Verse of the Day for April 20

Israel is speaking here, and the speech is a little too smooth — come, let us return, he hath torn and he will heal us. The chapter afterwards suggests God found the repentance shallow.

But one line inside it is worth taking on its own terms.

Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord.

Follow on is the phrase. Knowing God in this sentence is not an event that happens to you; it is the result of continuing after the first instalment.

And the image given is weather: his going forth is prepared as the morning, and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth.

Two rains, months apart. The former rain softened ground for planting and the latter swelled the grain before harvest, and a farmer needed both.

Whoever wrote this understood that the God who came in the spring is the one you are still waiting for in the autumn.

Most people who say God has gone quiet are describing the gap between the former rain and the latter one.

Follow on. The knowing is downstream of the continuing.