I Samuel 15

I Samuel 15: 3:
"Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey."

The fact that God's judgment extends to children and infants must indicate that they are sinners. These passages should alert us to the fact that we have a very low, weak view of sin. We tend to think of sin as not being that big of a deal. But God considers sin to be so serious that even infants are deserving of judgment for their sinful natures.

I Samuel 15:10-11:
Now the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying,
11 “I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments.” And it grieved Samuel, and he cried out to the Lord all night.

We must wonder if the Lord could truly experience regret for making Saul king if he was absolutely certain that Saul would act the way he did. Could God genuinely confess, “I regret …” if he could in the same breath also proclaim, “I was certain of what Saul would do when I made him king”? I do not see how. Could I genuinely regret, say, purchasing a car because it turned out to run poorly if in fact the car was running exactly as I knew it would when I purchased it? Common sense tells us that we can only regret a decision we made if the decision resulted in an outcome other than what we expected or hoped for when the decision was made.

Some may object that if God regretted a decision he made, he must not be perfectly wise. Wouldn’t God be admitting to making a mistake? Two considerations lead me to answer this question in the negative.

First, it is better to allow Scripture to inform us regarding the nature of divine wisdom than to reinterpret an entire motif in order to square it with our preconceptions of divine wisdom. If God says he regretted a decision, and if Scripture elsewhere tells us that God is perfectly wise, then we should simply conclude that one can be perfectly wise and still regret a decision. Even if this is a mystery to us, it is better to allow the mystery to stand than to assume that we know what God’s wisdom is like and conclude on this basis that God can’t mean what he clearly says.

My second point, however is that in the open view there is little mystery involved in accepting that God can regret his own previous decisions. Once we understand that the future is partly open and that humans are genuinely free, the paradox of how God could experience genuine regret over a decision he made disappears. God made a wise decision because it had the greatest possibility of yielding the best results. God’s decision wasn’t the only variable in this matter, however, there was also the variable of Saul’s will. Saul freely strayed from God’s plan, but that is not God’s fault, nor does it make God’s decision unwise.
-- --ReKnew

I Samuel 15:35:
And Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death, but Samuel grieved over Saul. And the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.

The author of 1 Samuel–not to the mention the Author behind 1 Samuel–is trying to teach us something about God. On the one hand, our God is not static, monotonous, and lifeless. As a personal, relational Being, God’s activity in the world is subject to change and allows for all the dynamism we have in our personal relationships. There was always bound to be conflict in covenantal history between God and human beings, but this does not mean there is conflict within God’s inner being. As God’s ways appear to us, there will be change and variation, but as God is in his character and essence there can be no variation of shadow due to change (James 1:17; cf. Mal.3:6; Heb. 13:8; 2 Tim. 2:13).

When God reflects on the disobedience of Saul, he uses a word that makes sense to us: the word “regret.” But this doesn’t mean God was ignorant about Saul’s sin or caught off guard by his rebellion. As John Piper points out, God is quite capable of lamenting a state of affairs he himself foreknew and brought about. In other words, God’s regret is not analogous in every way to our regret. This seems to be the point verse 29 is explicitly making. God can look back at Saul and say “I’m grieved that he sinned; it’s time to find another king” while still maintaining, “I never change my mind.”
It is the nature of our covenantal relationship with God to know God as one who responds and reacts, which ought to appear to us all the more amazing because it is the nature of our covenant keeping God never to lie, repent, or change his mind (Num. 23:19).
-- --Kevin DeYoung