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What is the significance of Jeremiah 26:19?

“Did [Hezekiah] not fear the Lord and entreat the favor of the Lord, and did not the Lord change his mind about the disaster that he had pronounced against [Israel]?”

As in 2 Kings 20:1–6 and Isaiah 38:1–5, if the future is exhaustive settled, it seems God could not have been forthright when he told Hezekiah he was about to die, and could not have been sincere in having Jeremiah prophecy that he changed his mind when he decided to add fifteen years to Hezekiah’s life. If God eternally foreknows that something is going to take place, it is impossible for him to truly alter previous intentions in the light of that event.

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