BIBLE CONTRADICTIONS INVOLVING REPENTANCE

I recently came across the website faithrethink which contained two sets of conflicting Old Testament passages, both involving the concept of repentance.

Jonah and Nahum

One “contradiction” found on this site reads simply, “Jonah says God loves the Assyrians, Nahum says God hates them.” Actually neither one of these contentions can be found in these prophetic books.

However, it is true that both these short books have been often set alongside one another since they both deal with the actions and fate of the Assyrians and their capital city of Nineveh.

For example, Mobley says, “The book [i.e. Nahum] and its sentiments toward Nineveh are often contrasted with those in the book of Jonah (contrast Nah 3.11 with Jon 4.11; Nah 1.2-3 with Jon 4.1-2).”

However, the two books are actually not that far apart in attitude and teaching. For example, both quote the same doctrinal statement: “The Lord is slow to anger” (Jonah 4:2; Nahum 1:3). In addition, God's initial feelings toward Nineveh (“their wickedness has come up before me” – Jonah 1:2) is identical with the way the Assyrians are described in Nahum 1:11 (“From you one has gone out who plots evil against the LORD, one who counsels wickedness”); Nahum 3:19 (“For who has ever escaped your endless cruelty?”); etc.

One could possibly make the point that Nahum's anger is directed more toward the ruthless leadership of Assyria while the concern shown by God in Jonah is more for “the helplessly ignorant inhabitants of Nineveh,” in Leith's words (see Jonah 4:11). But a close reading of both books fails to support such a distinction. And the same is true of any attempts to say that Jonah is concerned only with the capital city while Nahum is dealing with the whole nation of Assyria instead.

Another potential approach is to deny that the book of Jonah reflects any historical event at all, but is really a humorous parable of sorts designed solely to expose the rabidly and hatefully nationalistic attitude some of the Jews exhibited toward all outsiders. But even if that were true, it would not eliminate any of the sentiments expressed in the book.

The best solution is simply to go back to the statement Jonah makes in 4:2, which stresses both God's wrath and his forgiveness toward those who repent. And Nineveh certainly does repent, from the king himself right down to (a bit hyperbolically) the cattle. The problem is that the second chance God gave the nation after their repentance apparently did not last since the later book of Nahum describes His judgment coming upon them at last.

As Phillip Cary says that “it is possible to emphasize justice and wrath, especially when thinking of Nineveh. The prophet Nahum is the most prominent example...Hence it is with gladness that the book of Nahum opens by speaking of the wrath of God [Nahum 1:2-3]...Even here we have both sides: the LORD is slow to anger but does not let the guilty get off with impunity. Yet the direction is not toward a mercy that remembers justice, but rather toward a justice that is slow to anger but once kindled will not forbear to take vengeance for the good of all who have suffered from the cruelty of that 'city of blood' (3:1). Jonah would like to preach the same glad tidings of wrath as Nahum, but under the circumstances he can't. Nahum, prophesying a century or more after Jonah, does get the last word on Nineveh, as the LORD indeed destroys it forever...But Jonah is faced with a Nineveh that lives, at least for a while, under the mercy and abundant lovingkindness of the LORD, still slow to anger.”

II Kings 21 vs. II Chronicles 33

These parallel passages both deal with the reign of King Manasseh. My critical source on the internet sees a definite contradiction between the two accounts:

“2 K 21 says Manasseh was an evil king in every way, which is why all of Judah was sent into the Babylonian exile. In contrast, 2 Chron 33 says that only Manasseh was exiled to Babylon and recounts his total repentance (not in 2 K).”

The first thing to point out is that II Kings 21:1-9 and II Chronicles 33:1-9 read practically word-for-word the same, indicating that both accounts are relying for the most part on the identical tradition. Therefore any differences we detect later in the chapters between the two accounts are likely to be purposeful on the part of the respective authors in order to emphasize or de-emphasize a particular theological point. And since the Kings account was almost surely the earliest, any changes in wording or emphasis are also likely to be due to the author of Chronicles.

The two parallel passages begin to depart from one another starting with v. 10 of each. Chronicles merely states in one verse that both Manasseh and the people refused to listen to God. That very same information is found in verses 10-15 of II Chronicles, but given in more detail. One interesting omission on the part of II Chronicles is that whereas Kings states God's word came to Manasseh via the prophets, Chronicles says God spoke directly to the king. This is quite in keeping with the Chronicler's overall emphasis on the official Jewish leadership (king and priesthood), downplaying considerably the role of the independent prophets given more prominence in Samuel-Kings.

