10.3 Remembering and forgetting

I did not set out to write about memory. It kept turning up: first beside thinking, then beside feeling, and above all beside anger. So it has its own place here.

The heart is where things are kept (Chapter 4). "I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you" (Psalm 119:11). Mary "treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart" (Luke 2:19). This section is about what keeping and losing do.

Not forgetting is tied to life: "I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have given me life" (Psalm 119:93; Chapter 2).

Remembering feeds thinking and prayer

What is remembered becomes the material of thought. "I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done; I ponder the work of your hands" (Psalm 143:5). It fills the night: "when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night" (Psalm 63:6).

Forgetting lets anger go, and remembering brings it back

Rebekah sent Jacob away "until your brother's anger turns away from you, and he forgets what you have done to him" (Genesis 27:45). Forgetting is how she expected the anger to end, and it did: "Esau ran to meet him and embraced him" (33:4).

Remembering can come back when anger has gone. "After these things, when the anger of King Ahasuerus had abated, he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what had been decreed against her" (Esther 2:1). The anger had acted, and it had passed. Now memory returned, and the decree could not be undone.

Forgetting God

Scripture names forgetting as one of the roots of turning away from God. "You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth" (Deuteronomy 32:18). "They forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt" (Psalm 106:21). The warning comes in a time of plenty: "Take care lest you forget the Lord your God" (Deuteronomy 8:11).

Forgetting God also makes room for fear. "Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies … and have forgotten the Lord, your Maker … and you fear continually all the day because of the wrath of the oppressor" (Isaiah 51:12–13). Fear of someone's anger grows where God is forgotten.

And forgetting the past lets it happen again. To the survivors who fled to Egypt: "Have you forgotten the evil of your fathers … your own evil …?" (Jeremiah 44:9).

Remembering as a cure, and remembering as hope

So remembering is commanded.

Against self-righteousness: "Remember and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness" (Deuteronomy 9:7). It comes straight after "Do not say in your heart … 'It is because of my righteousness'" (9:4).
Against fear: "you shall not be afraid of them but you shall remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt" (Deuteronomy 7:18).
Against the pride of having: "You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth" (Deuteronomy 8:18).
Kept in a song, so it will not be lost: "this song shall confront them as a witness (for it will live unforgotten in the mouths of their offspring)" (Deuteronomy 31:21).

Remembering also rescues. The psalmist fears that God's anger has shut him out: "Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?" (Psalm 77:9). His answer is not a reply from heaven but an act of memory: "I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonders of old" (77:11). The poet of Lamentations does the same in the middle of ruin. "My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases" (Lamentations 3:20–22). One remembering bows the soul down, and another lifts it.

Remembering in shame

There is a remembering that comes after mercy and hurts. "That you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you" (Ezekiel 16:63). "There you shall remember your ways … and you shall loathe yourselves" (Ezekiel 20:43).

A death can be felt as sin remembered. The widow at Zarephath says to Elijah, "What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!" (1 Kings 17:18). That is her reading, as the verse gives it. Elijah takes the question to God: "O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?" (17:20). The child is given back (Chapter 2).

God remembers

God remembers too, and his remembering changes things.

He remembers what we are: "he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust" (Psalm 103:14). "He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes and comes not again" (Psalm 78:39). In that psalm this is his reason for holding back his anger.
He is asked to remember mercy inside his anger: "in wrath remember mercy" (Habakkuk 3:2).
He is asked not to remember sin: "Do not remember against us our former iniquities" (Psalm 79:8).
He stops remembering when a person turns, either way. Of the wicked who turns: "None of the transgressions that he has committed shall be remembered against him" (Ezekiel 18:22). Of the righteous who turns to injustice: "None of the righteous deeds that he has done shall be remembered" (18:24).
Job asks to be hidden "until your wrath be past" and then "remember me!" (Job 14:13).
He keeps a book of remembrance of those who feared him (Malachi 3:16).
And he remembers in judgment: "God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath" (Revelation 16:19).

When remembering changes character

Remembering is not good or bad in itself. It bows the soul down, and it gives hope (Lamentations 3:20–21). It keeps a grievance alive, or it cures the claim to be righteous (Deuteronomy 9:4–7). God's remembering is pity for the frame, or judgment on Babylon. Forgetting is how anger ends between brothers (Genesis 27:45), and how a people loses God (Deuteronomy 32:18).

I expect this section to grow. Memory is part of many strands I have not yet read.

Connections:

Into thinking (10.4): what is remembered is meditated on.
With feeling (10.1): forgetting ends anger, and remembering can revive it or calm fear.
With choosing (10.7): remembering God turns the feet.
Before God (10.9, Chapter 13): he remembers our frame; he is asked to remember mercy; under his anger, remembering is where hope begins.