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John Anderson, over at Hesed we'Emet, has put up a very interesting couple (series?) of posts concerning the concept(s) of God in the Hebrew Scriptures and in relation to the NT and Jesus (here and here).  Here's a few excerpts in which he quotes Brueggemann and Fretheim:

God is, to my eye, quite unpredictable.  Walter Brueggemann has argued as such:

In its core testimony, Israel has uttered [YHWH] as a God who is straightforward in dealing with [YHWH's] partners.  In Israel’s cross-examination, [YHWH] emerges not only hidden as in wisdom theology but also on occasion as devious, ambiguous, irascible, and unstable . . . . These voices of witness, nonetheless, constitute a part of Israel’s countertestimony, and while these texts are commonly disregarded in more formal theology, they are important data for our understanding of who [YHWH] is said by Israel to be (Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy, 359).

Preconceived notions of God that one brings to a text are ultimately unhelpful if used as a grid within which the text must fit tidily.  It won’t fit.  Indeed, the text should not be expected to conform.  Nor should God.  Fretheim writes:

God’s appearance in human form reveals God’s vulnerability . . . . It suggests an entering into the life of the world that is more vulnerable, where the response can be derision (see Gen 18:12-13) or incredulity (Judg 6:13-17).  It is to put oneself concretely into the hands of the world to do with  as it will.  It is revealing of the ways of God that the word is enfleshed in bodies of weakness within the framework of commonplace, everyday affairs, and not in overwhelming power.  For, even in those instances where the vestments of God’s appearance are threaded with lineaments of power, they clothe a vulnerable form.  There is no such thing for Israel as a nonincarnate God (106).

Baruch Halpern, Chaiken Family Chair in Jewish Studies at Pennsylvania State University, is spot-lighted in a brief Discovery Channel piece on forgery experts:  http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/cool-jobs-forgery-expert.html

A conversation about God in my family yesterday:

Amy (my wife): Jake, you need to turn the flashlight off or the batteries will run down.

Jake (4 year old): Does God's battery ever run down?

Me: I don't think God's battery runs down. But that's a good question.

Abby (7 year old): God's battery doesn't run down because God's battery is love.

Today at sundown begins Tisha B'Av in the Jewish world--the ninth of the month of Av on the Jewish calendar. It is a day of mourning and fasting.

Historically, several horrible tragedies have happened to the Jewish people on this day. The first Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians on the 9th of Av in 586 B.C.E. Herod's Temple, the second Temple, was destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E. on this day.  The Bar Kochba rebellion against Roman rule was crushed in 135 B.C.E. on Tisha B'Av, and a year later what remained of the Temple mount was plowed up by the Romans. In 1290 King Edward I signed an edict compelling the Jews to leave England, and on this day in 1492 the Jews were forced from Spain.  From the perspective of some, the outbreak of World War I took place on Tish B'Av, which many Jews consider to begin a long period of suffering for them (marked by pogroms and mass executions in Russia, Poland, and other Eastern European countries) that culminated with the Holocaust of World War 2.   Others date the eve of Tisha B'Av 1942 as the beginning of the mass deportation began of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto, en route to Treblinka.

Interestingly, well before many of the modern tragedies, the rabbis held that Tisha B'Av was marked as a day of tragedy for the Jewish people by God because of the Israelites' refusal to enter the Promised Land on the 9th of Av in Numbers 13-14. According to the Talmud, God declared: "You wept without cause; I will therefore make this an eternal day of mourning for you." (B. Ta'an, 29a)

As part of the commemoration of this day, from sunset on the 8th of Av to the appearing of the stars in the evening of the 9th, many practicing Jews (if their health permits) fast from both food and water, taking baths, shaving, or wearing makeup. They even fast from studying Torah. It is a day of mourning--they do no ordinary work and keep themselves from smiling, laughing, and idle conversation. The book of Lamentations is read in the synagogue and the prayers of mourning are recited.

During this time Jewish people are also encouraged in their remembrance of suffering to also think about its causes, spurring them to consider how they can work towards tikkun olam...the repairing of the world. Many Jewish materials from the medieval Period maintain that the Messiah would be born on this day.

Mourners Kaddish
Glorified and sanctified be God's great name throughout the world which He has created according to His will. May He establish His kingdom in your lifetime and during your days, and within the life of the entire House of Israel, speedily and soon; and say, Amen.

May His great name be blessed forever and to all eternity.

Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted, extolled and honored, adored and lauded be the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, beyond all the blessings and hymns, praises and consolations that are ever spoken in the world; and say, Amen.

May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us
and for all Israel; and say, Amen.

He who creates peace in His celestial heights, may He create peace for us and for all Israel; and say, Amen.