Leviticus 26:40

Hebrew Bible

38 You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will consume you. 39 “‘As for the ones who remain among you, they will rot away because of their iniquity in the lands of your enemies, and they will also rot away because of their ancestors’ iniquities which are with them. 40 However, when they confess their iniquity and their ancestors’ iniquities which they committed by trespassing against me, by which they also walked in hostility against me 41 (and I myself will walk in hostility against them and bring them into the land of their enemies), and then their uncircumcised hearts become humbled and they make up for their iniquities, 42 I will remember my covenant with Jacob and also my covenant with Isaac and also my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.

Nehemiah 1:6

Hebrew Bible

4 When I heard these things I sat down abruptly, crying and mourning for several days. I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. 5 Then I said, “Please, O Lord God of heaven, great and awesome God, who keeps his loving covenant with those who love him and obey his commandments, 6 may your ear be attentive and your eyes be open to hear the prayer of your servant that I am praying to you today throughout both day and night on behalf of your servants the Israelites. I am confessing the sins of the Israelites that we have committed against you—both I myself and my family have sinned. 7 We have behaved corruptly against you, not obeying the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments that you commanded your servant Moses. 8 Please recall the word you commanded your servant Moses: ‘If you act unfaithfully, I will scatter you among the nations.

 Notes and References

"... The “divine attribute formula” as it is sometimes known (referred to as the divine middot in Jewish tradition) is found particularly in penitential contexts, both in prayers and other kinds of texts in the biblical and extra-biblical Jewish literature (compare Joel 2:13, Jonah 4:2, Psalm 103:8, Nehemiah 9:17, Sirach 2:11, Testament of Zebulon 9:7, 1QH XI 29–30, Testament of Simeon 4:4, 2 Baruch 77:7, Apocalypse of Abraham 17:12, and the Greek Apocalypse of Ezra 1:10–18). The formula continued to be used in composing Jewish prayers in the rabbinic period and onward. In the Prayer of Manasseh’s use of the divine attribute formula as a rationale for understanding sin and forgiveness, it differs from a group of post-exilic corporate confessional prayers that show the influence of the priestly sacrificial language of the Day of Atonement ritual of Leviticus 16 and the covenantal confession of Leviticus 26:40–45 ... The inclusion of the Hitpa’el of as a feature of the penitential prayers is problematic in the sense that only one of the prayers contains the form within the prayer itself (Nehemiah 1:6). The other references are found in the narrative contexts around the prayers (Ezra 10:1; Nehemiah 9:2, 3; Daniel 9:4, 20) which begs the question of the relation of these prayers to their contexts ..."

Horst, Pieter Willem van der, and Judith H. Newman Early Jewish Prayers in Greek (pp. 171-172) De Gruyter, 2008

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