a likeness: a copy or resemblance that points back to the original it is patterned on
At its core this word names a likeness, a thing that resembles something else and refers the eye back to it. The same root gives the verb meaning "to be like" or "to compare", and the noun keeps that pull toward an original throughout its range:
- a model copied from a real altar
- a cast figure shaped like an ox
- an army that sounds like a great crowd
- a vision that looks like a human form
In every case one thing is being measured against another and found to be similar.
The word stretches across very different settings because the kind of likeness shifts with what is being compared.
- It can be a concrete object, a sketch or replica or carved figure
- It can be a plain comparison, the everyday "like" that says one thing resembles another
- it can carry great theological weight, naming the resemblance between God and the human beings he made
Its most distinctive work is hedging. Because a likeness is a copy and not the thing itself, the word is perfect for describing what cannot be pinned down. In the visions of Ezekiel, where the prophet is straining to report what he saw of God, this word piles up again and again: not the throne but the likeness of a throne, not the glory of God but the appearance of the likeness of the glory of God. Here the word does not claim to capture the reality. It deliberately keeps its distance, saying only that what was seen looked something like this.