THE PROPHETS, THE PRIESTHOOD, AND THE IMAGE Of GOD 327 sages in Genesis (Gen 1,26; 5,1.3). In contrast to the verbal focus found in Second Isaiah, the Priestly Writer consistently employs nouns to express the divine image and favours the term ~lc “image” (Gen 1,26.27[2x]; 5,3; 9,6). Although an inquiry into the ways of expressing incomparability in the Old Testament has been conducted already by C.J. Labuschagne 27, my own examination has added two new points worthy of note in the context of this examination. The first and most important revelation is that the expression of incomparability in Second Isaiah is made pri- marily through the use of verbs: “To what will you liken God?”; “To what will you compare me so that I be equalled?”; “To what will you liken me and make me equal and compare me that we be alike?”. The emphasis lies on the activity of constructing or manufacturing, so that the real concern is with the futility of the activity of constructing images to capture the divine form. Nevertheless, the noun twmd “like- ness” appears once in the question: “what likeness can you make com- parable to [God]?”. The way this phrase is articulated suggests strongly that there is something that can be comparable to the deity, but that it is not to be made 28. The passages in Second Isaiah leave open the pos- sibility that there is something that imitates the divine form after all 29. This interpretation is consistent with similar suggestions made by yehezkel Kaufman 30, as well as by exegetes such as ulrich Berges 31 and Joachim Schaper 32. The second important observation is that the declarations and rhetorical questions expressing incomparability are inextricably inter- twined with polemical statements about idols in Isaiah 40–48. Other studies have already linked the incomparability statements in Second Isaiah with idol polemics 33, but the present analysis stresses how the 27 LABuSCHAGNE, Incomparability. Cf. P. DEL BRASSEy, Metaphor and the In- comparable God in Isaiah 40–55: A Thesis (BIBAL Dissertation Series 9; North Richland Hills, Tx 2001). 28 So also C.R. NORTH, “The Essence of Idolatry”, Von Ugarit nach Qumran. Beiträge zur alttestamentlichen und altorientalischen forschungen (ed. J. HEMPEL) (BZAW 77; Berlin 1958) 151-160, here 158. Contra HOLTER, Idol-Fab- rication Passages, 79-89. 29 MIDDLEMAS, The Divine Image, 137-138. 30 y. KAufMAN, The Religion of Israel. from Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile (translated and abridged by M. GREENBERG) (Chicago, IL 1960) 236-237. 31 u. BERGES, Jesaja 40–48 (HTKAT; freiburg im Breisgau 2008) 142. 32 SCHAPER, “Divine Images”, 150-151, 158. 33 LABuSCHAGNE, Incomparability; HOLTER, Idol-Fabrication Passages, 64.