Have you ever been reading the Bible and come across something that appears to contradict what it says elsewhere? Have you ever discovered a verse that seems completely antithetical to what you’ve been taught by pastors and other teachers at your church?
This is not all that uncommon. There are many areas of Scripture that can be confusing and may seem at first glance to be in direct opposition of other Scripture passages. One particular place is 1 Samuel 15, where God declares that he regrets making Saul king.
But is it truly possible for God to regret something? After all, isn’t He all-knowing? Isn’t He sovereign over everything that happens in the universe? Doesn’t the Bible tell us that God can never change?
To answer these questions and gain clarity on the real meaning of 1 Samuel 15, we must examine the biblical context.
After years of being ruled and guided by judges, the nation of Israel demanded to have a king, just like all of the nations that surrounded them (1 Samuel 8:4-5). Samuel, a prophet of the Lord, attempted to warn them of all the implications of having a king, of choosing a human king over the divine King who had set them apart from the world (1 Samuel 8:10-18). But the people were stubborn and refused to listen to Samuel’s warnings (1 Samuel 8:19-20). They still wanted their king like the nations.
So, God relented, and He chose Saul to reign over Israel as king. On the outside, Saul was truly the king that everybody had wanted: wealthy, handsome, and taller than anybody else (1 Samuel 9:1-2). Yet, on the inside, he was not the king that God desired. God commanded Saul to devote Amalek, an enemy of Israel, to destruction. Saul was to destroy all of Amalek—men, women, children, and livestock—until nothing remained of the wicked nation (1 Samuel 15:2-3). However, when Saul attacked the Amalekites, he spared the life of Agag, their king, as well as the best of their livestock (1 Samuel 15:9).
This was an act of direct disobedience against the word of the Lord, and this is also where we stumble upon something that is seemingly contradictory. God reveals to Samuel,
“I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.” 1 Samuel 15:11a
God regrets. He regrets setting up Saul as king over Israel. The Hebrew word used in the original text is nāham, which literally means to sigh or to be sorry.[1] When we think of regretting or being sorry about something, we most likely imagine someone realizing that they’ve made a mistake or a poor decision. So, is this verse venturing to say that God somehow made a mistake in making Saul king, that anointing Saul as king was a poor decision on His part?
When studying and interpreting the Bible, we ought not only look at the immediate context, but also the context of all of Scripture. We ought to let Scripture interpret Scripture rather than just allow our finite minds to decipher it. So, what does the Bible have to say about God’s ability to regret, to make mistakes or poor decisions?
Scripture makes it clear that God is always right. After all, He’s the One who brings all things into being (John 1:3), He’s the One who declares the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10), He’s the One who determines what right and wrong even is (Psalm 119:137). His work is just and perfect (Deuteronomy 32:4), and He is righteous in all His ways (Psalm 145:17, Revelation 15:3). Because God is always right, He is incapable of sin—incapable of doing the wrong thing, whether by accident or on purpose. And because He is always right, there is no reason for Him to ever change (Malachi 3:6). He is always the same—yesterday, today, and forever—and He never changes His mind (Numbers 23:19, Hebrews 13:8). All of this means that God is unable to regret. In fact, Scripture states this clearly just a little later in 1 Samuel 15—
“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
So, why does 1 Samuel 15 say that God regretted making Saul king when the chapter later says that God does not have regret? Looking at the context of both the passage and all of Scripture, we can be assured that God does not ever regret, make mistakes, or do the wrong thing. Rather, the use of the word “regret” in 1 Samuel 15:11 is God’s way of helping us understand Him. Pastor and theologian Steven Lawson once wrote,
“From man’s perspective, God changed his mind. But from the divine perspective, God did what He had always eternally purposed to do. There was no alteration to the immutable will of God…This self-revelation by God is to accommodate man’s weakness in understanding Him, not indicating any true change in His character or purpose.”[2]
Even before he called Saul to be king of Israel, God knew what would happen. He knew Saul would fail, would be disobedient to His direct commands. When the Bible tells us that God regretted what He did, it’s not like he was caught unawares. He is perfectly omniscient and knew every single thing Saul would say and do during his reign. Instead, this use of “regret” is highlighting God’s holiness and communicating to us how much our sin grieves His heart.
God knows every single sin we ever have committed in the past or ever will commit in the future, and those sins truly grieve His heart. Thankfully, due to His great grace and mercy, He has not abandoned us, destroyed us, or given up on us. Because He was so grieved by our sin yet still loved us so much, He came down to earth in human flesh to take our sin upon Himself and pardon us for all our crimes against Him. And when we put out faith in Him, He will freely forgive us forever.
“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ” Ephesians 1:7-9
[1] “H5162 – nāḥam – Strong’s Hebrew Lexicon (KJV),” Blue Letter Bible, accessed October 25, 2023, https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h5162/kjv/wlc/0-1/.
[2] Steven J. Lawson, Show Me Your Glory: Understanding the Majestic Splendor of God (Sanford: Reformation Trust Publishing, 2020), 105.
