Psalm 106 · a question people ask
"He remembered for them his covenant, and repented" (106:45). Does God change his mind?
The Hebrew word behind repented is nacham, which Brown-Driver-Briggs gives among its senses as "be sorry, moved to pity, have compassion" (tap repented). Here is what the psalm puts beside it: "Nevertheless he regarded their distress, when he heard their cry. He remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses" (106:44-45). At the calf, which the psalm has just told (106:19-23), Exodus has the same word: "So the LORD turned away from the evil which he said he would do to his people" (Exodus 32:14). Other verses, with the same Hebrew word, say God doesn't: "God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should repent" (Numbers 23:19), and "The LORD has sworn, and will not change his mind" (Psalm 110:4). Christians read these verses in more than one way. The chapters on Genesis 6, Exodus 32 and 1 Samuel 15 set out the main readings, each resting on its verses, and choose none; these notes don't repeat them.
The verses
“Nevertheless he regarded their distress, when he heard their cry. He remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.”
“They made a calf in Horeb, and worshiped a molten image. Thus they exchanged their glory for an image of a bull that eats grass. They forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt, wondrous works in the land of Ham, and awesome things by the Red Sea. Therefore he said that he would destroy them, had Moses, his chosen, not stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, so that he wouldn’t destroy them.”
“So the LORD turned away from the evil which he said he would do to his people.”
“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?”