Wednesday, June 22, 2022

Jack M. Sasson on "Divine Clemency" and the Contingent Nature of Biblical Prophecy

  

When, at the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim, the priests and prophets at the Temple sought Jeremiah’s death for daring to prophesy against Jerusalem, a few elders rose to say (Jer 26:18-19),

 

Micah the Morashite, who prophesied in the time of King Hezekiah of Judah once told everyone in Judah,

 

The Lord of Hosts says,
Zion will be plowed as a field,
Jerusalem will become ruins,
The Temple Mount, brushwood heights.

 

Did King Hezekiah of Judah and the whole nation put [Micah] to death? Rather, did [Hezekiah] not fear the Lord, and did he not implore the Lord so that the Lord renounced the punishment that the planned for them? We may be doing ourselves a great harm [in punishing Jeremiah].

 

The elders who cite Micah’s words (3:12) are very likely recalling Sennacherib’s threat against Jerusalem. Second Kings 19 tells us that Hezekiah’s penitential acts and extraordinary entreaties within the Holy of Holies effectively led to the retreat of the Assyrians. The Chronicler makes even more of Hezekiah’s reforms, his many penitential acts, and their calming effect on God (2 Chronicles 29-30). For the present purpose, it is worth noticing how one leader’s penance wards of a divinely directed threat against a whole nation. Variations on this theme are known from elsewhere in Scripture: for example, Moses repeatedly deflects God’s anger against the whole of Israel by punishing only the guilty parties (Exodus 32; Exodus 34:6-7; Num 11:1-3; 14:10-28; 16; 21:4-9, details differ in each episode); Samuel intercedes with God when the Philistines march against Israel (1 Samuel 7); and Ezra grieves in order to deflect God’s anger (Ezra 10). That the contrition of one leader may only postpone destruction to a dynasty and the people it rules, is also known from experiences credited to Ahab (1 Kings 21), Hezekiah (2 Kgs 20:12-19) and Josiah (2 Kings 22-23). In turn, these successful entreaties may be contrasted with the activities of Jehoiakim who, in addition to his personal depravity (2 Kgs 24:4), remains deaf to Jeremiah’s appeal and thereby forfeits a chance to save Israel from Nebuchadnezzar’s clutches. (Jack M. Sasson, Jonah: A New Translation With Introduction, Commentary, and Interpretation [The Anchor Yale Bible 24B; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990], 241-42)