Texts in Conversation
Genesis, 1 Samuel, and Isaiah use the same word for regret to show moments where God changes his mind. In Genesis, it leads to the flood, in 1 Samuel it leads to Saul’s rejection, and in Isaiah it leads to a move from destruction to renewal.
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Genesis 6:6
Hebrew Bible
5 But the Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind had become great on the earth. Every inclination of the thoughts of their minds was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord regretted that he had made humankind on the earth, and he was highly offended. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out* humankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—everything from humankind to animals, including creatures that move on the ground and birds of the air, for I regret that I have made them.”
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
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1 Samuel 15:11
Hebrew Bible
10 Then the Lord’s message came to Samuel: 11 “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned away from me and has not done what I told him to do.” Samuel became angry and he cried out to the Lord all that night. 12 Then Samuel got up early to meet Saul the next morning. But Samuel was informed, “Saul has gone to Carmel where he is setting up a monument for himself.” Then Samuel left and went down to Gilgal.
Date: 6th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
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Isaiah 54:9
Hebrew Bible
8 In a burst of anger I rejected you momentarily, but with lasting devotion I will have compassion on you,”says your Protector, the Lord. 9 “As far as I am concerned, this is like in Noah’s time, when I vowed that the waters of Noah’s flood would never again cover the earth. In the same way I have vowed that I will not be angry at you or shout at you. 10 Even if the mountains are removed and the hills displaced, my devotion will not be removed from you, nor will my covenant of friendship be displaced,”says the Lord, the one who has compassion on you.
Date: 7th-5th Centuries B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... “comfort” is ambiguous, in that it refers to a change of mind or mood. To comfort is to induce a change, to leave behind the past, to forget. But God is precisely the one who cannot forget, as Deutero-Isaiah insistently reminds us (Isaiah 40:27; 49:15). It is because God cannot forget that we can forget, traverse the catastrophe, step beyond the abyss. God, however, is notoriously characterized by his changes of mind, denoted by the same verb Mxn.?6 God regrets his creation of humanity in the Flood Story (Genesis 6:6-7 ... another instance is God's retraction of sovereignty from Saul in 1 Samuel 15:11, 35), with which the catastrophe in Deutero-Isaiah is compared (Isaiah 54:9). Here the verb signals a transformation in God, from judgment to compassion. But as such it is unstable, since it can always be reversed ..."
Landy, Francis
"Spectrality in the Prologue to Deutero-Isaiah" in Everson, A. Joseph, and Hyun Chul Paul Kim (eds.) The Desert will Bloom: Poetic Visions in Isaiah
(pp. 131-158) Society of Biblical Literature, 2009
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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