Forgetting God

Scripture treats forgetting God as a moral act, not a memory lapse. To forget Yahweh is to drop his covenant, his works, his benefits, his word, and his name from the heart that should be holding them, and to fill the vacated space with idols, prosperity, false dreams, or strange gods. The umbrella gathers verses that name forgetting as a characteristic of the wicked, trace the conditions that produce it, set against it the resolve of the faithful, and announce the punishment that follows.

A Characteristic of the Wicked

Forgetting God marks the unfaithful in their settled disposition. The adulteress "forsakes the best friend of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God" (Pr 2:17). Isaiah pairs the same two verbs against rebel Israel: "you⁺ who forsake Yahweh, who forget my holy mountain, who prepare a table for Fortune, and who fill up mingled wine to Destiny" (Isa 65:11). Backsliders are guilty of the same act: "Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me days without number" (Jer 2:32). The voice on the bare heights weeps "because they have perverted their way, they have forgotten Yahweh their God" (Jer 3:21).

Forgetting His Covenant

The covenant is the first thing forgotten when God is forgotten. Moses warns, "Take heed to yourselves, or else you⁺ will forget the covenant of [the Speech of] Yahweh your⁺ God, which he made with you⁺, and make a graven image" (De 4:23). The exiles to Assyria are reminded: "the covenant that I have made with you⁺ you⁺ will not forget; neither will you⁺ fear other gods" (2Ki 17:38). Forgetting the covenant and fearing other gods are one motion in two directions.

Forgetting His Works and Benefits

The historical Psalms keep returning to the same indictment: Israel forgot what God had done. Asaph traces it back generations: the next generation must "set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments" (Ps 78:7), yet "they forgot his doings, and his wondrous works that he had shown them" (Ps 78:11). The Exodus generation "did not understand your wonders in Egypt; they did not remember the multitude of your loving-kindnesses, but rebelled against [your Speech] at the sea, even at the Red Sea" (Ps 106:7), and "they soon forgot his works; they did not wait for his counsel" (Ps 106:13). Past deliverances fell out with the works: "they did not remember his hand, nor the day when he redeemed them from the adversary" (Ps 78:42); "the sons of Israel didn't remember Yahweh their God, who had delivered them out of the hand of all their enemies on every side" (Jg 8:34). David sets the answering posture in Ps 103: "Bless Yahweh, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits" (Ps 103:2).

Isaiah locates the same forgetfulness behind Israel's fear of human oppressors: they "have forgotten Yahweh your Maker, who stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and fear continually all the day because of the fury of the oppressor" (Isa 51:13). Yet Yahweh's power to deliver remains: "the captive exile will speedily be loosed; and he will not die [and go down] into the pit, neither will his bread fail. For I am Yahweh your God, who stirs up the sea, so that its waves roar: Yahweh of hosts is his name" (Isa 51:14-15).

Forgetting His Word and His Law

When the works are forgotten the law follows. Hosea pronounces, "seeing you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your sons" (Ho 4:6) — forgetting met by reciprocal forgetting. The Hebrews are told, "you⁺ have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you⁺ as with sons" (Heb 12:5). James names the same fault: a hearer of the word who looks and walks away is "a hearer that forgets" (Jas 1:25). The exhortation in Hebrews is sharper still: "we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things that were heard, lest perhaps we drift away [from them]" (Heb 2:1).

What Breeds Forgetting: Prosperity, False Teachers

Deuteronomy diagnoses the conditions that produce forgetting before they arrive. Moses warns Israel as they enter the land "great and good cities, which you didn't build" (De 6:10), "and houses full of all good things, which you didn't fill, and cisterns cut out, which you didn't cut, vineyards and olive trees, which you didn't plant, and you will eat and be full" (De 6:11): "you be careful not to forget Yahweh, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slaves" (De 6:12). The same warning is repeated in De 8: "you be careful not to forget Yahweh your God, in not keeping his commandments, and his ordinances, and his statutes" (De 8:11) — and the mechanism is spelled out: "or else, when you have eaten and are full, and have built good houses, and dwelt in them" (De 8:12), "and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied" (De 8:13), "then your heart will be lifted up, and you will forget Yahweh your God" (De 8:14). Hosea finds the prediction realized: "according to their pasture, so they were filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted: therefore they have forgotten me" (Ho 13:6). And Moses tells the next generation, "or else you will forget the things which your eyes saw, and they will depart from your heart all the days of your life" (De 4:9).

Sirach turns the same observation into an aphorism for the moral memory: "the goodness of a day makes the evil be forgotten; and the evil of a day makes the goodness be forgotten" (Sir 11:25); "a time of evil makes delight be forgotten; and the end of man tells concerning him" (Sir 11:27).

False teachers do their part. Through them the people are taught to forget: "who think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his fellow man, as their fathers forgot my name for Baal" (Jer 23:27).

Trials Should Not Lead to It; The Resolve to Remember

Where prosperity has often produced forgetting, suffering tests whether memory can hold. The sons of Korah plead innocence under affliction: "all this has come upon us; yet we have not forgotten you, neither have we dealt falsely in your covenant. Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from your way, that you have intensely broken us in the place of jackals, and covered us with the shadow of death. If we have forgotten the name of our God, or spread forth our hands to a strange god" (Ps 44:17-20). The exile sets the same vow against amnesia: "if I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget [her skill]" (Ps 137:5).

Psalm 119 makes the resolve programmatic. The faithful answer the warnings of Deuteronomy and the laments of the Psalter with first-person determination: "I will delight myself in your statutes: I will not forget your word" (Ps 119:16); "I will never forget your precepts; for with them you have quickened me" (Ps 119:93); "consider my affliction, and deliver me; for I do not forget your law" (Ps 119:153); "I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your slave; for I do not forget your commandments" (Ps 119:176).

Punishment of Those Who Forget God

The Psalter pronounces it as a class judgment: "the wicked will be turned back to Sheol, even all the nations that forget God" (Ps 9:17). The exhortation to those guilty is immediate: "now consider this, you⁺ who forget God, or else I will tear you⁺ in pieces, and there will be none to deliver" (Ps 50:22). Bildad puts the formula in his own way: as the rush withers without water, "while it is yet in its greenness, [and] not cut down, it withers before any [other] herb" (Job 8:12), "so are the paths of all who forget God; and the hope of the godless man will perish" (Job 8:13). Isaiah names the charge against the planter: "for you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and haven't been mindful of [the Speech who is] your strength; therefore you plant pleasant plants, and set it with strange slips" (Isa 17:10), "in the day of your planting you hedge it in, and in the morning you make your seed to blossom; but the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow" (Isa 17:11). Ezekiel addresses Oholibah: "because you have forgotten me, and cast me behind your back, therefore bear you also your lewdness and your whoring" (Eze 23:35). And Hosea closes the indictment: "Israel has forgotten his Maker, and built palaces; and Judah has multiplied fortified cities: but I will send a fire on their cities, and it will devour their castles" (Ho 8:14).