Bible Synapse
Does God change his mind?
Hard question · Who God is · raised by 5 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
“I am the Lord, I change not”: because God does not change, Jacob’s sons are not consumed.
For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
God is not a man that he should lie, nor a son of man that he should ‘repent’; what he has said, he will do.
God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?
The Strength of Israel will not lie nor ‘repent’, though the same chapter twice says the Lord ‘repented’ of making Saul king (15:11, 35).
And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent.
It ‘repented’ the Lord that he had made man, “and it grieved him at his heart”.
And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
When Nineveh turned from its evil way, God ‘repented’ of the evil he had said he would do to them, and did not do it.
And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.
God’s own rule: if a nation he has warned turns from its evil, he will relent; if a nation he has promised good turns to evil, he will withdraw the good.
At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.
The objection
Malachi 3:6, Numbers 23:19 and 1 Samuel 15:29 say that God does not change and does not ‘repent’. Yet other verses say plainly that the Lord ‘repented’: he regretted making mankind (Genesis 6:6) and making Saul king (1 Samuel 15:11), and he called off the destruction he had announced against Nineveh (Jonah 3:10); he even told Hezekiah, “thou shalt die, and not live”, and then added fifteen years to his life (2 Kings 20:1–6). If God relents, it seems he does change his mind.
The answer
The Hebrew word translated ‘repent’ in these verses is nacham (Strong’s H5162). It does not mean turning from sin; it means ‘to be sorry, to grieve, to be moved to pity, to relent’. In Genesis 6:6 it stands beside “it grieved him at his heart”: it describes God’s grief at human wickedness, not the discovery of a mistake.
The verses that deny that God ‘repents’ speak of his character and his sworn word: “hath he said, and shall he not do it?” (Numbers 23:19). The verses where he ‘repents’ describe how he responds when people change, exactly as he said he would: if a nation he has warned turns from its evil, “I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them” (Jeremiah 18:8). Nineveh turned, and God did just that. Hezekiah’s case is the same: the warning was real, Hezekiah prayed and wept, and God answered, “I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears” (2 Kings 20:5). It is because God does not change that his response to repentance can be relied on.
1 Samuel 15 shows that the writer saw no contradiction. The same chapter says the Lord ‘repented’ of making Saul king (verses 11 and 35) and that he “is not a man, that he should repent” (verse 29). Verse 29 means that God would not reverse his sentence on Saul, however Saul pleaded; verses 11 and 35 express his grief at Saul’s disobedience. Keil and Delitzsch call the first way of speaking theomorphic (in a manner fitting God) and the second anthropomorphic (God’s real response put in human terms).
Other answers Christians give
Prayer and intercession
In Exodus 32:14 the Lord ‘repented’ of destroying Israel after Moses prayed. Many read this in the same way: God had invited Moses to plead, and Moses appealed to God’s own promise to Abraham (32:13), so the outcome came from God’s unchanging purpose working through prayer.
Open theism
A minority of Christians, called open theists, take the relenting passages at face value: God does not know free future choices in advance and genuinely changes his plans. Most Christian traditions reject this, because Scripture also says that God declares “the end from the beginning” (Isaiah 46:10).
Still open
How literally to take the Bible’s words for God’s feelings is debated. Calvin held that God is not truly sorrowful and that such language is fitted to our understanding; Keil and Delitzsch, and many modern writers, see in it the real pain of God’s love. Both agree that God’s nature and purposes do not change.
From the classic commentators
That this does not express any changeableness in the divine nature, but simply the sorrow of the divine love at the rebellion of sinners, is evident enough from 1 Samuel 15:29.Keil & Delitzsch, Commentary on 1 Samuel 15:10 (1857–78), at Bible Hub
The repentance which is here ascribed to God does not properly belong to him, but has reference to our understanding of him. For since we cannot comprehend him as he is, it is necessary that, for our sakes he should, in a certain sense, transform himself.John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis 6:6 (1554), at Bible Hub
Sources
- Keil & Delitzsch, Commentary on 1 Samuel 15 (1857–78), at Bible Hub
- John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis 6, at Bible Hub
- Strong’s Hebrew 5162, nacham (with Brown-Driver-Briggs), at Bible Hub