Is there anywhere in the scripture where HaShem says "I love you." or "I love"? Directly and not indirectly.
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@DoubleAA All the answers given are in the past tense and do not answer the question.– The GRAPKEMar 15, 2021 at 14:38
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@TheGRAPKE, actually, Biblical Hebrew doesn't really have tenses. The two answers given so far quote verses that if you were being hyper-literal would be in the perfect aspect. There is just no way to write an English translation without tense. In any case, tenses and G-d only have meaning when talking about when His Action has consequences in this universe, with its notion of time. G-d doesn't experience Time "first-hand", He causes it after all. (1/2)– Micha BergerMar 15, 2021 at 15:33
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(2/2) But the same is true of emotions. G-d doesn't have emotions, G-d's actions reach us in ways that we interpret as being motivated by an emotion. Which is, after all, how we assesss how other people are feeling emotionally. (Though there we assume people's emotions are real, if inaccessible to me.) So, when G-d loves someone really boils down to when does G-d's Action reach the world in a manner that we would assess as loving.– Micha BergerMar 15, 2021 at 15:36
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@MichaBerger Love is an emergent attribute (in the sense that love is not something that can be perceived with the 5 senses and that it can only be perceived by the effect it has on the object of the love and that it is not an attribute of any part of the lover, i.e. it is not that my left arm loves you and my nose loves you, just that I love you), so if I say that "I love you" in the present tense, this means that my love is evidenced by my ongoing, future actions. So if meaning the present, the passuk should tend to the future.– The GRAPKEMar 15, 2021 at 15:56
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An argument can be made that G-d does not have emotions and the term "love" is used as a poetic way of saying the Jews discovered G-d (ie Abraham discovered G-d).– Turk HillMar 15, 2021 at 17:48
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5 Answers
Deuteronomy 7:8 the Lord loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers
Jeremiah 31:3 The Lord appeared to him long ago, saying, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore I have drawn you out with kindness.
Hosea 11:1 When Israel was a youth I loved him, And out of Egypt I called My son.
אָהַבְתִּי אֶתְכֶם אָמַר יְהוָה וַאֲמַרְתֶּם בַּמָּה אֲהַבְתָּנוּ הֲלוֹא־אָח עֵשָׂו לְיַעֲקֹב נְאֻם־יְהוָה וָאֹהַב אֶת־יַעֲקֹב׃
I have shown you love, said the LORD. But you ask, “How have You shown us love?” After all—declares the LORD—Esau is Jacob’s brother; yet I have accepted Jacob
answered Mar 15, 2021 at 14:04
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1You might want to correct the translation. At least use brackets around the "shown you/us". The original Hebrew and Targum Yonasan's "רְחִימֵית יַתְכוֹן", answers the question far more clearly in the affirmative than does the JPS translation. Mar 15, 2021 at 15:29
Isaiah 43:4 - "Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give people in exchange for you, nations in exchange for your life." (Emphasis mine)
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חבִיבִין יִשְׂרָאֵל שֶׁנִּקְרְאוּ בָנִים לַמָּקוֹם. חִבָּה יְתֵרָה נוֹדַעַת לָהֶם שֶׁנִּקְרְאוּ בָנִים לַמָּקוֹם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (דברים יד) בָּנִים אַתֶּם לַה' אֱלֹהֵיכֶם. חֲבִיבִין יִשְׂרָאֵל שֶׁנִּתַּן לָהֶם כְּלִי חֶמְדָּה. חִבָּה יְתֵרָה נוֹדַעַת לָהֶם שֶׁנִּתַּן לָהֶם כְּלִי חֶמְדָּה שֶׁבּוֹ נִבְרָא הָעוֹלָם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (משלי ד) כִּי לֶקַח טוֹב נָתַתִּי לָכֶם, תּוֹרָתִי אַל תַּעֲזֹבוּ:
Beloved are Israel in that they were called children to the All-Present. Especially beloved are they for it was made known to them that they are called children of the All-Present, as it is said: “your are children to the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 14:1). Beloved are Israel in that a precious vessel was given to them. Especially beloved are they for it was made known to them that the desirable instrument, with which the world had been created, was given to them, as it is said: “for I give you good instruction; forsake not my teaching” (Proverbs 4:2).
The Kuzari writes that G-d loves Jews. Deuteronomy 7:6, for example, states that, “you are a people consecrated to the L-rd your G-d: of all the people on earth the L-rd your G-d chose you to be His treasured people.” Deuteronomy 7:7–8 says that God chose the Jews “because the L-rd loved you.”
