With great confidence and little evidence, Mark Sameth recently wrote in the New York Times that the Tetragrammaton was originally meant to be read backward, so that it was pronounced as the Hebrew equivalent of “he-she.” To this the author adds further ostensible proofs that the God of the Hebrew Bible “was understood by its earliest worshipers to be a dual-gendered deity,” as well as other alleged examples of biblical “gender fluidity.” Robert A.J. Gagnon doesn’t buy it:

It is true that the Hebrew Bible describes God in both masculine (predominantly) and feminine imagery. However, for God to transcend gender is not the same as His being “transgender”—which refers to a person’s abandoning his or her birth sex for a self-constructed . . . self-image. It is no mere coincidence that God is never [imagined] as Israel’s wife (or, [in the New Testament], as the church’s), but always as her husband, nor that God is never addressed as “Mother.”

Sameth’s purported evidence for a “highly elastic” view of gender in the Hebrew Bible is anything but. For instance, Sameth alleges: “In Esther 2:7, Mordecai is pictured as nursing his niece Esther. In a similar way, in Isaiah 49:23, the future kings of Israel are prophesied to be ‘nursing kings.’” While the feminine participle omenet refers to a woman who nurses a child (2 Samuel 4:4 and Ruth 4:16), the masculine participle omen can simply designate a male “guardian,” “attendant,” or “foster father” of children. . . .

Sameth opines that in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, “well-expressed gender fluidity was the mark of a civilized person,” and “the gods were thought of as gender-fluid.” In point of fact, there were many strictures against “gender fluidity” in the ancient Near East (e.g., men who assumed the role of women were generally denigrated). . . .

Sameth has based his arguments on his left-of-center sex ideology, and not at all on a credible historical reading of the biblical text in context. His Times op-ed piece is historical revisionism at its worst.

On Tuesday, a Hizballah drone attack injured three people in northern Israel. The next day, another attack, targeting an IDF base, injured eighteen people, six of them seriously, in Arab al-Amshe, also in the north. This second attack involved the simultaneous use of drones carrying explosives and guided antitank missiles. In both cases, the defensive systems that performed so successfully last weekend failed to stop the drones and missiles. Ron Ben-Yishai has a straightforward explanation as to why: the Lebanon-backed terrorist group is getting better at evading Israel defenses. He explains the three basis systems used to pilot these unmanned aircraft, and their practical effects:

These systems allow drones to act similarly to fighter jets, using “dead zones”—areas not visible to radar or other optical detection—to approach targets. They fly low initially, then ascend just before crashing and detonating on the target. The terrain of southern Lebanon is particularly conducive to such attacks.

But this requires skills that the terror group has honed over months of fighting against Israel. The latest attacks involved a large drone capable of carrying over 50 kg (110 lbs.) of explosives. The terrorists have likely analyzed Israel’s alert and interception systems, recognizing that shooting down their drones requires early detection to allow sufficient time for launching interceptors.

The IDF tries to detect any incoming drones on its radar, as it had done prior to the war. Despite Hizballah’s learning curve, the IDF’s technological edge offers an advantage. However, the military must recognize that any measure it takes is quickly observed and analyzed, and even the most effective defenses can be incomplete. The terrain near the Lebanon-Israel border continues to pose a challenge, necessitating technological solutions and significant financial investment.