The Prayer of Manasseh; Ezra 9; Nehemiah 9; Psalm 51; 1 Chronicles 21:14-15; Mat 6:9-15; Luke 23:34; Acts 7:60; Romans 5:8; Ephesian 4:32
What is forgiveness? How is it related to repentance? Is one the pre-requisite of the other? These questions have been foremost in my mind since hearing the compassion of Erika Kirk directed towards her husband’s assassin. Her words, while touching many of us to the heart, have also been the occasion of debates the past few weeks among Christians about the nature of forgiveness, especially concerning whether Erika can actually forgive someone who has not expressed any remorse.
Today we will consider The Prayer of Manasseh as a model of repentance, before then going on to talk about the more difficult question of how it is that Christians should forgive, by means of several New Testament passages. We will, then, be talking about the two sides of reconciliation, confession on the part of the offender, and forgiveness on the part of the one who has been harmed.The Prayer of Manasseh, which is part of the Readable Books for Orthodox, is found not only at the end of 2 Chronicles in the Septuagint, but also as part of the collection of Greek Odes (for use in worship), and as an expansion of 2 Kings 21 and 2 Chronicles 33 in the ancient collections known as the Didascalia, and the Apostolic Constitutions. (It was evidently written in Greek after the time of Manasseh himself, but there was seems to have been an older tradition, in which the biblical notice regarding Manasseh’s repentance was filled out into an actual prayer. (For example, there are fragments of a prayer of Manasseh in Hebrew that have been found in the Dead Sea—these fragments suggest a similar prayer, though not exactly the same. It may be that the Hebrew and the LXX prayers both come from an earlier version, such as the “Annals of the Kings,” mentioned in 2 Kings/4 Kingdoms and in 2 Chronicles.) All in all, we possess versions of the Prayer that we know in Greek, Syria, Ethiopic, Old Slavonic, Armenian, Latin, and even German, as well as, of course, English and other modern languages. Though the Western Church did not include it in the earliest Vulgate Old Testament, it has been preserved in several appendices to the Latin version, and was included by Luther in his collection of the Apocrypha. Orthodox chant the prayer during Great Compline, and it continues to be used as a canticle for morning prayer in Anglican churches. Primarily it is a prayer of confession, and so helpful for both corporate and personal worship. Here it is:
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of their righteous seed;
who hast made heaven and earth, with all their ornaments;
who hast bound the sea by the word of thy commandment;
who hast shut up the deep, and sealed it by thy terrible and glorious name;
before whom all fear, and tremble because of thy power;
for the majesty of thy glory cannot be borne,
and thine angry threatening toward sinners cannot be withstood:
yet thy merciful promise is immeasurable and unsearchable;
for thou art the Lord most high,
of great compassion, longsuffering, very merciful, and repentest of the evils of men.
Thou, O Lord, according to thy great goodness
hast promised repentance and forgiveness to them that have sinned against thee:
and of thine infinite mercies hast appointed repentance unto sinners, that they may be saved. Thou therefore, O Lord, that art the God of the just,
hast not appointed repentance to the just, as to Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob,
which have not sinned against thee;
but thou hast appointed repentance unto me that am a sinner: for I have sinned above the number of the sands of the sea.
My transgressions, O Lord, are multiplied: my transgressions are multiplied,
and I am not worthy to behold and see the height of heaven
for the multitude of mine iniquities. I am bowed down with many iron bands,
so that I cannot lift up my head, neither have any release:
for I have provoked thy wrath, and done evil before thee:
I did not thy will, neither kept I thy commandments:
I have set up abominations, and have multiplied offences.
Now therefore I bow the knee of mine heart, beseeching thee of grace.
I have sinned, O Lord, I have sinned, and I acknowledge mine iniquities:
wherefore, I humbly beseech thee, forgive me, O Lord, forgive me,
and destroy me not with mine iniquities.
Be not angry with me for ever, by reserving evil for me;
neither condemn me to the lower parts of the earth.
For thou art the God, even the God of them that repent;
and in me thou wilt shew all thy goodness:
for thou wilt save me, that am unworthy, according to thy great mercy. Therefore I will praise thee forever all the days of my life:
for all the powers of the heavens do praise thee,
and thine is the glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Immediately, we see connections between Manasseh’s confession and the famous prayers of David, Ezra and Nehemiah, which we will consider in a moment. But first, let’s put the prayer in context. According to the accounts in 4 Kingdoms/2 Kings and 2 Chronicles, Manasseh was an extremely ungodly king, punished by God through being taken to exile. There, we are told briefly in 2 Chronicles 33:18-20 he repented, and so God restored him to the kingdom. As the Chronicler explains,
Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, his prayer to his God, and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of the LORD God of Israel, these are in the Annals of the Kings of Israel. His prayer, and how God received his entreaty, all his sin and his faithlessness, the sites on which he built high places and set up the sacred poles and the images, before he humbled himself, these are written in the records of the seers. So Manasseh slept with his ancestors, and they buried him in his house.
