Does God change His mind? (1 Sam 15:29)

In 1 Sam 15:29, Samuel insists that God does not lie or change His mind like human beings do. In context, God has resolved to take the kingdom from Saul and He is not going to go back on that decision. The Hebrew word used here is niḥam, which means ‘to be sorry/repent’, ‘to regret/relent’ or ‘change one’s mind’. What the translations tend to obscure, however, is that the same word is used earlier when God tells Samuel that He has regretted (niḥam) making Saul king and this is repeated at the end of the chapter (1 Sam 15:11, 39). In other words, God has changed His mind about His choice of Saul as king. What are we to make of this? What does Scripture mean when it says that God does not change His mind and under what circumstances does He change it, nevertheless?

First, it is worth noting that when God changes His mind about Saul (v.11), it is because of the king’s disobedience and my series on Saul’s life has shown that this is not a one-off blip but a repeated pattern. In a similar way, God is sorry (niḥam again) that He has made human beings, when He sees their overwhelming evil and decides to destroy them in the flood (Gen 6:6-7). Once again, God’s decision rests on sustained wickedness that permeates everything rather than on the odd instance of deviation. He does not arrive at such a devastating conclusion lightly. The above examples, where God reverses a favourable attitude towards people, however, is rarer. More commonly, niḥam is used in the context of God intending judgment, where human repentance or intercession leads Him to relent. Thus, the Ninevites repent, and God relents from bringing destruction on them (Jonah 3:10), while Amos intercedes for Israel and God changes His mind about the planned disaster (Amos 7:1-6).

God’s will, then, is not set in stone in a deterministic sort of way but can change. Does this mean that God is dependent on human actions for His plans? No, He is not compelled to change course because of intercession or repentance so that people cannot presume on His grace (notice the Ninevites repent but only hope for, not expect, mercy – Jonah 3:9, ‘who knows, God may turn’). Conversely, neither can human sin force God’s hand to abandon His plans and He can and does persevere with unfaithful people giving them extra time to repent and turn to Him (Israel’s story is a case in point). Likewise, He is not bound absolutely by the decisions He makes whether for judgment or for blessing. He can choose to remove judgement when people repent or choose to withdraw the blessing when they are complacent (Jer 18:7-10). In every case, He acts in His sovereign will and in accordance with His wisdom. 

At the same time, the testimony of Scripture is that God responds to human behaviour. On the one hand, this warns us against complacency. We cannot get smug thinking that God is duty-bound to bless us because we are His people (this became Israel’s problem in the OT). On the other hand, the principle should also encourage us. If we have sinned but turned to God in repentance, we can have hope that God in His mercy may take pity and renew us. Likewise, our prayers can make a real difference and accomplish much (James 5:16) because we have a God who hears and has compassion.

To return to the example of Saul in 1 Samuel 15 and the initial question, God has changed His mind about Saul’s kingship in response to the latter’s ongoing disobedience and lack of genuine trust in the Lord. When Saul finally admits his guilt, he still finds excuses and presumes on God’s grace that his confession of sin will automatically lead to his restoration (1 Sam 15:24-25; for a detailed analysis see my post here). He simply does not understand the gravity of his sin and does not submit humbly to God’s verdict. His grasping for power, expressed visibly in the way he seizes Samuel’s robe to detain him (1 Sam 15:26-27) and have him authenticate Saul’s reign, suggests that his concern is more about retaining his kingdom than truly acknowledging his sin. Thus, Samuel’s outburst that God will not change His mind (1 Sam 15:29) means, in context, that God will not change His mind willy-nilly, just because Saul insists and tries to force His hand. Saul’s attitude has not given God any reason to assume that his heart is open for transformation, so that all the reasons why he is unfit to be king still stand.

To sum up, God is not unstable or inconsistent changing His mind at a whim. This is highly significant because gods in the ancient world were thought neither all-powerful, nor all-wise or good, but often unpredictable and capricious. Scripture affirms that our God is sovereign, wise and good, not volatile or fickle. He does, however, respond to His creatures and the examples discussed show a clear and coherent pattern.

The question that may still linger in our minds, though, is why God has chosen Saul in the first place? Did He not know how unfit he would turn out to be? The same question might be asked of God’s plans for humanity in Eden. Did God not foresee how Adam and Eve would fall into sin? Here, we are grasping at the edges of a mystery between human free will and God’s sovereignty. It is a mystery not in the sense of a puzzle that can be solved, but in the sense of being beyond our full comprehension. The difficulty is that this is a zero-sum game, so that the more we emphasise human free will, the more we diminish God’s sovereignty and vice versa. Perhaps, the best way to approach this is to take our cue from Scripture, which does not try to resolve the issue in a logical way by finding a middle ground (a bit of free will and a bit of God’s sovereignty). Rather, it is like the pendulum of an old grandfather clock that constantly moves from one extreme position to the other, sometimes affirming God’s sovereignty absolutely (e.g. Isa 45:9-10; Job 40:6-9; Rom 9:14-21), sometimes focussing on human action to which God responds with judgment or mercy (e.g. Ezek 18:21-24; Rom 11:17-24). Though we cannot fully understand, we can trust the wisdom and love of our God.

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