# Repentance and Mercy

Source: https://enocharchive.com/themes/repentance (Enoch Archive).

Several of the later books dwell on what a person does after sinning. In the Testaments Reuben says he repented for seven years, drinking no wine and eating no pleasant food, and Simeon, Judah and Gad each describe fasting and weeping over what they did to Joseph or to their own households. Their repentance is told so that their children will not need the same lesson.

The Life of Adam and Eve opens the theme at the gate of paradise. Seth and Eve go to ask for the oil of mercy for the dying Adam, and are told it will be given at the end of the times; Eve confesses her part and asks to die with her husband. Mercy is promised but deferred.

The Cave of Treasures gives the most surprising case. Manasseh, the king who had Isaiah sawn in two, puts on sackcloth, decrees a fast for himself and eats his bread with tears all the days of his life. In the Kebra Nagast Solomon, after losing Zion and falling into idolatry, laments on his deathbed.

**category:** Moral