Two words, and the people who used them

Last time I ended on a verb. Let me add the second one, because the Old Testament almost never uses one without the other hanging nearby.

Shuv means turn, return, go back. It's about direction, what you do with your feet.

Nacham is the Jonah word. Relent, be moved, be sorry, change course. It's about what happens inside before the feet move. Same root as "comfort," by the way, as in Nahum, as in "comfort, comfort my people" in Isaiah 40. I don't know what to do with that yet, but I like it.

Jeremiah 18 gives you the normal pattern in one sentence: if a nation turns from its evil, God relents of the disaster he planned. Humans turn, God relents. That's the default grammar.

And then you get the prayers that break the grammar and aim both verbs at God.

Moses

Exodus 32. The golden calf. God says to Moses, "Now leave me alone, so my anger can burn against them," and offers to start over with Moses as the new Abraham.

Moses does not leave him alone. He argues. Three reasons, roughly: they're your people, you brought them out; what will Egypt say about you; and remember what you swore to Abraham, Isaac and Israel. Then the line: "Turn from your burning anger, and relent over the calamity for your people." Shuv and nacham, back to back, in the imperative, addressed to God.

Verse 14: "And YHWH relented over the calamity."

There's a rabbinic reading of "leave me alone" that I can't stop thinking about. The Talmud (Berakhot 32a) says that if the verse didn't say it, nobody would dare say it, because it shows Moses grabbing hold of God the way you grab a friend by the coat, saying, I'm not letting go until you forgive them. Psalm 106 remembers it the same way: God would have destroyed them "had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him."

Stood in the breach. Hold on to that image.

Jonah

Now put Jonah next to Moses, because they are the same scene run backwards.

In Jonah 3, the king of Nineveh, a pagan, says: let everyone turn from his evil way. "Who knows? God may turn and relent, and turn from his burning anger, and we will not perish." That's Moses' prayer, almost word for word, coming out of the mouth of the enemy. And it works. "God saw that they turned, and God relented."

The Hebrew prophet, who knows this prayer by heart, is furious that it worked.

Moses offered his life so the people would be spared: "blot me out of your book." Jonah asks for his life to be taken because the people were spared. Same verbs, same God, opposite hearts.

Amos, and the "who knows"

One more, quick. Amos 7. God shows the prophet locusts eating the land. Amos says, "Lord, forgive! How can Jacob stand? He is so small." God relents. Then fire. "Lord, stop! How can Jacob stand? He is so small." God relents again. Then a plumb line, and Amos says nothing, and God says, I will not pass by them again.

Twice. Not three times. I don't know why Amos went quiet on the third one.

Notice the reason Amos gives, though. Not "Jacob is innocent." Just "Jacob is small."

And notice what the king of Nineveh says. Not "God will relent." Who knows? Joel says the same thing, same verbs: "Who knows? He may turn and relent." David, fasting for his dying son, says it too. Nobody in these stories prays with a guarantee in hand. They pray with a maybe.

So when I'm tempted to say the Old Testament clearly teaches that God can and will change his mind, I think the texts give me "can." I'm not sure they give me "will."

The reasons people give

Somewhere along the way I started listing what people actually say to God in these moments, and it turned into a strange little catalogue. Your own name and reputation (Moses). Your own promise (Moses again). Your own words about yourself (Numbers 14, where Moses quotes Exodus 34 back to God). Your own loyal love (Psalm 6). Your own justice (Abraham, bargaining for Sodom: shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?). Our smallness (Amos). My faithfulness (Hezekiah, Psalm 26, the Psalm 1 ground from last time). And at the far end, no claim at all, just turning (Nineveh).

Almost all of them are arguments from God's own character back to God. Which is interesting, if prayer is supposed to be me changing his mind. It looks more like people reminding him who he already said he was.

Or maybe that's exactly what changing his mind looks like. I really don't know.

To sit with

Which of those reasons have I ever used? Which one would feel presumptuous to use?
Moses grabbed God by the coat. Is there anything I would hold on to God for like that, and not let go?
Jonah knew the creed perfectly and hated what it meant for Nineveh. Is there anyone I'd quietly rather God did not relent for?
"Who knows?" Can I pray without the guarantee?