Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 179 · June 28
Rend Your Heart
“And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.”
What did we actually do, the last time we were sorry?
Tearing your clothes was the public sign in that world, and Joel does not ban it. The verse before keeps every outward thing: turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning. He keeps the fast and moves the tearing inward: rend your heart, and not your garments.
We know the substitute because we are fluent in it. The apology sent the same day, before anything had to change. The loud self-criticism in front of a group, cheaper than one quiet conversation with the person who was hurt. The fast started on a Monday. Every one of them is visible, and that is the appeal; a torn shirt can be seen from the back of the room and a torn heart cannot be seen at all.
The ground Joel stands on is a quotation. What he adds after rend your heart, the reason clause at the end of the verse, is what God said about himself at Sinai while the gold was still being cleared up. Jonah threw it back at him as a complaint, having gambled on it being true and lost. Nehemiah's Levites recited it over centuries of national refusal. None of them composed it, and neither did we.
And then Joel refuses to close the sale. Who knoweth if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him? He calls a whole country to fast on a character and a maybe, with no outcome guaranteed to anybody. We wanted the outcome settled first.
Notice that the next thing he does is public. Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly. Gather the people, assemble the elders, gather the children, and let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber. The heart-tearing did not make repentance a private matter, and we would rather it were invisible.
The shirt stays on, and we wear it to the assembly like everybody else, and nobody there can tell which of us tore anything tonight. He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and only he sees the other tear.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 179 is Delivered and Preserved (2 Timothy 4:18).