Rabbi Eliezer transmits a teaching in the name of Abba Yossi ben Dormaskith that exposes one of the most unsettling truths about God's relationship with Israel. The verse says: "And God saw the children of Israel" (Exodus 2:25). What did He see? Not their suffering. Not their cries. He saw their future.
He saw that they were destined to anger Him. He saw that they were destined to rebel. The golden calf, the spies, the complaints in the wilderness, the centuries of idolatry that would follow — God saw all of it in advance. He knew exactly who these people were and who they would become. Every betrayal, every broken covenant, every turning away was visible to Him before He ever lifted a finger to save them.
And He saved them anyway.
The Mekhilta asks the question that demands asking: why? Why all this readiness to forgive a people who would prove ungrateful? Why invest in a nation that would repeatedly fail to live up to its covenant?
The answer is breathtaking in its simplicity: "Because of the omnipotence of repentance." God did not overlook Israel's future sins. He accounted for them fully. But He also saw something else in their future — the capacity to return. Repentance, teshuvah (תשובה), is so powerful that it justified the entire Exodus before it even happened. God redeemed a rebellious people because He knew that rebellion is never the final word. Return always remains possible. And that possibility, the Mekhilta teaches, outweighs every sin that precedes it.