What Does "Like Our Likeness" Mean in Genesis 1:26

It often goes ignored, but the Bible never says that God makes man His image and likeness. Many people throughout history to this very day assume that this means that man is like God in some way and so attempt to explore in what ways man is like God.

Indeed, out of the 22 times it is used, the term דמות can occasionally refer to something that looks like something (2 Kings 16:10; 2 Chron 4:3; Ps 58:4; Dan 10:16). However, this does not seem to be the most common use of the term even by itself.

However, a problem with applying this idea to the Genesis account is that it was man's attempt to be כאלהים "like God" that was actually the sin of the fall in 3:5. Furthermore, the term is not just דמות "likeness" but כדמות "like a likeness."

Instead of interpreting likeness as similarity, Genesis 1:26 states that God decided to make man בצלמנו "as an image of Us" and כדמותנו "like a likeness of Us." The ב preposition is considered in many commentaries as a beth essentiae, but the כ on the word דמות is often not considered.

Perhaps one of the nearest Hebrew texts in terms of timeframe to the authorship of the Genesis account is that of Ezekiel. In the Book of Ezekiel, a vision is given of God and His glory, but Ezekiel wants to make it clear that these are symbols in the vision, and not literal descriptions of God, angels, and His glory.

In fact, he continually uses terminology that indicates that he is only seeing something that represents something else. At the end of the vision, he says of the brilliant lights הוא מראה דמות כבוד יהוה "it is the appearance of the likeness of the glory of God" (1:28). In other words, all of these lights and colors look like, they are not literally, the likeness of God's glory. They are like the likeness, i.e., represent symbolically, God's glory.

The four creatures at the in v. 5 are said only to be the "likeness of four living creatures/animals," and  וזה מראיהן דמות אדם להנה "this is their appearance, a likeness of man for them." I would argue that angels do not have four faces and look like animals and men with wings, but rather that these things are symbols within the vision that represent the presence and glory of God. In other words, מראה דמות or even דמות by itself here refers to something that symbolically represents something else, not something that is like something else in its attributes.

The word describes their four faces in v. 10, what looks like burning coals of fire in v. 13, the appearance of the wheels in v. 16. the glittering crystal platform in v. 22, and the sapphire throne and man sitting on it in v. 26.

In fact, in v. 26, Ezekiel is clear to point out that the throne is only a "likeness of a throne" twice. He states, כמראה אבן ספיר דמות כסא ועל דמות הכסא דמות כמראה אדם עליו "like an appearance of a sapphire stone, a likeness of a throne, and upon the likeness of the throne, a likeness of like an appearance of a man upon it." Notice how many "likes" and "looks likes" and "likenesses" are in this text. Ezekiel is trying to communicate the idea that none of this is literal. This is symbolic, but he communicates that idea often with the word דמות sometimes coupled with מראה "something that appears" and מראה occasionally appears with the כ preposition. The only point here is that דמות is not being used to describe what something looks like or has the literal attributes of, but rather to indicate that something symbolically represents something else. God is not a literal man or like a man on a literal throne or something like a throne surrounded by Mesopotamian guardians of sacred space. These are symbols that represent God and His rule and His glorious presence.

If we now move back to Genesis, one must ask the question why it does not say that God decided to make man His image and His likeness, but rather "as an image of Us" and "like a likeness of Us." If the author of Genesis is trying to distance God from man in terms of what man literally has in common with God by using these prepositions and the word דמות, as Ezekiel is, then what this means is that the text supports the idea that the author is not communicating the idea that man is like God in some of his attributes, but rather that he represents God and His rule over creation symbolically like a likeness and as an image represents its deity, but may look nothing like the deity (think of Baal or YHWH represented by a bull). Indeed, God cannot really be compared to any דמות in terms of similarity (Isa 40:18). He can only be symbolically represented as a man, as Ezekiel does throughout his work.

The term is used again in Genesis 5:1 and 3, but there it is used with the beth essentiae בדמות and כצלמו is used with the kaph preposition ("as a likeness" and "like his image") indicating that the author sees the two prepositions on both the words for image and likeness as parallel. This means that the phrases "as Our image" and "like Our likeness" mean that God made man to represent Him symbolically, not literally in his similarities with God. Man may have seriously diminished similarities with God, but this is not the point of the terminology used here in Genesis.

In 5:3, the text states that Adam begets a son "as his likeness" and "like his image," and many might think that this means similarity. After all, Adam is a man and his son Seth is a man. However, this misses the point that is being made literarily between the two seeds in Genesis 3-5. Cain does not represent the seed of the woman but the seed of the serpent, and his line represents the same in the genealogy in Chapter 4. He is thus not said to be begotten as Adam's image or like his likeness even though Adam and Cain have the same nature and similarities in their ontology. Seth is, however, like Adam's likeness and as his image because he represents the ongoing symbol in covenant humanity as God's representative in and over creation, and so Adam passes this role to him and his line but not to Cain and his line. Hence, Seth is not said to be "as a likeness" or "like an image" because he is like Adam, but because he and his line in covenant with God continue to represent God symbolically as His image over creation.

Hence, Genesis 1:26 is not communicating that man has certain attributes that give to him some similarities with God. It is saying that man represents God, not by being like Him ontologically, but by representing Him symbolically in his activity in creation as he joins God in covenant to fill up the earth and rule over it. Man is to be God's representative over creation who symbolizes His victory over chaos and death, and therefore, having lost this image can only return to it now in Jesus Christ, who is the image of the invisible God.