Unresolved
“Ah Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You, who shows lovingkindness to thousands, but repays the iniquity of fathers into the bosom of their children after them, O great and mighty God.” Jeremiah 32:17-18 NASB
Repays the iniquity – The Bible is phenomenological. That’s a big word that means the Bible is a “What You See Is What You Get” view of God’s story with men. It’s not theology. It’s not irrefutable principles. It’s not abstract concepts. It’s down-to-earth, practical, “this is what it looks like” stuff derived from human narration of God’s interaction. The Bible uses the vocabulary of the dirt. It’s filled with dust and mud, land and journeys, heartache and triumphs, remorse, regret and restoration. It’s not lofty speculation on the nature of the divine or wonderful articulations of theological truths. Yes, you might be able to derive these from the Bible, but the Bible is much more like stories told around a campfire, letters in the mail, or tales of heroes and villains from the past.
Why do you need to keep this in mind when you read the Bible? Because some things in the Bible are messy. Some issues are never resolved. Some problems just won’t go away. Not because God is confused. No! That’s not it. These things happen because the Bible is phenomenological. It records how things appear to us. It doesn’t ask us to figure it all out so we have a nice, neat and tidy text. It just gives us the raw picture of human responses to divine connections.
“Repays the iniquity” (meshallem ‘awon) causes linguistic distress. Here the root, šālēm, a notion about peace and wholeness, is used to describe God’s recompense toward those who never committed the sins. Lloyd Carr notes, “The general meaning behind the root š-l-m is of completion and fulfillment—of entering into a state of wholeness and unity, a restored relationship,”[1] but the second part of his definition doesn’t seem to fit this verse at all. How can repayment to the children be viewed as a state of wholeness? Ringgren observes, “Jer. 32:18f. contains a kind of dilemma between the concept of individual responsibility and the idea of a collective continuity from one generation to the next; actually, this dilemma is never reconciled in the OT: on the one side stands the solidarity of the generations, and on the other the responsibility of the individual.”[2] The only “wholeness” here is the completion of a cycle. Sin has its consequences. God makes sure it does.
How do we reconcile this with the God who forgives, the God who casts away guilt, who restores relationship? How indeed? Ah, but this is phenomenological.
Topical Index: phenomenological, repays the iniquity, šālēm, Jeremiah 32:17-18
[1] Carr, G. L. (1999). 2401 שָׁלֵם. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament.
[2] Ringgren, TDOT, Vol. 1, p. 14.
Thank you Skip.
Again you highlight that visiting iniquities is about restoring wholeness or unity of a relationship. Now that is what Yeshua was sent to do… Save or restore the last sheep unto the fold as it is in this relationship that we serve the will of God.
Mark made a nice comment on another blog… The restoring process is different for everyone and the place we are in is not the same…
Now I need to understand what is the relationship… I have it as being sons and daughters of God. Here you comment visiting is about completing or fullness of the relationship, so…
What is this relationship?
How do we know we are in the relationship?
Is the relationship the same as ordained or anointed?
Is the relationship about a priesthood?
Is the relationship separation unto covenant or Nazarene hood?
Is the relationship a new or specific covenant or but a general norm of uniform submission to a doctrine?
If a covenant and a personal relationship then surely God will have the final say and are all our works to do the restoration as Yeshau says rags to be thrown away… This tells me it is not about how many I inform, it is more about how informed and focus I apply the rules governing the restored relationship…
A personal calling that will differ from every single person on this planet…
Have you ever seen a tree? It is made of a roots, a trunk, branches, tweegs and trees… flowers and fruits of course…
It is the same with men… what happens to a tree, the same happens to a man (and to a woman of course)…
Does it has good roots? It’s going to be big…
Does it has a strong trunk? It’s going to have many branches…
Does the branches bear good fruits? It will be kept in the garden… and a Hand will reach and rhe Owner will be satisfied…
Any weak branches will fall or be cut away… any bad fruit will not be picked by the Owners Hand and on the contrary, the whole tree is bound to be cut away, uprooted to the roots…
Have you ever wondered why the Scriptures take the effort to tell generations? Lots and lots of names… almost endless lists of peoples names… (got bored of them and skip them in your readings?)
