A Troubling Question⤒🔗

Most people are inclined to immediately answer the question in this title in a negative way: that naturally God cannot have remorse, otherwise he would not be God. It is typical for a person to be able to have remorse. By “remorse” we understand sorrow or regret about something about which you would say, “That was evil, foolish, sinful; if I had thought more carefully, I would not have said or done it in that way.” Remorse usually responds to one’s own earlier sinful unwillingness or guilty ignorance. Surely that cannot possibly be said about God? But to our amazement, the Old Testament speaks more than thirty-five times, without hesitation, about the remorse of God. But doesn’t Scripture itself say that with the Lord, the Father of lights, there is “no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17)? It looks as if the Bible is contradicting itself on this point. Then you feel the foundation of faith shaking under your feet: a God who can have remorse is to the greatest degree unpredictable and arbitrary. This engenders insecurity or even fear.

Translating in Such a Way as to Avoid the Problem←⤒🔗

Already early in church history, we saw that people had difficulty with the notion of God’s remorse. The very first translation of the Old Testament, the Greek Septuagint, simply translated the problem away; for example, in the place of “remorse,” they would translate “being merciful.” Trendsetting also was the understanding of the Jewish-Alexandrian scholar Philo, a contemporary of Jesus. He stated in a writing about the immutability of God that it is the greatest godlessness to ascribe emotional characteristics to God. Even as the wise philosopher is elevated above the fickle, how much more is God. Moreover, divine knowledge is perfect. The seemingly flawed speaking of Scripture ( speaking in a human way about God) is the result of God’s adapting himself to us people. God is like a doctor who, precisely because he desires to heal, also sometimes speaks in a deceiving manner. When it is written that God is angry, it is not truly so, but then God acts like a father who only seems to hate his child. Also, when it states that God has remorse, it is not really so. So far Philo.

God Has Sorrow about Saul←⤒🔗

And now the Bible. A clear example is given in 1 Samuel 15. Saul receives the mandate to totally destroy Amalek, every living person and animal (1 Samuel 15:1-9). However, only the worthless are slain; the rest are taken as the spoils of war. Saul‘s sparing of the Amalekite king Agag also reveals his pride: his reasoning that such a captured king looks good as a display of victory. Meanwhile, in this way Saul disregards command of God. Only after Samuel has repeatedly put pressure on Saul (1 Samuel 15:14, 16-19, 22-23) does Saul admit this (1 Samuel 15:24). The rupture can no longer be healed. A sign of this is the torn skirt (1 Samuel 15:27) and the parted ways at the end of the account (1 Samuel 15:34).

God says, “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments” (1 Samuel 15:11). Also the final words of this chapter (1 Samuel 15:35) announce God’s sorrow over Saul’s kingship: “And the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.” God has remorse, not because he has done anything wrong, but because Saul has done wrong. God’s remorse marks the end of his electing fellowship with Israel via Saul. At the same time, God does not rescind the decision that Israel will have a kingship (1 Samuel 8:7, 9, 22)! In 1 Samuel 15:28, Saul is told that the kingdom of Israel will not be discontinued, but that the kingship will be given to another, a better king (David). Here we thus see what God’s remorse entails: a change in God’s course, a partial return to a done thing, in order to ensure better continuity in this enterprise.

Saul Must Not Think That God Is Remorseful←⤒🔗

In the same chapter, 1 Samuel 15, between the words about God’s remorse in verses 11 and 35, is a text wherein it is stated that God has no remorse: “And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret” (1 Samuel 15:29). How is this possible in one and the same portion of Scripture? From the foregoing it appears that Saul makes a fairly cheap confession of guilt, along the lines of “sweeping it under the rug” (1 Samuel 15:24-31). Saul has little understanding about God and views God on the human plane. He wants to come to a compromise. In response, the prophet insists that Saul is totally mistaken; God’s Word of judgment (1 Samuel 15:28) that another will be king over Israel, is deadly serious (1 Samuel 15:29). God cannot be mollified; he will not change his word. God is not like a man: superficial, lacking steadfastness, speaking in one way and at another moment in an opposite way.

Complement and Not Contrary←⤒🔗

Thus the idea of God’s remorse in 1 Samuel 15 has two sides, both of which are true, which do not correct but rather complement each other. On the one side, God has sorrow over Saul (vv. 11, 35), but that does not mean arbitrariness or uncertainty (v. 29). On the other hand, God is not a man who would lie and regret his words (v. 29), but this does not mean that God cannot rule and change his way of working (vv. 11, 35). Putting it together, God’s remorse is real, a reaction to the guilt of man, but this remorse is not fickle or arbitrary like human remorse.

Comparison with Balaam←⤒🔗

We find exactly the same thought in Numbers 23:19, in the middle of the history of Balaam. Balak takes Balaam from one location to another, in the hope that this man who makes a career out of cursing people will not bless Israel, down there in the valley, but will instead curse them. Perhaps it will work the next time, Balak convinces himself. Indeed, you could try in this manner with the servant of an arbitrary god. But the God who lets Balaam speak is different, as even Balaam is forced to confess: “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (Numbers 23:19). Balak, you must not think that God, who let me speak out a blessing over Israel, would have remorse and take it back shortly after, says Balaam. He is God and not a man. Just as in 1 Samuel 15:29, this does not mean that God cannot have sorrow, but it does mean that God cannot have remorse in a human way.

Conclusion←⤒🔗

A comparison with other places in the Bible where God’s sorrow is spoken of leads to the conclusion that God’s remorse or sorrow is not the same as human remorse. There is, however, a certain similarity: namely, that remorse entails a change in manner of dealing with something and can be accompanied by intense emotions (see Genesis 6:6). But greater yet is the difference: God’s remorse never comes forth from a conviction of deficiency or guilty ignorance. The translation “regretted” in our Bible translations must be seen as the best choice of “poor word options” translation. A large number of texts explicitly show that it is wrong to equate God’s regret with that of man (Numbers 23; 1 Samuel 15; Hosea 11; Hebrews 6:18; Titus 1:2; James 1:17). The two traits of God’s remorse and of God’s inability to be arbitrary are not contradictory, but complement each other. The revelation of God’s remorse indicates that the Lord is a living God who can react to people, and not a static abstraction; the revelation of God not being remorseful indicates that this remorse from God has no arbitrariness and that in everything God’s plan of salvation proceeds undiminished and unabated. In a somewhat defective comparison, one could think of two terms related to battle: strategy and tactics. The strategy is the total plan, complete from the phase of preparation up to and with the description of battle plans and goals. Tactics includes the total of military operations designed to be able to realize the strategies. During the battle, the tactics can change many times, while a good commander still maintains his strategy. This is how you could more or less consider the biblical notion of the remorse of God; it is about actions on the plane of tactics (God has remorse), while the great strategic plan is fixed (God cannot have remorse).

The Living God←⤒🔗

Great is the importance of the preaching about God’s remorse. This does not form a stumbling block, but rather a pearl in the biblical revelation of God. It becomes clear through this that any abstraction or spiritualization of the image that we have of the Lord God is impossible—because God is the living one. He is not the unmoved Mover of Philo, a computer God made of ice crystals. He is also not a God with whom you can be best friends or buddies. He is the moved Lord who in his living relationship with this world and especially with his people goes his way, not static, but ruling from nearby, while remaining himself in his holiness and love.