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International Theological Commission
Memory and reconciliation

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  • 2. Biblical Approach
    • 2.1. The Old Testament
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2.1. The Old Testament

Confessions of sins and corresponding requests for forgiveness can be found throughout the Bible – in the narratives of the Old Testament, in the Psalms, and in the Prophets, as well as in the Gospels of the New Testament. There are also sporadic references in the Wisdom Literature and in the Letters of the New Testament. Given the abundance and diffusion of these testimonies, the question of how to select and catalogue the mass of significant texts arises. One may inquire here about the biblical texts related to the confession of sins: Who is confessing what (and what kind of fault) to whom? Put in this way, the question helps distinguish two principal categories of “confession texts,” each of which embraces different sub-categories, viz., a) confession texts of individual sins, and b) confession texts of sins of the entire people (and of those of their forebears). In relation to the recent ecclesial practice that motivates this study, we will restrict our analysis to the second category.

In this second category, different expressions can be found, depending on who is making the confession of the sins of the people and on who is, or is not, associated with the shared guilt, prescinding from the presence or absence of an awareness of personal responsibility (which has only matured progressively: cf. Ez 14:12-23; 18:1-32; 33:10-20). On the basis of these criteria, the following rather fluid cases can be distinguished:

We can conclude from the testimonies gathered that in all cases where the “sins of the fathers” are mentioned, the confession is addressed solely to God, and the sins confessed by the people and for the people are those committed directly against him rather than those committed (also) against other human beings (only in Nm 21:7 is mention made of a human party harmed, Moses).35 The question arises as to why the biblical writers did not feel the need to address requests for forgiveness to present interlocutors for the sins committed by their fathers, given their strong sense of solidarity in good and evil among the generations (one thinks of the notion of “corporate personality”). We can propose various hypotheses in response to this question. First, there is the prevalent theocentrism of the Bible, which gives precedence to the acknowledgement, whether individual or national, of the faults committed against God. What is more, acts of violence perpetrated by Israel against other peoples, which would seem to require a request for forgiveness from those peoples or from their descendants, are understood to be the execution of divine directives, as for example Gn 2-11 and Dt 7:2 (the extermination of the Canaanites), or 1 Sm 15 and Dt 25:19 (the destruction of the Amalekites). In such cases, the involvement of a divine command would seem to exclude any possible request for forgiveness.36 The experiences of maltreatment suffered by Israel at the hands of other peoples and the animosity thus aroused could also have militated against the idea of asking pardon of these peoples for the evil done to them.37

In any case the sense of intergenerational solidarity in sin (and in grace) remains relevant in the biblical testimony and is expressed in the confession before God of the “sins of the fathers,” such that John Paul II could state, citing the splendid prayer of Azaria: “‘Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of our fathers... For we have sinned and transgressed by departing from you, and we have done every kind of evil. Your commandments we have not heeded or observed’ (Dn 3:26,29-30). This is how the Jews prayed after the exile (cf. also Bar 2:11-13), accepting the responsibility for the sins committed by their fathers. The Church imitates their example and also asks forgiveness for the historical sins of her children.”38




31 In this series, for example, are: Dt 1:41 (the generation of the desert recognizes that it had sinned by refusing to go forward into the promised land); Jgs 10:10,12 (in the time of the Judges the people twice say “we have sinned” against the Lord, referring to their service of the Baals); 1 Sm 7:6 (the people of Samuel’s time say “we have sinned against the Lord!”); Nm 21:7 (this text is distinctive in that here the people of the generation of Moses admit that, in complaining about the food, they had become guilty of “sin” because they had spoken against the Lord and against their human guide, Moses); 1 Sm 12:19 (the Israelites of the time of Samuel recognize that – by having asked for a king – they have added this to “all their sins”); Ezr 10:13 (the people acknowledge in front of Ezra that they had greatlytransgressed in this matter” [marrying foreign women]); Ps 65:2-3; 90:8; 103:10; (107:10-11,17); Is 59:9-15; 64:5-9; Jer 8:14; 14:7; Lam 1:14, 18a, 22 (in which Jerusalem speaks in the first person); 3:42 (4:13); Bar 4:12-13 (Zion speaks of the sins of her children which led to her destruction); Ez 33:10; Mi 7:9 (“I”), 18-19.



