Scripture Daily

Context No. 2067 of 4322 · Baruch

Context · Reflection

Baruch 2:27-35: in context

27Yet, O Lord our God, you have dealt with us after all your kindness and according to all your great mercy, 28as you spoke by your servant Moses in the day when you commanded him to write your law in the presence of the children of Israel, saying, 29“If you won’t hear my voice, surely this very great multitude will be turned into a small number among the nations where I will scatter them. 30For I know that they will not hear me, because they are a stiff-necked people; but in the land of their captivity they will take it to heart, 31and will know that I am the Lord their God. I will give them a heart and ears to hear. 32Then they will praise me in the land of their captivity, and think about my name, 33and will return from their stiff neck and from their wicked deeds; for they will remember the way of their fathers who sinned before the Lord. 34I will bring them again into the land which I promised to their fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and they will rule over it. I will increase them, and they won’t be diminished. 35And I will make an everlasting covenant with them to be their God, and they will be my people. I will no more remove my people Israel out of the land that I have given them.”

In his prayer of confession, Baruch recalls God's mercy toward a stiff-necked people. God had warned that if they would not listen, they would be scattered; and he foresaw that they would not listen, because they were stiff-necked. But then comes a promise of grace. In the land of their captivity they will take it to heart, God says, and will know that I am the Lord their God. And he adds the heart of the promise: I will give them a heart to know me, and ears to hear. God would work in them the very responsiveness they lacked.

The promise worth dwelling on is this: I will give them a heart to know me, and ears to hear. The people were stiff-necked, unresponsive, unable of themselves to turn and know God; their own hearts were hard, their ears closed. And God does not merely command them to change; he promises to change them, to give them a new heart, to work in them the capacity to know him and the ears to hear him. The responsiveness they could not produce from their own resources, God promises to give: a heart to know me, and ears to hear. This reveals something we easily forget about our own turning to God. We can imagine that knowing God, hearing him, turning to him, is entirely our own achievement, summoned from our own resources by our own effort. But Scripture says that even the heart to know God is his gift. I will give you a new heart, God says through Ezekiel; I will give them a heart to know me, he says through Jeremiah. Our capacity to know God, to hear him, to turn to him, is not merely our own doing but the work of his grace within us, giving us the heart and ears we could not produce ourselves. This is both humbling and hopeful. It is humbling, for it means we cannot take credit for our own responsiveness to God, as though we had generated it ourselves; even our turning to him is his gift. And it is deeply hopeful, especially for those who feel their own hearts hard and unresponsive, their ears dull to God. For if the heart to know God is his gift, then our hardness is not the final word; God can give a new heart, work responsiveness where there was none, open ears that were closed. Those who despair of their own coldness may ask God for what he promises to give: a heart to know him, ears to hear. God works in us, Paul says, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Even our willing and responding is his gift. And so we ask him not only to be heard but to give us the heart to hear, trusting the God who promises to give his people a heart to know him and ears to hear, and who works in us the very responsiveness we cannot produce ourselves.

When I find my own heart hard and unresponsive, my ears dull to God, do I despair as though my coldness were the final word, or imagine that knowing and hearing God is entirely my own achievement, and can I take hold of God's promise to give his people a heart to know him and ears to hear, asking him to work in me the very responsiveness I cannot produce myself, and trusting that even my turning to him is his gift?

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