1 Samuel 15 · a question people ask
"It grieves me" (15:11), and yet "the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent" (15:29). How do both stand in one chapter?
In Hebrew, grieves (15:11), repent (twice in 15:29) and grieved (15:35) are one verb, nacham (tap grieves), and 1 Samuel uses it only in this chapter. The LORD says, "It grieves me that I have set up Saul to be king" (15:11), and the chapter ends, "The LORD grieved that he had made Saul king over Israel" (15:35). Between them Samuel says, "Also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent; for he is not a man, that he should repent" (15:29), straight after "The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today" (15:28). Samuel's words sound like Balaam's: "God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should repent" (Numbers 23:19); repent there is the same verb, and lie is a different one. Exodus 32's honest question (Exodus 32:14) sets out the two main ways Christians read this verb, and Genesis 6's does the same (Genesis 6:6). Christians who hold each view take every one of these verses as true.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
Real grief, an unchanging purpose
Those who hold this view start from "For I, the LORD, don’t change" (Malachi 3:6), "the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation nor turning shadow" (James 1:17), and 15:29 itself. They read "It grieves me" (15:11) as the LORD's real sorrow over Saul's sin, told in words people can understand, and not as a plan that took him by surprise. On this view, 15:29 says why the word of 15:28 will stand: the LORD's purpose does not change.
Malachi 3:6 · James 1:17 · 1 Samuel 15:11 · 1 Samuel 15:28-29
He truly responds to what people do
Those who hold this view start from what the LORD says through Jeremiah: "At the instant I speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, if they do that which is evil in my sight, that they don’t obey my voice, then I will repent of the good with which I said I would benefit them" (Jeremiah 18:9-10). There repent is nacham, and obey my voice is the Hebrew of "obey the LORD’s voice" in 15:19. When Nineveh turned, "God relented of the disaster which he said he would do to them" (Jonah 3:10). On this view the LORD really responded to what Saul did (15:11, 15:35), and 15:29 says that this sentence, once spoken (15:28), he will not take back.
Jeremiah 18:7-10 · 1 Samuel 15:19 · Jonah 3:10 · 1 Samuel 15:11 · 1 Samuel 15:35 · 1 Samuel 15:28-29
The verses
““It grieves me that I have set up Saul to be king, for he has turned back from following me, and has not performed my commandments.” Samuel was angry; and he cried to the LORD all night.”
“Samuel said to him, “The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today, and has given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you. Also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent; for he is not a man, that he should repent.””
“Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death, but Samuel mourned for Saul. The LORD grieved that he had made Saul king over Israel.”
“God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should repent. Has he said, and he won’t do it? Or has he spoken, and he won’t make it good?”