Why did God repent?

It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments

God repented because He was sorry He had set Saul as king. He was sorry because Saul turned his back on Him.
Now ask yourself: if God knew He would be sorry, why did He set us Saul as king to begin with?

God repented because He was sorry He had set Saul as king. He was sorry because Saul turned his back on Him.
Now ask yourself: if God knew He would be sorry, why did He set us Saul as king to begin with?

Even on a very human level of foreknowledge this would still make sense. I may know, with a fairly high degree of certainty, that someone is going to make a decision which will bring sorrow, but that doesn't mean I foreordained it or that I didn't know about it.

The grace of God is such that he is prodigal and pours his love into many a situation that he knows will not profit by it. Judas had his feet washed and was given the choicest morsel from the table. In human terms this was a complete waste of effort. God's grace is such that even empowers a younger son to rebel and bring about an inevitable series of events... but he still gave the younger son his inheritance.

He knew of the fall before creation but that didn't stop him pouring his creative love into a world that would ultimately reject him... and it didn't surprise him either.

If you really want to pursue the theme of Open Theism you ought to answer some of the points in my posts on the matter [url=https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=19409&forum=36&52]here.[/url]

So did not God know in advance what Saul was going to do?

I prefer the word "regret" which is used in the NASB and other translations - even "grief". Cannot our almighty sovereign God himself feel grief over his own choices - because of man's chronic bent to sin, not because he "goofed". (Which I cannot accept).

Diane

We cannot deny that Israel deeply wanted a king, like the other nations, but they just refused to "get it"

True, and God even addressed this as far back as Deuteronomy, some 400 years before Samuel:

"When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, 'I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are about me...'" (Deuteronomy 17:14)

We know already there's going to be trouble -- [i]"like all the nations around us[/i]." It was God's design for Israel to be holy, and not to be as the other nations around them, yet God also knew the inclination of man's wicked heart.

Cannot our almighty God himself feel grief over his own choices - because of man's chronic bent to sin

I agree with Diane. The 'repenting' of God over the demise of Saul is the same 'repenting' He expressed before He brought the great flood in Genesis. Some theologicans have described this as a deep grieving, like a mother weeping over her dear child who committed suicide. God's grief is not because of any mistake on God's part, but because of the mistakes of the children he so loves.

I remember once watching a video of Jeffrey Dahmer (a canabalistic serial killer); and he was being interviewed in prison with his father at his side. On the father's face you could see the intense grief, the mental torture, the agony of perhaps trying to figue out [i]how[/i] his son could do what he did. But in the midst of it all, you still saw love. I began to see something of God in all that. Here we have a pained father, who acknowledges the guilt of his own son and accepts that life in prison or death is just treatment for his crimes, and his grief is twofold:

1. For the fact that he gave life to such a person that has caused such incalculable damage and loss to others, and;

2. That it was done by his son [i]whom he still loves[/i].

Are these two reconcilable? Anyone in these forums who has ever touched the heart of God knows what grief is. God is a grieving Father, even right now. I don't think we have the full capabilities to understand this magnitude of grief, this abysmal regret as over 100,000 souls fall daily to hell. About four years ago, I was able to experience a fraction of this hurt and I'll never, ever forget it. The insufferable sense of the loss alone is enough to wreck your felicity on earth forever. But the most staggering thing is that the greatest sense of loss is felt by God Himself, and not by the chained souls who have refused Christ or shunned His precepts and mocked His judgments.

I prefer the word "regret" which is used in the NASB and other translations - even "grief". Cannot our almighty sovereign God himself feel grief over his own choices - because of man's chronic bent to sin, not because he "goofed". (Which I cannot accept).

The Hebrew word [url=http://cf.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H05162&Version=KJV]nacham[/url] which is translated as repent is onomatopoeic and has the sound of a groan in it.

This is the predominant sense of the OT word 'repent'.

Are you suggesting that God was 'wrong' and having 'made a mistake' had to correct it? What kind of a god is this?

philologos wrote:
Are you suggesting that God was 'wrong' and having 'made a mistake' had to correct it? What kind of a god is this?