“Then the word of Adonai came to Sh’mu’el: ‘I regret setting up Sha’ul as king, because he has turned back from following me and hasn’t obeyed my orders.’ This made Sh’mu’el very sad, so that he cried to Adonai all night.”-1 Samuel 15:10-11
In verse 10, we’re told that God “regretted” setting up Saul as king.
The Hebrew word used for regret here is NACHAM or נחם.
The concordance tells us it means “to be sorry”, “be moved to pity”, “have compassion”, “rue”, “suffer grief”, “repent”, “to comfort oneself”, or “be comforted.”
It comes from the root word NACHUM which means to comfort or have compassion for another.
For example, Yeshua ministered in an area known as KAPHER-NACHUM (Capernaum in English).
This translates to “the town of comfort and compassion”.
So although NACHAM is usually rendered as “regret” or “repent” in our English Bibles, when applied to God who is NOT a man, its meaning differs significantly from how we normally understand the word.
So what’s the difference?
Well, when we humans experience regret, it means we have a change of mind or heart.
We have committed an error of some kind and feel bad about what we have done.
So we repent and make a heartfelt decision to stop our sinful behavior.
However, God is perfect and doesn’t make mistakes.
So it’s impossible for Him to feel regret like we do…
And He never has to go through some repentance process for some sin He may have committed.
When God feels “regret”, it’s because something outside of Him has changed.
Imagine God drawing lines between what’s good and what’s not, and those lines never move.
Saul may have started off doing good things, and God was near to him at that time.
But once Saul started disobeying, God didn’t stay close anymore.
Who changed here?
Not God—He stayed the same.
It’s Saul who changed from being good to being bad.
Ya feel me?
God didn’t change His rules.
It was Saul who changed…
And that altered his relationship with God.
So when God says He regrets something, it’s a response to the changed circumstance outside of Him.
Remember, God gave us free will.
When Saul exercised his free will and disobeyed God, that caused God to regret He had made him king.
Again, it was Saul who changed the circumstances that caused his relationship with God to change.
So God wasn’t surprised by Saul’s disobedience…
He didn’t say to Himself “Darn! I wish I had chosen someone else as king”.
Nor did He feel sad or let down.
Remember, God is not a man and doesn’t feel emotions like we do.
So here’s your takeaway.
God never changes.
He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
If your relationship with God changes whether in a good or bad way, it’s NOT because He has changed.
It’s because YOU have changed.
You either sinned and caused God to separate Himself from you.
Or you did good and caused God to draw near to you.
The great news is you have the freedom to decide which way to go.
You can choose good or you can choose evil.
Just like Adam and Eve had the freedom to choose to eat from that forbidden tree or not.
God did not create you as a mindless robot.
You have the power to make choices.
So choose good!
Choose obedience!
And choose life!
I believe in this context, “regret” would be like sympathy. G_d sympathized for Himself for making Saul a king. He didn’t make a mistake in positioning Saul as king, more like, G_d felt sorrowful in making Saul a king.
Possibly.