This is a tough God, stiff-necked here and elsewhere mentioned in the context of ‘God-trodden chaos’. Â A curious image, God having a stiff neck. His relationship with his people seems as harsh as the Biblical sun at noon.
‘From every Jewish home the savage morning prayer rose up to the stiff-necked God of the Hebrews.’
Source: Nikos Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation, trans. P.A. Bien (London: Faber and Faber, 1983), p. 247
