The Mekhilta extends its principle about biblical language by examining another verse: (Amos 3:8) says, "The lion has roared. Who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken. Who will not prophesy?" The prophet compares God's voice to the roar of a lion — the most terrifying sound in the ancient world. But the Mekhilta immediately asks: who gave the lion its power and strength in the first place? Is it not God Himself?
The question is rhetorical, and it exposes an apparent absurdity. We are comparing the Creator to one of His own creations. We are using a lion — something God made — to describe God, who made it. The comparison seems to diminish rather than elevate. What need do we have of such epithets when the reality they point to infinitely exceeds them?
Yet the Mekhilta does not reject the comparison. Instead, it explains: "We use the epithet of His creations to help the ear by what it is accustomed to hearing." This is the same principle established regarding the "lime kiln" at Sinai (Exodus 19:18). Human language is inherently limited. We have no words for the sound of God's actual voice, no vocabulary for the infinite. So Scripture borrows from the created world — the roar of a lion, the smoke of a kiln, the rush of mighty waters — not because these comparisons are adequate, but because they are the strongest images the human mind can process.
The Mekhilta is articulating a theology of biblical metaphor. Every comparison in Scripture is simultaneously true and insufficient. The lion's roar genuinely conveys something about the terror of God's voice. But it also falls infinitely short. The metaphor is a concession to human limitation — a ladder that points upward but never reaches the top.