Dievo gailestingumas Senajame Testamente

Abstract

Gailestingumas kaip viena svarbiausių Dievo savybių geriausiai atsiskleidė per Jėzaus asmenį, tai patvirtina Naujojo Testamento tekstai. Senajame Testamente taip pat gausu Dievo gailestingumą liudijančių pavyzdžių, bet jie daugeliui yra nežinomi. Taip sudaroma nuomonė, kad Senojo Testamento epochos Dievui nebūdingas gailestingumas arba jo apraiškos fragmentiškos. Straipsnyje siekiama išryškinti akivaizdų Dievo gailestingumą ir jo pasireiškimo pavyzdžius, pristatyti Dievo gailestingumo bruožus ir specifiką Senajame Testamente

Not only in the past times, but even nowadays people treat God in the Old Testament as cruel and strict, just and demanding Lord, perfect omnipotent Absolute who is never kind and merciful. The latter attributes are ascribed to Jesus Christ. So, there is an impression that G od the Father and G od the Son are two different “gods” with totally different attributes and features. The mercy of G od is one of the essential truths in Judaism and Christianity coming from the divine Revelation. Divine mercy is not only a feeling or an abstraction but a concrete G od’s feature revealing itself in the course of all the salvation history, starting with the creation and fulfilling itself in the resurrection of Jesus Christ as the act of salvation of mankind. The entire Bible is full of events witnessing G od’s sensitivity, kindness, patience, understanding and mercy. According to some authors, even G od’s name “El” is closely connected with mercy. In the Old T estament there is no expression of “merciful love”, but G od’s mercy is expressed in terms describing G od’s patience, kindness and forgiveness. T erms most often used to describe God’s mercy are: hesed, emet, rehamim. God’s mercy in the Old T estament can be described according to the following levels: • Mercy to a concrete person: Cain, Lotus, David, Jonah etc. • Legislation as the form of G od’s mercy • Mercy to the chosen nation showed by two major events: exodus from Egypt, when G od showed mercy answering the sufferings of the chosen nation and led it from slavery to the promised land; and in the book of Prophet Isaiah, where G od showed mercy to his people in the Babylonian exile. • Mercy to different nations and believers. It is showed in G od’s behaviour with the people of N ineveh, the pagan capital, where He sends the prophet Jonah to urge the people of Nineveh to repent. [...]