32 For example: Ex 9:27 (Pharaoh says to Moses and Aaron: “This time I have sinned; the Lord is in the right; I and my people are guilty”); 34:9 (Moses praysforgive our iniquity and our sin”); Lv 16:21 (the high priest confesses the sins of the people on the head of the “scapegoat” on the day of atonement); Ex 32:11-13 (cf. Dt 9:26-29: Moses); 32:31 (Moses); 1 Kgs 8:33ff (cf. 2 Chr 6:22ff: Solomon prays that God will forgive the future sins of the people); 2 Chr 28:13 (the leaders of the Israelites acknowledge “our guilt is already great”); Ezr 10:2 (Shecaniah says to Ezra “We have broken faith with our God, by marrying foreign women”); Neh 1:5-11 (Nehemiah confesses the sins committed by the people of Israel, by himself, and by the house of his father); Est 4:17(n) (Esther confesses: “We have sinned against you and you have delivered us into the hands of our enemies, because we have given glory to their gods”); 2 Mc 7:18-32 (the Jewish martyrs say that they are suffering because of “our sins” against God).



33 Among the examples of this type of national confession are: 2 Kgs 22:13 (cf. 2 Chr 34:21: Josiah fears the anger of the Lord “because our fathers did not heed the words of this book”); 2 Chr 29:6-7 (Hezekiah says “our fathers have been unfaithful”); Ps 78:8ff (the psalmist recounts the sins of past generations from the time of the exodus from Egypt). Cf. also the popular saying cited in Jer 31:29 and Ez 18:2: “The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”



34 As in the following texts: Lv 26:40 (the exiles are called to “confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers”); Ezr 9:5b-15 (the penitential prayer of Ezra, v. 7: “From the days of our fathers to this day we have been deeply guilty”; cf. Neh 9:6-37); Tb 3:1-5 (in his prayer Tobit prays: “Do not punish me for my sins and for my errors and those of my fathers” [v. 3] and continues with the statement: “we have not kept your commandments” [v. 5]; Ps 79:8-9 (this collective lament implores God: “do not impute to us the offenses of our fathersdeliver us and forgive us our sins”); 106:6 (“both we and our fathers have sinned”); Jer 3:25 (“…we have sinned against the Lord our God… we and our fathers”); Jer 14:19-22 (“We acknowledge our iniquity and the iniquity of our fathers,” v. 20); Lam 5 (“Our fathers sinned and they are no more, and we bear the penalty for their iniquities” [v. 7] – “woe to us for we have sinned” [v. 16b]; Bar 1:153:18 (“we have sinned against the Lord” [1:17, cf. 1:19, 21; 2:5,24] – “Remember not the iniquities of our fathers” [3:5, cf. 2:33; 3:4,7]); Dn 3:26-45 (the prayer of Azariah: “With truth and justice you have inflicted all this because of our sins”: v. 28); Dn 9:4-19 (“on account of our sins and the iniquity of our fathers, Jerusalem […has] become the reproach…,” v. 16).



35 These include failing to trust God (for example; Dt 1:41; Nm 14:10), idolatry (as in Jgs 10:10-15), requesting a human king (1 Sm 12:9), marrying foreign women contrary to the law of God (Ezr 9-10). In Is 59:13b the people say of themselves that they are guilty of “talking oppression and revolt, conceiving lying words and uttering them from the heart”.



36 Cf. the analogous case of the repudiation of foreign wives described in Ezr 9-10, with all the negative consequences which this would have had for these women. The question of a request for forgiveness addressed to them (and/or to their descendents) is not treated, since their repudiation is presented as a requirement of God’s law (cf. Dt 7:3) in all these chapters.



37 In this context, the case of the permanently strained relationship between Israel and Edom comes to mind. The Edomites as a peopledespite the fact that they were Israel’s “brother” – participated and rejoiced in the conquest of Jerusalem by the Babylonians (cf., for example, Ob 10-14). Israel, as a sign of outrage for this betrayal, felt no need to ask forgiveness for the killing of defenseless Edomite prisoners of war by King Amaziah as recounted in 2 Chr 25:12.



38 John Paul II, General Audience Discourse of September 1, 1999; in LOsservatore Romano, eng. ed., September 8, 1999, 7.






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