Numbers 23:19 is set within a poetic oracle
and contrasts the trustworthiness of God against the fickleness of humankind.
Balak, the king of Moab, hires a prophet named Balaam to curse the people of
Israel. Balaam builds an altar and offers sacrifices to Yahweh. In return, God
gives Balaam an oracle that blesses Israel. Balak becomes angry at Balaam and sends
him to a different place to offer sacrifices, hoping that this will cause
Balaam to curse instead of bless Israel. Once again, Balaam receives an oracle
of blessing. Within this second oracle are a couple of statements regarding God’s
trustworthiness:
God is not a human being, that he should
like,
or a mortal, that he should change his mind.
He has promised, and will he not do it?
Has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
In the other verse, 1 Samuel 15:29, the prophet
Samuel tells King Saul that God has decided to take the kingdom away from Saul
because Saul did not fully obey God. Saul pleads with Samuel and tries to persuade
him to petition God to relent and let him remain king. Samuel responds that God’s
mind is made up:
Moreover the Glory of Israel will not recant
or change his mind; for he is not a mortal, that he should change his mind [nḥm].
Both of these passages compare the divine
mind to a human one. Both passages say that God’s mind will not change as a
human mind might. However, neither verse accomplishes what traditional commentators
want them to. Neither statement makes a categorical judgment against the divine
mind ever changing. Rather, they present two qualifications as to what kind of
change takes place within the divine mind.
The first phrase in Numbers indicates that God
does not lie. This assertion is set within a poetic structure that is
synonymously parallel:
A (God is not a human being)
B (that he should lie)
A’ (or a mortal)
B’ (that he should change is mind)
Some interpreters assume that it is out of
the question for God to lie (however, God does cause lying in the Hebrew Bible
[The prophet Micaiah tells the kings of Israel and Judah, “So you see, the LORD
has put a lying spirit [šeqer] in the mouth of all these your prophets,
the LORD has decreed disaster for you” [1 Kings 22:23]]) and so the phrase
about God not lying is used to strengthen the assertion that God will not
change God’s mind. This is a somewhat convoluted way of thinking, and if the
assumption about God not lying is set aside, it is clear that both phrases, B and
B’, refer to the same essential thing. Balaam’s use of this statement is to
underscore the point that God has determined how God will react to this
situation and there is no use in trying to persuade God otherwise. In a sense,
this is saying that God is still stubborn and intractable in this particular
situation. Samuel has this same rhetorical goal in 1 Samuel 15:29. In both
cases, a prophet responds to a particular circumstance and presents God’s
response to a particular individual’s objection to God’s decision. The prophets
are saying, In this decision, God’s mind is firmly made up.
The second qualification these verses offer
is when God changes God’s mind, God does so in a way that is somehow different
from how humans go about it. These passages do not explain this explicitly, but
they may imply that humans are fickle and they lie for selfish reasons. The
prophets say that in these situations, God will not act like that. The
divine mind is set.
We should note one other feature of the 1
Samuel account. The statement in 1 Samuel 15:29 that God will not change God’s
mind about taking the kingdom away from Samuel is set within two other
statements which assert that God changed God’s mind about wanting Saul to be
King. In 1 Samuel 15:11 God tells Samuel, “I regret [niḥamtî] that I
made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me, and has not carried
out my commands.” Apparently, God thought there was a good chance that Saul
would obey God’s commands, but he did not. Because of this, God has a change of
mind about entrusting Saul with the responsibility of leading Israel. In other
words, God appointed Saul as king but Saul made decisions that caused God to
remove Saul from the throne and put someone else in his place. God’s mind changed.
The account of Samuel and Saul’s encounter ends with another statement that God
regretted ever making Saul king: “And the LORD was very sorry [niḥām]
that he had made Saul king over Israel” (1 Sam. 15:35).
Even though the NRSV translates the word that
describes God’s change of mind differently in these passages—“regret,” “change his mind,” “and “sorry,” respectively—each passage uses the same Hebrew word nḥm.
Therefore, one thing 1 Samuel 15:29 cannot mean is that God’s mind never
changes. This is because on either side of this statement are two other verses
(15:11, 35) that say that God changed God’s mind about Saul being king! First
Samuel 15 must, then, mean that God regretted choosing Saul to lead Israel, so
God decided to change course. God would take the kingdom away from Saul and
give it to someone else. In this decision to remove Saul to lead Israel, so God
decided to change course. God would take the kingdom away from Saul and would
not be dissuaded. God had firmly decided, and Saul would not be able to persuade
God not to do this even though a human might be persuaded (or bribed) to back
down.
First Samuel 15 reveals another thing about God’s
mind. In this case, God changed God’s mind because of new information. Presumably,
when God first chose Saul to be king, God had high hopes that Saul would be
obedient. When it turns out that Saul was not, God shifted course. God learned something
new about the interior condition of Saul’s nature. God had no way of knowing
for certain if Saul would be a good king when God selected him. As with Abraham
and the Hebrews who wandered the wilderness, God had an idea of what their
future behavior might be, but until Saul revealed his character through tests,
questions, or a combination of circumstance and time, God did not know what his
future decisions would be. Saul did not turn out as God hoped or expected. So
God changed course and removed Saul from the throne. (Charles Halton, A
Human-Shaped God: Theology of an Embodied God [Louisville, Ky.: Westminster
John Knox Press, 2021], 118-20)
