I have been reading in Nehemiah about the bringing back of God's people to Jerusalem and the rebuilding and cleansing of the temple – again. In chapter nine Nehemiah recounts the long, sad history of Israel's failing over and over again in the wilderness, and God's great mercy in delivering them every time.
I wondered, how many times is this dismal history recounted in the Bible? I found one study that counted 18 times just in the Old Testament.1 And then in Acts 7 Stephen tells the whole long story again to the Sanhedrin before he is stoned. Why is this story told so many times, and what does it tell us about God? I think it points out, indeed the whole narrative of the Bible tells, our tendency to wander away, to fall from grace, to outright rebellion against God. Yet, as Nehemiah writes:
But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them, even when they cast for themselves an image … (9:17)
Because of your great compassion you did not abandon them in the desert. (9:19)
From heaven you heard them, and in your great compassion you gave them deliverers, who rescued them from the hand of their enemies. (9:27)
And when they cried out to you again, you heard from heaven, and in your compassion you delivered them time after time. (9:28)
But in your great mercy you did not put an end to them or abandon them, for you are a gracious and merciful God. (9:31)
… time after time.
I know my mind works in weird ways, but as I thought about this, it reminded me of the Potter and the clay.
There is no one who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities. But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Isaiah 64:7-8
The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: "Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words." So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. Then the word of the Lord came to me: "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. Jeremiah 18:1-6
Did you ever think that the whole history of the world – the long history of falling and deliverance, falling and mercy, falling and compassion and grace – this repeated, interminable, depressing, history is like God the Potter reshaping, reshaping, reshaping the marred pot? And then, at Calvary taking the clay and bunching it up in His hands and throwing it down on the wheel and saying, "Behold, I am making a new pot, I am making you all new."
Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. Isaiah 43:19 (ESV)
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Romans 6:4 (ESV)
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV)
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he who was seated on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." Revelation 21:4-5 (ESV)
You, me, we all, can be made new! Salvation
The Construction of Exodus Identity in the Texts of Ancient Israel, by Linda M. Stargel https://pure.manchester.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/54584299/FULL_TEXT.PDF
Image, free download from Wallpaper Flare
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