They are trees… the Lord is telling us that He takes notes on us and on our roots, we are taken as trunks, our sons and daugthers as branches, the sons and daugthers of our sons and daugthers… How we were raised at home? How do we behave on a daily basis? How do we teach our children to walk in God’s ways?
See… we must be sure that we are to be taken at least as a small branch of the greatest Tree of them all…
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5
Same message that Skip has been writing about in the last days…
Leaving Father’s house… you are nothing…
Going away from the community… you loose your self…
You must not be alone, but be sure you are a part of the right tree… the Tree of the righteous… the True Vine… the Tree of Life…
Sorry… I meant “It is made of a roots, a trunk, branches, tweegs and LEAVES… flowers and fruits of course…”
Just love to garden with you, Alfredo. Spoken as a true arborist.
Sure! Let’s garden it together! One day we will meet… under the Tree of Life!!!
“Repays the iniquity”. The only thing I have to check Scripture with is experience. So I look at my life and the lives of others. What do I see? I think I see that we don’t inherit the unlearned lessons our ancestors signed up for from their perspective, which is to say I may have inherited my father’s shame, but I did not inherit HIS basis for that shame. He may have embraced shame because he did not solve the sin that caused the shame, but I am innocent of that sin UNLESS I choose to repeat it. Now, I think I have been able to see that the shame I did inherit has a curious component; I HATE it! I am acutely aware that I did not ‘earn’ it. That shame is an unwanted alien in my life, like a thorn in my flesh, I am motivated in a way my father never was to do something about it. If I don’t actually find a way to do that, and so therefore punt it to my children, not only are they inclined to hate it; they are inclined to hate ME for not resolving it! If they don’t find a way to resolve it, their children are going to observe their hatred of me – as well as the shame football they find in their laps – as rather obvious AND disgusting. They have no incentive to continue to carry either the shame or the hate any more. This is restoration to the third and fourth generation that is hardwired into us. If it were not, the accumulation of iniquity throughout the ages would have extinguished us long since, I am convinced. This is the essence of mercy, to me. Halleluah!
Stories around a campfire????
I would LOVE to know God’s reaction to that description of his Word. :-)))
I can see the children of Israel in the wilderness: Walking and talking, sharing and supporting, explaining… resting when possible, around the fires as they cooked and cleaned and kept warm, at the fires where their free-will offerings were fashioned into useful tools and implements for worship and honor, and even as they sacrificed at the “great fire” in the tabernacle. All the while sharing the stories that Moses was documenting, sharing His-story in word-pictures that they understood.
And after they crossed over, the stories shared again, read (but not often)… rather told and retold on Sabbath in homes/tents as they carved their way in obedience (or in “not-so-obedience”) until they could build or occupy dwellings in the land Yah promised them.
Even today in fellowship, one reads while those with whom we are gathered listen. Sometimes some can recite from memory. Campfires may be candlelight or electric light, a fireplace or wood stove, or, as for us during Sukkot, a real campfire.
And, hopefully, smores were included. :-)))
Kosher ones!!
:-))))
Hit the sweet spot agin Skip . This conversation regarding “The Bible is phenomenological. ” brings us back to a perspective that we can drill even further into. As you share the ““What You See Is What You Get” view of God’s story with men. It’s not theology. It’s not irrefutable principles. It’s not abstract concepts. It’s down-to-earth, practical, “this is what it looks like” stuff derived from human narration of God’s”. Is crucial because YHVH is sharing with us about the way things are. Not the way we might think or hope them to be. Not only does the Bible express the way things actually are but how they got that way,what to do about it and how Yah is going to fix it. And that is very good news indeed.
The only “wholeness” here is the completion of a cycle. Sin has its consequences. God makes sure it does.
Maybe that’s exactly what the showing mercy to thousands entails. I noticed that it wasn’t until after the flood that God initiated a covenant containing direct responsibility of blood for blood. It’s just a thought but, perhaps if this principle of the children being subject to the shame and, in some sense, directly sharing in the burden of their father’s sins (not blood for blood) had been implemented before the flood, maybe it wouldn’t have gotten to the point that it was necessary. The peace, or wholeness through restoration can be accomplished through the children actually bearing the negative effects, causing them to avoid those same propensities as well as teaching their children in the same vein.
Yes, the activities we engage in have an effect on our children, but they also affect a broad spectrum of people outside our immediate family, and so does the correction. “showing mercy to thousands.”