Does God relent? What nacham means in Hebrew
Some verses say that God “repented,” and others that God does not repent like a human being. Does the Bible contradict itself? No. The key lies in a Hebrew word, nacham, and in reading each verse in its context.
One word with two senses
Nacham is a verb of deep feeling. Sometimes it means to “comfort” someone. At other times, to “be sorry” about something or to “relent.” In English, “repent” sounds like admitting that one did wrong; that is why, when the subject is God, we do not translate it that way.
When God grieves
Before the flood, the text says: “YHWH was sorry that he had made the human being on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart” (Genesis 6:6). It is not that God made a mistake in creating: it is God’s grief at human wickedness.
The same with Saul: “I am sorry that I made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me” (1 Samuel 15:11).
When God does not carry out a punishment
When Moses intercedes for the people: “YHWH relented concerning the evil that he had said he would do to his people” (Exodus 32:14). When Nineveh repents: “Elohim saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and Elohim changed his mind about the evil that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it” (Jonah 3:10).
God himself explains how this works: if a nation to which he announced a punishment “turns back from its evil […], I will relent concerning the evil that I intended to do to it” (Jeremiah 18:8). His warnings are a call to return. That is why Joel says that God is “gracious and merciful […] and relenting over the evil” (Joel 2:13).
And yet, God does not change
The same Bible says: “El is not a man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should relent” (Numbers 23:19). And in the same chapter where God is sorry that he made Saul king, Samuel states: “the Splendor of Israel does not lie and does not relent, for he is not a human being that he should relent” (1 Samuel 15:29).
That both things are in the same chapter shows that the author saw no contradiction. God does not change in who he is, nor in his promises, nor does he make mistakes as we do (Malachi 3:6). Precisely because he is always the same, he always responds in the same way: with grief at sin and with mercy toward the one who turns back to him.