Williamson also sees strong signs of the preoccupations of the Chronicler in the account of Manasseh's Babylonian “exile.” “In the present commentary, several examples have been suggested of the Chronicler taking up a relatively local or trivial incident and magnifying it by way of his own ideological presuppositions into an account of major and significant proportions. It would thus not be surprising if he had followed the same method here.” Thus, he feels that the so-called exile of the king was in fact nothing more nor less than the temporary summoning of Manasseh to Babylon to explain some of his dubious political actions, after which he was dismissed and allow to return to Judah. Jacob Myers provides the same explanation. If they are correct, then it provides a good reason why the author of Kings did not even bother to mention the incident.

And as to Manasseh's repentance, not mentioned in Kings, House says, “Oppression by Assyria initiates prayer and contrition on Manasseh's part, which leads to release from his immediate problem and a removal of idols he has erected. These reforms are portrayed as limited and short-lived, however, so the results of his reign remain the same. His support of idolatry leads to corruption that Josiah will have to combat later, a point the Chronicler makes clear in the survey of Josiah's life (cf. Chr 34:1-35:27). In both histories [i.e. Kings and Chronicles] then, Manasseh's long period of rule is portrayed as an ultimately damaging era in Israel's history at a moment when such leadership could not be afforded.”

So returning to the basic issue as our critic states it: Why does Kings say that Judah will be exiled but not mention Manasseh's “exile” while Chronicles mentions Manasseh's “exile” but not say anything regarding Judah's exile? The answer is rather simple. In the first place, commentators are in agreement that Manesseh was not exiled at all. At most it was a case of summoning him to Babylon in order to chew him out and then send him back with his promise to act more loyally to Assyria in the future. Historians note that this scenario was quite in keeping with the way the Assyrians dealt with their vassal kings. Manasseh's temporary absence from Israel was hardly an important enough event for the author of Kings to even mention.

Secondly, there was no particular need for the Chronicler to mention the prophecy of Judah's exile, which after all would not take place for another 100 years, by which time the Babylonians had kicked out the Assyrians. It is not considered to be any sort of contradiction at all for two historians to stress different aspects of the same events, and that is what we have in this case. And the same principle applies in comparing the four Gospel accounts of Jesus' life with one another.

Commentators are, of course, quite free to speculate as to the reasons behind the selective nature of both OT accounts. Thus, many liberal commentators have a great deal of trouble getting their mind around the concept of future events being prophesied accurately. For that reason, some of them deny that exile is even hinted at in Kings, and others feel that verses 10-15 of II Kings must not have been added to the original narrative until the later period of Babylonian Exile.

Also, it seems obvious that the Chronicler goes out of his way to paint a more rosy history of Israel and her kings. So he grasps at the fact that Manasseh at least temporarily and partially repented of his evil deeds. This was perhaps also done in an attempt to explain the theological problem of why God would have left him in power (albeit as an Assyrian vassal for much of his reign) for so many years.

Or we could go with Howard's explanation that “The Chronicler may have used the episode [of Manasseh's temporary exile and return] as a allegory of Israel in exile. Because of its sin it had been taken to Babylon but now it has returned to the land.”

And for those who feel that both books were written much later than the events themselves (and we really don't know exactly when that occurred), there is another perspective. Thus, Pratt writes, “These variations are not contradictory; they simply resulted from the different purposes of each writer. The writer of Kings wrote during the exile and focused on Manasseh's sin to explain why Judah had been taken to Babylon...The Chronicler wrote after the return from exile to demonstrate the importance of repentance and prayer for the full restoration of the post-exilic community...The similarities between this series of events and the post-exilic experience are striking. The Israelites had sinned against God, gone to Babylon, sought the favor of God, returned to the land, and were in the process of restoring worship and rebuilding the city of Jerusalem. Why did the Chronicler present Manasseh's reign in this manner? To encourage his readers in their efforts. Their exile had been God's response to sin; their deliverance had been an act of grace based on their repentance. If the wicked King Manasseh demonstrated his repentance by establishing the cult and city, how much more must they do the same?”