Exodus 32:12

Hebrew Bible

10 So now, leave me alone so that my anger can burn against them and I can destroy them, and I will make from you a great nation.” 11 But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your anger burn against your people, whom you have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘For evil he led them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger, and relent of this evil against your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel your servants, to whom you swore by yourself and told them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken about I will give to your descendants, and they will inherit it forever.’” 14 Then the Lord relented over the evil that he had said he would do to his people.

Jonah 3:9

Hebrew Bible

7 He issued a proclamation and said, “In Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles: No human or animal, cattle or sheep, is to taste anything; they must not eat and they must not drink water. 8 Every person and animal must put on sackcloth and must cry earnestly to God, and everyone must turn from their evil way of living and from the violence that they do. 9 Who knows? Perhaps God might be willing to change his mind and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we might not die. 10 When God saw their actions—that they turned from their evil way of living—God relented concerning the judgment he had threatened them with and did not destroy them.

 Notes and References

"... The verse replays previous vocabulary and constructions in order to reinforce the connection between cause (the Ninevites' plan of actions) and effect (God's change of mind). In sequence and language, the account of God's change in mind parallels what obtains in Exodus 32: 12-14. Moses uses imperatives as he urges God not to retaliate against Israel's worship of the Golden Calf, "Turn away from your anger and renounce plans for a disaster against your people." (Freedman reminds me that the same direct request is in Psalm 90: 13, itself attributed to Moses) We are then told (verse 14) that "The Lord renounced plans for the disaster he had threatened against his folk." Similar sentiments (though by no means the same responses) are common to Jeremiah, where it occasionally replaces the (D stem) verb dibber; see Vanoni 1978: 138, 144-45. Targum once more avoids attributing human senses directly to God and therefore has "Their deeds became manifest to the Lord" ..."

Sasson, Jack M. Jonah: A New Translation with Introduction, Commentary, and Interpretation (p. 263) Doubleday, 1990

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