Avivah Zornberg in The Particulars of Rapture points out that in Shemos 19:4 the text states "I bore you on the wings of eagles......" Another instance of imagery appears st Har Sinai, where the pasuk says the mountain was smoking "like a furnace.' Rashi questions, was it merely smoking like an ordinary furnace? He answers that although the comparison is inadequate, "the simile is to convey to the ear what it is capable of hearing."
Zornberg goes on to state, "Imagery is avoided when the aim of the narrative is to convey transcendance, phenomena that baffle and rupture the human mind. When, however, the aim is to have the reader search for a niche of experience to house the uncanny, an image will be used."
So imagery is used when the Torah wants to create a frame of reference for something, but when something is beyond imagination, it does not use imagery or comparison to human experience at all.
It would be interesting to identify and analyze other uses of biblical imagery......
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