How long does God’s anger last?

The passages

Psalms 30:5

“For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life.”

For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

Psalms 103:8–9

The Lord is “slow to anger”, and “neither will he keep his anger for ever”.

The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever.

Jeremiah 3:12–13

To exiled Israel: “Return, thou backsliding Israel”, for “I will not keep anger for ever”; “Only acknowledge thine iniquity”.

Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the Lord.

Numbers 32:13

The Lord’s anger kept Israel wandering forty years, until the generation that had done evil was gone.

And the Lord’s anger was kindled against Israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation, that had done evil in the sight of the Lord, was consumed.

Jeremiah 17:4

To unrepentant Judah: “ye have kindled a fire in mine anger, which shall burn for ever”.

And thou, even thyself, shalt discontinue from thine heritage that I gave thee; and I will cause thee to serve thine enemies in the land which thou knowest not: for ye have kindled a fire in mine anger, which shall burn for ever.

Matthew 25:46

“These shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.”

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

The objection

Psalm 30:5 says God’s anger “endureth but a moment”, and in Jeremiah 3:12 God says, “I will not keep anger for ever”. But his anger kept Israel wandering in the wilderness for forty years (Numbers 32:13), Jeremiah 17:4 speaks of a fire kindled in his anger “which shall burn for ever”, and Jesus speaks of “everlasting punishment” (Matthew 25:46). Which is it?

The answer

How long God’s anger lasts depends on how people respond to it. Toward those who turn back to him it is brief. Psalm 30 is David’s thanksgiving after God had disciplined and then restored him; Psalm 103 speaks of God’s mercy “toward them that fear him” (103:11); and Jeremiah 3:12 is an invitation to exiled Israel, “Return, thou backsliding Israel”, with a condition in the next verse: “Only acknowledge thine iniquity”. Toward those who refuse, his anger remains. The generation that would not enter Canaan died in the wilderness (Numbers 32:13), and Jesus says that whoever will not believe the Son “shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36).

In Jeremiah 17:4 ‘for ever’ translates the Hebrew ad olam; olam often means a long, indefinite time whose length is set by the context, and Gill takes the fire here to mean judgment that would burn until the land and its people were laid waste. Jeremiah himself foresaw a return after seventy years (Jeremiah 29:10). Matthew 25:46 is different: it speaks of the final judgment, and the same Greek word, aiōnios, describes both the punishment and the life.

Still open

Christians differ on what ‘everlasting punishment’ involves. Most have held that it is conscious and without end; some, holding to ‘conditional immortality’, argue that it is a destruction whose result is permanent.

From the classic commentators

wrath is, in relation to them, only a vanishing moment: a moment passes in His anger, a (whole) life in His favour, i.e., the former endures only for a moment, the latter the whole life of a man.Keil & Delitzsch, Commentary on Psalm 30:5 (1857–78), at Bible Hub

which shall burn for ever; as it will in hell, and therefore called everlasting fire: here it only means until these people and their country were consumed by the enemyJohn Gill, Exposition of the Bible: Jeremiah 17:4 (1746–63), at Bible Hub