Early Church fathers such as St. John Chrysostom, in encouraging those who had fallen away from their calling or from the faith, saw this as an example of God’s clemency even towards such a faithless idolater who not only worshipped false gods, but led his people to do the same. The Golden-Mouthed says:
Manasseh, having exceeded all in fury and tyranny, and having subverted the legal form of worship, and shut up the temple and caused the deceit of idolatry to flourish and having become more ungodly than all who were before him, when he afterwards repented was ranked among the friends of God. Now if, looking to the magnitude of his own iniquities, he had despaired of restoration and repentance, he would have missed all that he afterwards obtained; but as it was, looking to the boundlessness of God’s tender mercy instead of the enormity of his transgressions, and having broken in two the bonds of the devil, he rose up and contended with him and finished the good course. (Letter to the Fallen Theodore 1.6)
Another early Christian writing rehearses the whole of Manasseh’s bloody story, quotes the Prayer of Manasseh, and then comments: “You have heard, our beloved children, how the Lord God for a while punished him who was addicted to idols and had slain many innocent persons; and yet that he received him when he repented, and forgave him his offenses and restored him to his kingdom. For he not only forgives the penitent, but also reinstates them in their former dignity” (Apostolic Constitutions 22).
Manasseh’s prayer is indeed full of humility and penitence. It begins by honoring the God of creation, describes the Most High as both just and merciful, speaks specifically about repentance as a means that God has given to restore the sinner, dwells upon the multitude of Manasseh’s own sins for a time, begs for God’s clemency despite his unworthiness, and then promises to praise God forever. We might raise our eyebrows at the idea that repentance is not for those who haven’t sinned—like, says the prayer, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—but can understand this as an exaggerated and over-enthusiastic means of highlighting the penitent’s own sin. As Christians, we of course know that there is no one absolutely holy or righteous except for the LORD Jesus himself—though some, like our dear Theotokos, give us wonderful models of steadfast faithfulness. But the important thing to note in this confession is that the sinner makes no excuses, and does not hide his sin, but casts himself on God’s mercy. Where Abraham was promised offspring as many as the sands of the sea, King Manasseh has sinned that many times! His sin has misled others, and yet he stands alone before God, not speaking corporately about the sinful nation, but about his own transgressions. In the end, though, the prayer is more about the majesty, holiness, and compassion of God than about Manasseh—it begins and ends with praise.
In its tenor and major themes we are reminded of Ezra 9, Nehemiah 9, and Psalm 50/51:
“I am too ashamed and disgraced, my God, to lift up my face to you, because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to the heavens…. Lord, the God of Israel, you are righteous! We are left this day as a remnant. Here we are before you in our guilt, though because of it not one of us can stand in your presence.” (Ezra)
“Blessed be your glorious name, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise. You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you. You are the Lord God, who chose Abram…. In all that has happened to us, you have remained righteous; you have acted faithfully, while we acted wickedly.” (Nehemiah).“Have mercy on me, O LORD, according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.” (David)
In rehearsing the mighty acts of God, the Prayer of Manasseh is like Ezra and Nehemiah. In transparency and solo repentance, it is like David’s great prayer.
All these confessions are grateful for a merciful God who has has “appointed repentance” for sinners whom He never stops loving. This gratitude should form the bedrock of our devotion towards the only true God. But how should we sinners forgive others who have injured us?
Some have said that since God requires repentance in order that we might be forgiven, that this is the pattern that we humans, too, should follow. And there are, to be sure, places in both Paul’s letters and the gospels where repentance on the part of the offender is detailed as a kind of precursor to forgiveness. Yet there are also some luminous passages where we hear of how God requires NOTHING from the sinner before He acts in clemency—remember the father running to meet the prodigal son before the boy even confesses, Paul’s assurance that Jesus died for us “even while we were sinners,” Stephen’s prayer that God not lay the sin of murder to the charge of the rabble during his stoning, and Jesus’ own compassionate petition, “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Then there are these passages in the NT:
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.” Mat 6:12
“Bear with each other and forgive one another, if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” Col. 3:13
“Be compassionate and forgive one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.” Eph. 4:32
In fact, not one of these passages qualifies our responsibility to forgive, when we have a grievance. It is of course true that for a full reconciliation, as for the final judgment, repentance is required, for our God is a God of reality, not pretense. But He has already offered forgiveness to us in the death of His Son. The English poet said rightly “to forgive is divine.” Alexander Pope also said that “to err is human:” but we could amplify that by saying “to repent is human” and “to forgive is human,” when we are at our very best. For when we forgive even those who don’t deserve it, and who have not yet repented, we are following the model of Christ, being perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect.
