Partial Repentance: Returning Without Return to God

Ezekiel indicts a nation caught in cyclical failure: "They return, but not to the Most High." The people of Israel, warned repeatedly by God's servants of impending judgment, experienced momentary reformation followed by deeper wickedness. Their repentance was fundamentally defective—a nostos (return) of behavior without a epistrophe (turning toward) Adonai. Exell identifies three marks of such incomplete repentance. First, the penitent grieves consequences, not guilt.…