"Should we rend our clothes?" (Alleged Contradiction #E8454)
Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.
Joel 2:12-13
And it was so, when Elisha the man of God had heard that the king of Israel had rent his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying, Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel.
II Kings 5:8
Because thine heart was tender, and thou hast humbled thyself before the LORD, when thou heardest what I spake against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and hast rent thy clothes, and wept before me; I also have heard thee, saith the LORD.
II Kings 22:19
See also: II Chronicles 34:27; Ecclesiastes 3:7
Response
In repentance for sin, we should rend our hearts. God is concerned about our heart.
In the Old Testament, rending garments was supposed to be a sign of the rending of the heart. However, apparently people were rending their garments as a show when the heart was not rent. Thus, God told them to rend their hearts rather than their garments. Rending of the garments was still often done genuinely, as in II Kings 22:19.
II Kings 5:8 is a special case: the king rent his garments because he thought the situation was hopeless (not in repentance for sin). However, this demonstrated his lack of faith that there was a prophet of God in Israel who could have helped him.
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