Contingency,God,and the Babylonians: Jeremiah on the Complexity of Repentance

Abstract

For Jeremiah, repentance functioned primarily on the plane of national crises, international conflict, and war. Here, the interaction of multiple wills propagates contingencies almost beyond analysis. Jeremiah describes the dynamically shifting possibilities for and outcomes of repentance in a specific situation in Judah's history. Jeremiah 18:7–11 announces a fundamental theological principle: God responds to repentance. Jeremiah offers a case study of this principle in a situation complicated by factors not contemplated in the binary formulation. Jeremiah 3:22–25 raises the possibility that Jeremiah's audience may have, if fruitlessly, met the conditions set by Jer 18:7–11. Jeremiah 14:1–15:4 deals with an instance in which they did so—without result. Baruch, Ebed-Melech, and Gedaliah had acknowledged the truth of Jeremiah's preaching, and had repented of the national sin; nonetheless, like Josiah, they were forced to reap what Manasseh had sown. Finally, after years of warning that the Babylonians were bringing God's judgment, and after witnessing the destruction of Jerusalem and finding himself a refugee in his own land, Jeremiah voiced God's admission that God had second thoughts about the whole affair (42:10)! The polarity of God's use of the Babylonians as the instrument of judgment and the Babylonians' free agency had permitted them to exceed God's intentions. Jeremiah's picture of this nexus of interacting wills suggests a number of observations about repentance in the world God has created. First, Jeremiah knows that when the tide in human affairs catches up individuals in its flow individual repentance has limited effect. Second, Jeremiah persistently contends that God was also an actor on the stage; God impels this flow of history. Third, however, Jeremiah argues that, while God is perhaps the most powerful actor on the stage, the play is an improvisation.