[Hebrew terms.]
[Hebrew terms.]
§ 8. In Hebrew the customary word is תְׁשּובָה (“return, conversion, going back to God”). Its opposite is מְׁשּובָה (“turning away, failure, departure to evil”), from the root ׁשּוב (“he returned, he went back”); for when we sin, we turn away from God and depart from Him. “Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God” (Isa. 59:2). But when we repent, we again go back to God. “Return (ׁשַבְּתָ) to the Lord your God, and obey His voice” (Deut. 30:2). “They will return (יְׁשּובּון) from their sins” (1 Kings 8:35).
Here the two terms of this conversion7 are set forth. Thus Irenaeus (bk. 3, ch. 35) connects “repentance” and “going back,” explaining the former through the latter as explanatory [ἐξηγητικῶς]. For just as every motion is between its starting point and finishing point [inter terminum a quo et terminum ad quem], so also repentance is תְׁשּובָה, an ἐπιστροφή or “conversion” from sins to righteousness, from the devil to God, from death to life, from darkness to light, from that which is apparently good to that which is actually good. “That they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God… that they should repent and turn to God” (Acts 26:18, 20). In this sense Phavorinus says that repentance is a “conversion from errors to the opposite good.” Damascenus (Orth. fid., 2, ch. 30) defines it as “the returning from the unnatural into the natural state, from the devil to God.” Augustine (De vera et fals. poenit., ch. 1) says that it “leads men back to the angels and restores the creature to the Creator.”
Devout minds should consider whether or not the word ׁשּובָה in the following statement can be understood as the repentance through which we aspire to true peace of mind (Isa. 30:15): “In [returning and] rest you will be saved.” The Septuagint translators certainly translated it that way: “When you return and groan, then you will be saved.” Ambrose (De poenit., bk. 1, ch. 4) follows them: “If you turn and groan, you will be saved.”