After David L. supplied a host of helpful references, he wrote
It's probably helpful to remember that in OT usage especially, forgetting
and remembering are treated as acts with a distinctly volitional aspect.
For
God to "forget" sin doesn't suggest a conflict with omniscience. It's a
purposeful, judicial act. ("Strike that from the record . . .") I suspect
that the act of "blotting them out of his memory" could be compared to a
presidential pardon. Whatever happened happened . . . but it never
happened.
This is most helpful to me.
true is, that true loue hath no powre
To looken back; his eies be fixt before.
Carol K. pictures "Spenser writing these speeches straight and then finding
them too sweet and transferring them to scenes of misprision to add dramatic
irony.
I picture Spenser drawing on an experience some of us have had when a loved
one has lost interest and has been inattentive and/or uncaring. Then a
situation develops in which she seems to have reverted to her old self. It's
not that we actually forget the past, but that which we see before us is
what we feel and consequently believe is really true.
Jim Broaddus
