Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father, pg. 13
The biblical and popular image of God as a great patriarch in heaven, rewarding and punishing according to his mysterious and seemingly arbitrary will, has dominated the imagination of millions over thousands of years. The symbol of the Father God, spawned in the human imagination and sustained as plausible by patriarchy, has in turn rendered service to this type of society by making its mechanisms for the oppression of women appear right and fitting. If God in "his" heaven is a father ruling "his" people, then it is in the "nature'' of things and according to divine plan and the order of the universe that society be male dominated.
(1) When God began to create heaven and earth...
(3) The Lord, the Warrior— Lord is His name!
(10) Who is the King of glory?— the Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory! Selah.
(6) A son should honor his father, and a slave his master. Now if I am a father, where is the honor due Me? And if I am a master, where is the reverence due Me?—said the Lord of Hosts to you, O priests who scorn My name. But you ask, “How have we scorned Your name?”
Elizebath Cady Stanton, The Women’s Bible, 1895
David Biale
History of Religions, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Feb., 1982), pp. 240-256
It is at this point that the search for ancient cognates [of Kel Shakai] might prove helpful. Albright argued in 1935 that the "primative" meaning of the Akkadian shadu is "breast." The root then came to mean mountain. Now, there is no apparent reason for assuming that one meaning of shadu is primitive and the other "secondary." They could certainly have coexisted. In fact, it appears that the biblical author may well have associated breasts with mountains, for the "blessings of breasts and womb" of Genesis 49 are immediately followed by "blessings of ancient mountains; bounty of everlasting hills" (verse 26). It is, however, unimportant whether or not this refers to some unidentified cosmic mountain, as Cross thinks, for the association with breasts is the critical one here since it fits into the fertility context. In any event, if the name has an Akkadian provenance, breasts would not contradict its original context. But perhaps a better place to search for a cognate would not be in Akkadian, but in Egyptian, where shdi is a verb meaning "to suckle."
Bruce K. Waltke and M. O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax
The grammatical forms for God are masculine and the representations of God are mostly masculine. Although God does use a comparison to a woman in childbirth (Isa 42:14), nonetheless there is a strong scholarly consensus that God is regarded as nonsexual. “If sex must be applied to Israel’s deity, it would be monosex, and this is either an incompleteness or a contradiction in terms.”
Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation,
Phyllis Trible, Journal of the American Academy of Religion,
Vol. 41, No. 1 (March 1973), pp. 30-48
Trible, Ibid.
(13) As a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear Him.
(13) The Lord goes forth like a warrior, Like a fighter He whips up His rage. He yells, He roars aloud, He charges upon His enemies. (14) “I have kept silent far too long, Kept still and restrained Myself; Now I will scream like a woman in labor, I will pant and I will gasp. (15) Hills and heights will I scorch, Cause all their green to wither; I will turn rivers into isles, And dry the marshes up. (16) I will lead the blind By a road they did not know, And I will make them walk By paths they never knew. I will turn darkness before them to light, Rough places into level ground. These are the promises— I will keep them without fail.
(4) For the sake of My servant Jacob, Israel My chosen one, I call you by name, I hail you by title, though you have not known Me. (5) I am the Lord and there is none else; Beside Me, there is no god. I engird you, though you have not known Me, (6) So that they may know, from east to west, That there is none but Me. I am the Lord and there is none else, (7) I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe— I the Lord do all these things. (8) Pour down, O skies, from above! Let the heavens rain down victory! Let the earth open up and triumph sprout, Yes, let vindication spring up: I the Lord have created it. (9) Shame on him who argues with his Maker, Though naught but a potsherd of earth! Shall the clay say to the potter, “What are you doing? Your work has no handles”? (10) Shame on him who asks his father, “What are you begetting?” Or a woman, “What are you bearing?”
(9) Shall I who bring on labor not bring about birth? —says the Lord. Shall I who cause birth shut the womb? —said your God. (10) Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her, All you who love her! Join in her jubilation, All you who mourned over her— (11) That you may suck from her breast Consolation to the full, That you may draw from her bosom Glory to your delight. (12) For thus said the Lord: I will extend to her Prosperity like a stream, The wealth of nations Like a wadi in flood; And you shall drink of it. You shall be carried on shoulders And dandled upon knees. (13) As a mother comforts her son So I will comfort you; You shall find comfort in Jerusalem.