angry forever

October 17, 2016

The invitation to repentance (Jer 3:12-3:13)

“Go!

Proclaim these words

Toward the north.

Say!

‘Return!

Faithless Israel!’

Says Yahweh.

‘I will not look on you in anger!

I am merciful!’

Says Yahweh.

‘I will not be angry forever.

Only acknowledge your guilt!

That you rebelled

Against Yahweh

Your God!

You scattered your favors

Among strangers

Under every green tree.

You have not obeyed my voice.’

Says Yahweh.”

Yahweh then told Jeremiah to say these words to the northern tribes. Tell them to return. Yahweh was not going to be angry forever with them because he was merciful. They only had to acknowledge that they rebelled against Yahweh, their God. They had scattered their favors under every green oak tree in false worship. They had not obeyed the voice of Yahweh. The problem, of course, was that they had already been sent into captivity, nearly a century earlier.

October 16, 2016

Lack of shame (Jer 3:3-3:5)

“You have the forehead of a whore.

You refuse to be ashamed.

Have you not just now called to me?

‘My father!

You are the friend of my youth.

Will he be angry forever?

Will he be indignant to the end?’

This is how you have spoken.

But you have done

All the evil that you could.”

Yahweh, via Jeremiah, says that they still refuse to be ashamed despite the fact that they have the forehead of a whore. Still, they called on Yahweh, their father. They wanted forgiveness. They wanted him to remember their youth. Would their father be angry forever and indignant until the end of life? Yahweh points out how they have spoken. Yet at the same time, they did all the evil that they could.