the one who deals in vast territories and aeons of time and who, when offended, sends down fire and brimstone from the sky." Chapter 2, pg. 62.

"Fatherhood as a metaphor extends God's language about himself and enables him to escape from the dilemma in which his covenant with Israel has placed him. He cannot do otherwise than inflict the punishments he has sworn to inflict. But then what? Fatherhood is the...