Manasseh’s Prayer

Be gracious to me, God, according to Your faithfulness; according to the greatness of Your compassion, wipe out my wrongdoings. Psalm 51:1  NASB

Wipe out – Do you know the pseudepigraphical “Prayer of Manasseh”?  Perhaps you should.  Here it is:

O Lord Almighty, God of our ancestors, of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and of their righteous offspring, you who made heaven and earth with all their order, who shackled the sea by your word of command, who confined the deep and sealed it with your terrible and glorious name, at whom all things shudder and tremble before your power, for your glorious splendor cannot be borne, and the wrath of your threat to sinners is unendurable; yet immeasurable and unsearchable is your promised mercy, for you are the Lord Most High, of great compassion, long-suffering, and very merciful, and you relent at human suffering. O Lord, according to your great goodness you have promised repentance and forgiveness to those who have sinned against you, and in the multitude of your mercies you have appointed repentance for sinners, so that they may be saved. Therefore you, O Lord, God of the righteous, have not appointed repentance for the righteous, for Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, who did not sin against you, but you have appointed repentance for me, who am a sinner.

For the sins I have committed are more in number than the sand of the sea; my transgressions are multiplied, O Lord, they are multiplied! I am not worthy to look up and see the height of heaven because of the multitude of my iniquities. I am weighted down with many an iron fetter, so that I am rejected because of my sins, and I have no relief, for I have provoked your wrath and have done what is evil in your sight, setting up abominations and multiplying offenses.

And now I bend the knee of my heart, imploring you for your kindness. I have sinned, O Lord, I have sinned, and I acknowledge my transgressions. I earnestly implore you, forgive me, O Lord, forgive me! Do not destroy me with my transgressions! Do not be angry with me forever or store up evil for me; do not condemn me to the depths of the earth. For you, O Lord, are the God of those who repent, and in me you will manifest your goodness, for, unworthy as I am, you will save me according to your great mercy, and I will praise you continually all the days of my life. For all the host of heaven sings your praise, and yours is the glory forever. Amen.[1]

I’ve underlined a few crucial phrases.  You should note that in this prayer Manasseh, the most evil of all the kings of Isreal, does not ask for forgiveness on the basis of his confession.  He asks on the basis of God’s reputation as the Most Merciful One.  Manasseh knows that he has no standing before God, not even as a penitent.  Forgiveness for what he has done is not possible on the basis of his own regret and confession.  Why?  Because forgiveness requires the wounded party to forgive, and for Manasseh this was not possible.  Too many of his sins involved the death and destruction of others.  For him, forgiveness, if even possible, can only come from the heart of the most Forgiving.  Without God’s mercy, he is lost.  So are we!

Christianity has confused forgiveness with atonement.  As a result, we sometimes think that we can receive God’s forgiveness simply because we ask for it.  That is a mistake.  Jonathan Sacks elaborates:

“Two quite distinct processes were involved on Yom Kippur.  First there was kappara, atonement.  This is the normal function of a sin offering.  Second, there was tahara, purification, something normally done in a different context altogether, namely the removal of tuma, ritual defilement, which could arise from a number of different causes . . .”[2]

“Atonement has to do with guilt.  Purification has to do with contamination or pollution.  These are usually two separate worlds.  On Yom Kippur they were brought together.”[3]

For us, forgiveness is often an attempt to assuage our shame.  “Shame is the feeling of being found out, and our first instinct is to hide.”[4]  We think that if God can just forgive our past sins, the feeling of shame will dissipate.  But shame is a public, communal experience.  Guilt isn’t.

“Guilt is a personal phenomenon.  It has nothing to do with what others might say if they knew what we have done, and everything to do with what we say to ourselves.  Guilt is the voice of conscience, and it is inescapable. . . you cannot avoid guilt.  Guilt is self-knowledge.”[5]

On this point, Judaism and Christianity divide.

“There is another difference, which explains why Judaism is overwhelmingly a guilt rather than a shame culture.  Shame attaches to the person.  Guilt attaches to the act. . . In a shame culture, wrongdoers tend either to go into exile, where no one knows their past, or to commit suicide. . . Guilt makes a clear distinction between the act of wrongdoing and the person of the wrongdoer.  The act was wrong, but the agent remains, in principle, intact.  That is why guilt can be removed, ‘atoned for,’ by confession, remorse, and restitution.”[6]

“The psychology of shame is quite different to that of guilt.  We can discharge guilt by achieving forgiveness—and forgiveness can only be granted by the object of our wrongdoing, which is why Yom Kippur only atones for sins against God.  Even God cannot—logically, cannot—forgive sins committed against our fellow human until they themselves have forgiven us. . . Shame cannot be removed by forgiveness.”[7]

“We are not condemned to live endlessly with the mistakes and errors of our past.  That is the great difference between a guilt culture and a shame culture.  But Judaism also acknowledges the existence of shame.  Hence the elaborate ritual of the scapegoat that seemed to carry away the tuma, the defilement that is the mark of shame.”[8]

What is the bottom line?  God can forgive those sins against Him and He can wipe away the stain, but He cannot forgive on behalf of someone else.  Forgiveness requires that the offended party grant remission, and if the offended party is another person, then leave your sacrifice at the altar and take care of that business first.

Topical Index: guilt, shame, forgiveness, atonement, Psalm 51:1

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer_of_Manasseh

[2] Jonathan Sacks  Covenant & Conversation: A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible: Leviticus: The Book of Holiness (Maggid Books & The Orthodox Union, 2015), pp. 249-250.

[3] Ibid., p. 250.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid., pp. 250-251.

[7] Ibid., p. 251.

[8] Ibid.