Recently a friend of mine, Lex Kohn, wrote a timely book on Loving our Enemies. In his excellent chapter on forgiveness, Lex helpfully quotes the words of Miroslav Volf, who has this to say:
“Forgivers’ forgiving is not conditioned by repentance. The offenders’ being forgiven, however, is conditioned by repentance. Without repentance the forgivers will keep forgiving but the offenders will remain unforgiven, in that they are untouched by that forgiveness…Repentance is important, even indispensable, and it is indispensable because forgiveness is an event between people, not just an individual’s change of feelings, attitudes, or actions. Instead of being a condition of forgiveness, however, repentance is its necessary consequence.” (Free of Charge, 83, 183).
I am not sure that repentance is the necessary consequence of forgiveness, but the offer of pardon can indeed can melt a hardened heart, and bring about remorse, leading to reconciliation of the two parties. Certainly that is how many of us come to God! His is the great initiating act, and we respond, astounded by His love.
It may be helpful to realize that we use the word “forgiveness” in two ways—first, to speak of the way that the injured party releases the perpetrator and gives up any right to hatred or retribution, but also to speak also about the full event, the reconciliation that occurs when the injuring party repents, or turns back. In real life, this becomes very messy, since not one of us is ever perfect in any human relationship. Ideally, in the Christian community, the offender realizes his or her sin, repents and confesses, is forgiven, and reconciliation occurs. Sometimes the offer of repentance is made, and melts the perpetrator’s heart. Sometimes the time, or death, or continued hardness of heart make a reconciliation on earth impossible—still the injured party is called to be perfect, like our Father in heaven.
I have changed my mind on this over the past few years. I used to take Jesus’ scenario in Luke 17:3-4 as normative, in a kind of legalistic and transactional way: “If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.” Of course, this is an ideal scenario for reconciliation, and we are delighted when honesty between brothers and sisters follows this course. But I have come to see that in Matthew’s parallel to this saying of Jesus, no qualification is given for the hurt party to avoid forgiveness. Matthew simply says, “Then Peter came to Jesus and asked “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times? Jesus said to him, “I tell you, not up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven!” (Mat 18:21-22).
Where is “if” clause concerning repentance in this version of the conversation? Nowhere! And surely this represents the generous heart of God who came and suffered and died while we were still sinners: to forgive, in this sense, in divine. As St. John says in his Homily 19 on Matthew, “And nothing makes us so like God, as being ready to forgive the wicked and wrong-doers; even as indeed He had taught… when He spoke of God making the sun to shine on the evil and on the good.
” (By the way: it is, I think, completely wrong-headed to make forgiveness into merely a therapy for the one who forgives, as though the main purpose of our forgiving were to have a sense of peace and release from bitterness. Indeed, to forgive can, and often does, have a healing effect on the one who forgives—but the forgiveness is not for the injured party’s benefit primarily. We are forgiving the one who has done harm, and it is for him or for her that we are called to follow God’s generosity, not to feel better within ourselves.)
To speak of God’s generosity doesn’t cheapen grace, as some have feared. Rather, we give thanks for the utter profligacy, the extravagance, the tender-heartedness of our God, who applies His oil liberally to our wounds, and who teaches us to do the same with our human brothers and sisters. The Good Samaritan did not ask the man who went down to Jericho from Jerusalem to repent of going away from the holy city, in the wrong direction, but he rescued and healed him. The offer of forgiveness in a particular case also doesn’t mean automatic final deliverance, for we live in a real and not a pretend world. God intends to transform us, which means that we must confess and repent and turn back to Him, time and time again. To live truly with God means that we cannot presume, as some have glibly said, that it’s simply God’s job to forgive. Forgiveness is offered, and as His sons and daughters we are to model the One who forgave freely on the cross. Yet we keep also before our eyes the penitence of David, Ezra, Nehemiah, and King Manasseh, who came before God in all simplicity and thanked Him for “appointing repentance” for sinners. God gives us the dignity to act freely, to enter into the repair of our relationship with Him. Repentance and forgiveness: these are cooperating actions that lead to reconciliation, in God’s good will and in God’s time. The coming together of God and humanity, the reconciliation of penitent and forgiver on the human level—these are mysterious and beautiful scenarios that we see modeled for us in Scripture, in our Holy Tradition, and in the world around us.
Edith M. Humphrey 