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Dear Father Angelo,

First of all, I congratulate you on your excellent clarifications regarding theological matters.

I regularly read the answers you provide on this website.

I ask you a question:

In what sense is God slow to anger?

I send you my best wishes and wish you a happy 2022!

Alberto.

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Answer from the priest

Dear Alberto,

1. Many times in the Old Testament the expression that God is slow to anger is found.

For example, in Exodus 34:6: “So the Lord passed before him and proclaimed: The Lord, the Lord, a God gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in love and fidelity”.

Slow to anger means patient.

In the Latin text of the Vulgate it reads: “patiens et multae miserationis, ac verax”, literally translated it sounds like this: patient and of much mercy and faithful.

So also in Numbers 14:18: “The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in kindness, forgiving iniquity and rebellion…”.

In Latin: “patiens et multae misericordiae”, English: patient and of great mercy.

2. The Italian translation of the Episcopal Conference preferred to remain more materially attached to Hebrew. And rightly so, because it includes something new.

God’s anger in Holy Scripture is linked to God’s punishments.

Therefore slow to anger means that God does not punish immediately, as we read in Wisdom 12:18-19: “But though you are master of might, you judge with clemency, and with much lenience you govern us; for power, whenever you will, attends you. You taught your people, by these deeds, that those who are righteous must be kind; And you gave your children reason to hope that you would allow them to repent for their sins”.

3. Once again to avoid misunderstandings, as it involves anthropomorphic language, it should be said that with sin it is man who punishes himself as John Paul II recalled sin “ends in turning against man himself with a dark and powerful force of destruction” (Reconciliatio et paenitentia 17).

Moreover, with sin man puts himself into the hands of his tormentor, the devil, who when he comes, “comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy” (Jn 10:10).

Slow to anger means that God does not leave man in the hands of the devil almost as if he stopped loving him and no longer cared about him.

God, therefore, even if man detaches from him and ceases to love him, continues to pour on him his benevolence and protection.

4. With this context in mind, we better understand what is read in James 1:19: “You know this, my beloved brothers and sisters. Now everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger”.

Being slow to anger means not only being patient, but also trying to free those who behave badly from the yoke of sin and the devil.

That’s why Jesus says: “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust” (Mt 5:44-45).

And St. Paul: “Bless those who persecute [you], bless and do not curse them” (Rm 12:14).

In other words: pray for those who persecute you, ask God for the grace of conversion for those who harm you.

May the Lord always find us animated by such feelings, I bless you and remember you in prayer.

Father Angelo