What does it mean that God “repented” or “relented” if He cannot change?
Question 2070
Genesis 6:6 records that “the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” Jonah 3:10 states that “when God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.” Both passages use language that, on the surface, seems to attribute to God the very kind of changeability that other texts explicitly deny. Working through what is actually being said here is one of the more rewarding exegetical exercises in the Old Testament.
The Hebrew Word and Its Range
The key word in both passages is the Hebrew nacham. It carries a broad range of meaning: to be sorry, to have compassion, to console oneself, to relent, to change course. Its meaning in any given text is shaped by context. In Genesis 6:6 it is translated “regretted” or “was grieved.” In Exodus 32:14 it is “relented.” In Jonah 3:10, “relented.” The English word “repent” in some older translations is slightly misleading for modern readers, since it implies moral failure followed by contrition, which obviously cannot apply to God.
The same word is also used in passages that qualify it sharply. Numbers 23:19 states: “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 fulfil it?” And 1 Samuel 15:29: “And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.” Remarkably, these passages use the same root word to deny of God exactly what other passages appear to attribute to him. The tension is internal to Scripture itself, not created by external criticism.
The Two Kinds of Constancy
The resolution of this tension lies in distinguishing between two different kinds of divine constancy. God’s character, his being, his fundamental nature and purposes, these do not change. Malachi 3:6 grounds this: “For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.” This is ontological immutability: God does not become someone else, does not revise his ultimate purposes, does not abandon his character.
But God’s responses within the created order are genuinely responsive to what actually happens. When a person repents, God’s response to that person changes, not because God is different, but because the person is different. The same divine character that responds to wickedness with judgement responds to repentance with mercy. These two responses are not contradictory; they are the same unchanging character applied to two different moral situations. The sun does not change when it melts wax and hardens clay; the same consistent energy produces different effects depending on what it encounters.
Genesis 6:6 and the Grief of God
In Genesis 6:6, the language of regret and grief is connected to God’s response to the spreading of human wickedness. “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart” (Genesis 6:5-6). The position that this language genuinely describes God’s relational response to human sin, rather than mere accommodation or poetic decoration, is the more honest one. God’s character is such that human wickedness produces a response in him that Scripture can only describe as grief.
This does not mean God was taken by surprise or that his purposes were derailed. What follows in the Genesis narrative is the flood and the preservation of Noah. The “regret” does not indicate that God made a mistake in creating humanity; it indicates that the creation designed for relationship with him and for flourishing has become something that grieves the heart of its Maker. The emotion is real even as the purpose remains certain.
Jonah 3:10 and the Relenting God
In Jonah 3:10, the Ninevites hear Jonah’s message of judgement, repent, and God “relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them.” This puzzled readers, and it particularly puzzled Jonah himself, who was angry precisely because he knew this would happen: “I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster” (Jonah 4:2). Jonah quotes the ancient formula of Exodus 34:6-7 as the theological explanation for God’s action.
Jonah’s message was conditional in its essential logic, even though stated as bare declaration: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (Jonah 3:4). This is characteristic of prophetic warnings across the Old Testament. Jeremiah 18:7-10 makes the pattern explicit: if God announces disaster against a nation and that nation repents, he will relent of the planned disaster. The relenting is not inconsistency; it is precisely how God’s character operates. His threatened judgement is the appropriate response to wickedness. His mercy is the appropriate response to genuine repentance. Both responses flow from the same unchanging character applied to different moral circumstances.
The Relationship Is Real
Behind all of this is a crucial theological point: God’s relationship with his creation is not a performance. When God responds to human choices, even to the point of changing his stated course of action, the relationship is genuinely real. Open Theism attempts to explain this by limiting God’s foreknowledge: God did not know what the Ninevites would do and so genuinely changed his plan when they repented. But this is neither necessary nor warranted. God can know the whole of human history and still sustain genuine relational responsiveness within it. His foreknowledge does not turn the relationship into theatre. The grief of Genesis 6 is real grief. The mercy of Jonah 3 is real mercy. Both belong to the God who does not change.
So, now what?
The language of divine relenting has profound practical consequences for prayer. If God’s responses within the world are genuinely responsive to human choices and prayers, then intercession is not an exercise in persuading God to go against a predetermined plan. It is participation in the kind of real relationship in which prayer genuinely matters. James 5:17-18 holds this up with the example of Elijah: a human being, with a human prayer, had genuine effect on what actually happened. That is not magic; it is the normal operation of the relationship between the living God and his people.
“If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it.” Jeremiah 18:7-8
