Judges 10 · a question people ask
"I will save you no more" (10:13). Did the LORD change his mind?
The LORD said, "Therefore I will save you no more" (10:13), and gave his reason in the same verse: "Yet you have forsaken me and served other gods". Three verses later Israel "put away the foreign gods from among them and served the LORD", and "his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel" (10:16). The chapter doesn't say the LORD took back his words, and it ends before any rescue (10:17-18); in the next chapter "the LORD delivered them into his hand" (11:32). Elsewhere the Bible says, "God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should repent" (Numbers 23:19), and "the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent" (1 Samuel 15:29). It also says, "So the LORD turned away from the evil which he said he would do to his people" (Exodus 32:14), and Exodus 32 looks at the same question. Christians who hold each view below take all 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.
His purpose doesn't change; what changed was Israel
Those who hold this view start from verses like "For I, the LORD, don’t change" (Malachi 3:6) and "the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation nor turning shadow" (James 1:17). They note that "I will save you no more" was spoken to a people who had "forsaken me and served other gods" (10:13), and read it as describing what the LORD would do while that stayed true. When Israel "put away the foreign gods from among them and served the LORD" (10:16), it no longer described them. On this view the words of 10:13 and 10:16 describe the LORD's dealings as Israel met them, within a purpose that didn't change.
Malachi 3:6 · James 1:17 · Judges 10:13 · Judges 10:16
He truly responds when his people turn
Those who hold this view start from what the LORD says about his own warnings through Jeremiah: "if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do to them" (Jeremiah 18:8). When Nineveh turned, "God relented of the disaster which he said he would do to them, and he didn’t do it" (Jonah 3:10). They read 10:16 as the LORD truly moved by what he saw, as in 2:18: "it grieved the LORD because of their groaning". On this view what doesn't change is his character, and it is his character to be moved by his people's misery.
Jeremiah 18:7-10 · Jonah 3:10 · Judges 2:18 · Judges 10:16
The verses
“Yet you have forsaken me and served other gods. Therefore I will save you no more.”
“They put away the foreign gods from among them and served the LORD; and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel. Then the children of Ammon were gathered together and encamped in Gilead. The children of Israel assembled themselves together and encamped in Mizpah. The people, the princes of Gilead, said to one another, “Who is the man who will begin to fight against the children of Ammon? He shall be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.””
“So Jephthah passed over to the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the LORD delivered them into his hand.”
“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?”