> You know, I'm not sure the Old Testament asserts that
> God is omnibenevolent. God does whatever He wants
> because He is God, and humen beings have to deal with
> it. Benevolence is a Christian predicate of the deity.
His Nibs is often referred to in the Hebrew Scriptures ("Old Testament" is not PC any more) as "righteous" (tzaddiq, Septuagint dikaios) and much reference is made to His "mercy" and "kindness" (various forms of the roots khesed and khanan). He does seem to have rather a short fuse, but all in all He comes off as more consistently and purposefully "benevolent" than His capricious opposite numbers in, say, the Greek pantheon.
Though I don't know of any Hebrew word that precisely translates "benevolence" -- anybody? It's a much more abstract idea than mercy, kindness, love, righteousness, etc.
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Michael J. Smith
http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org