Muted

The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.   Genesis 6:6  NASB

Was sorry – Forget the discussion of anthropomorphism.  Forget the theological back peddling of analogous attribution.  Instead of worrying about the doctrinal issues, pay attention of the spiritual concern in this verse.  God is grieved about what has happened with men.  It has become so bad that He chooses to eliminate them all (except Noah and family).  Heschel captures the divine emotional trauma:

“It is often sinful for the sun to shine.  At no time has the earth been so soaked with blood.”[1]

Abraham Heschel’s work is the epitome of rational insights into theological problems.  His understanding of the prophetic message is powerful and corrective.  But occasionally Heschel’s passion for the truth revealed by the prophets spills over into commentary on contemporary society.  It’s well worth reading what he said more than seventy years ago:

“The decay of conscience fills the air with a pungent smell.  Good and evil, which were once as distinguishable as day and night, have become a blurred mist.  But that mist is man-made.  God is not silent.  He has been silenced.”[2]

“Instead of being taught to answer the direct commands of God with a conscience open to His will, men are fed on the sweetness of mythology; on promises of salvation and immortality as a dessert to the pleasant repast on earth.  The faith believers cherish is second hand: it is a faith in the miracles of the past, and attachment to symbols and ceremonies.  God is known from hearsay, a rumor fostered by dogmas, and even non-dogmatic thinkers offer hackneyed, solemn concepts without daring to cry out the startling vision of the sublime on the margin of which indecisions, doubts, are almost vile.  We have trifled with the name of God.”[3]

“His voice cried in the wilderness.  How skillfully it was trapped and imprisoned in the temples!  Now thoroughly distorted!  Now we behold how it gradually withdraws, abandoning one people after another, departing from their souls, despising their wisdom.  The taste of goodness had all but gone from the earth.”[4]

“God did not depart of His own volition; He was expelled, God is in exile.”

If this were true in 1951, what can we say about 2021?  Can mabbûl (flood) be far away?  You wonder why the prophets do not speak these days?  Is it possible that we’ve shut them up in our rush to hear God’s wonderful plan for our lives?

Topical Index:  exile, flood, decay, be, nāḥam, Genesis 6:6

[1] Abraham Heschel, Man Is Not Alone, p. 151.

[2] Ibid., p. 152.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.