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What is the significance of Jeremiah 3:19–20?
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Verse: Jeremiah 3
“I thought how I would set you among my children…And I thought you would call me, My Father, and would not turn from following me. Instead, as a faithless wife…you have been faithless to me…” If the future is eternally and exhaustively settled, and if God therefore knows it as…
What is the significance of Jeremiah 18:7–11?
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Verse: Jeremiah 18
The Lord states that “if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it.” But if a nation which he has declared he will bless “does evil in my sight…I will change my…
What is the significance of Jeremiah 19:5?
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Verse: Jeremiah 19
The Lord says that Israel has “gone on building the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it enter my mind.” Here, as elsewhere, (7:31, 32:35), the Lord expresses disappointment, if not…
What is the significance of Jeremiah 26:2–3?
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Verse: Jeremiah 26
The Lord tells Jeremiah to prophesy to Israel that they should repent, for “I may change my mind about the disaster that I intend to bring on [Israel] because of their evil doings.” It is difficult to discern what God intended to reveal about himself by claiming he is willing…
What is the significance of Jeremiah 26:19?
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Verse: Jeremiah 26
“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…
What is the significance of Jeremiah 32:35?
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Verse: Jeremiah 32
As in Jeremiah 19:5, the Lord expresses his dismay over Israel’s paganism by saying they did this “though I did not command them, nor did it enter my mind that they should do this abomination.” If this abomination was eternally foreknown to God, it’s impossible to attribute any clear meaning…
What is the significance of Jeremiah 36:1-6
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Verse: Jeremiah 36
The Lord has Jeremiah write his prophecy on a scroll, telling him, “Perhaps when the people of Judah hear about every disaster I plan to inflict on them, they will each turn from their wicked ways; then I will forgive their wickedness and their sin” (Jer. 36:3). Jeremiah then tells…
What is the significance of Jeremiah 38:17–18, 20–21, 23?
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Verse: Jeremiah 38
The Lord prophesies to Zedekiah, “If you will only surrender to the officials of the king of Babylon” the city and his family would be spared, but “if you do not surrender” the city and his family would be destroyed. He then reiterates, “But if you are determined not to…
What is the significance of Jeremiah 42:9-16?
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Verse: Jeremiah 42
Through Jeremiah the Lord tells Israel “If you stay in this land, I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not uproot you, for I have relented concerning the disaster I have inflicted on you” (vs. 10). Then, a few verses later, he…
What is the significance of Ezekiel 12:1–3?
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Verse: Ezekiel 12
The Lord has Ezekiel symbolically enact Israel’s exile as a warning and remarks, “Perhaps they will understand, though they are a rebellious house” (vs. 3). Though Israel repeatedly surprised God by their persistent rebellion, he nevertheless continued to hold out hope and thus to strive with them to participate in…
What is the significance of Ezekiel 22:29–31?
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Verse: Ezekiel 22
The Lord says he “sought for” someone to stand in the breech for Israel “but I found none.” Hence Israel experienced the wrath of God. If everything that shall ever come to pass is eternally fixed in the divine mind, God would have foreknown that no one would respond to…
What is the significance of Ezekiel 33:13–15?
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Verse: Ezekiel 33
“[W]hen I say to the righteous he will surely live, and he so trusts in his righteousness that he commits iniquity, none of his righteous deeds will be remembered…he will die. But when I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and he turns from his sin and practices…
What is the significance of Hosea 8:5?
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Verse: Hosea 8
The Lord asks, “How long will they [Israel] be incapable of innocence?” The Lord’s continual striving with Israel regarding their lack of innocence suggests that this question was not merely rhetorical. If God knows the future to be eternally settled, however, he could not in earnest ask this (or any…
What is the significance of Hosea 11:8–9?
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Verse: Hosea 11
After plotting severe judgment against Israel (vs. 5–7) the Lord says, “My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger… I will not come in wrath.” This passage shows that God experiences conflict between his compassion and his justice and that…
What is the significance of Joel 2:13–14?
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Verse: Joel 2
“Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him…?” As we have seen, God’s willingness to alter his course of…
What is the significance of Amos 7:1–6?
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Verse: Amos 7
The Lord revealed a judgment he was planning to bring on Israel to Amos in a vision. Amos prayed “O Lord God, forgive, I beg you!” (vs. 2). Scripture declares that, “The Lord relented concerning this; ‘It shall not be,’ said the Lord” (vs. 3). The Lord then showed Amos…
What is the significance of Jonah 1:2; 3:2, 4–10; 4:2?
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Verse: Jonah 1, Jonah 3, Jonah 4
God “changed his mind” (3:10) about the destruction he planned to carry out on Nineveh. If all events in history are eternally settled and known by God as such, his word to Jonah that he planned to destroy Nineveh in forty days was insincere as was his inspired testimony that…
What is the significance of Matthew 25:41?
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Verse: Matthew 25
The Lord teaches that on the judgment day he will say to the wicked, “Depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels…” Hell was expressly prepared for “the devil and his angels”; humans were never meant to go there. But if God eternally knew…
What is the significance of Matthew 26:39?
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Verse: Matthew 26
Jesus threw himself on the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.” Scripture indicates that much about the life and death of Jesus Christ was foreordained and thus foreknown long before it came…
What is the significance of Acts 15:7?
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Verse: Acts 15
At the Jerusalem council, “Peter stood up and said to them, ‘My brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that I should be the one through whom the Gentiles should hear the message of the good news…’” The tense of the verb that…