In 1 Samuel, the great prophet Samuel comes to announce to King Saul that the Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from him and given it to David. Saul begs him to reconsider and to pardon him, to which Samuel thunders: “the Glory of Israel does not recant or change his mind! He is not a mortal, that he should change his mind!” (1 Sam 15:29).
This is a satisfying and important-sounding thing to say. If there were red-letter Hebrew Bibles, it would probably be printed in red. If it were posted on an internet chat board, it would likely appear as ALL CAPS.
It’s also a lie. How do we know? Because God said so, earlier in the same chapter: “I regret that I made Saul king” (1 Sam 15:11). And if that weren’t clear enough, the omniscient narrator summarizes at the end of the chapter, “And the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel” (15:35).
English translations obscure the connection, but the Hebrew verb translated “change his mind” twice in 15:29 (nacham) is the same one translated “regret” in the surrounding verses. It’s a challenging term to translate consistently, but it’s also possible that English translators aren’t much more comfortable with the contradiction than Samuel was.
For Samuel and many readers of the Bible today, it is a comfort and a bedrock idea that God “is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13:8), and that, as Isaiah put it, “The grass withers, the flower fades; / but the word of our God will stand forever” (Isa 40:8). We suggest that for those who would like to make sense of the Bible, these statements about God’s unchanging word must somehow be held together with a long tradition of examples where God does in fact change his mind—and so do faithful people. In particular, God repeatedly changes his mind in ways that expand the sphere of his love, preserve his relationship with humankind, and protect and show mercy toward them.
Christopher B. Hays and Richard B. Hays - The Widening of God’s Mercy - Sexuality Within the Biblical Story
New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2024. – 285 p.
ISBN 978-0-300-27342-7
Christopher B. Hays and Richard B. Hays - The Widening of God’s Mercy – Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I: The Widening of God’s Mercy in the Old Testament
- ONE. Widening Through Creation
- TWO. Mercy for God’s People
- THREE. Widening Justice
- FOUR. “I Gave Them Statutes That Were Not Good”
- FIVE. Widening the Borders
- SIX. “I Knew That You Are a Gracious God, and Merciful”
- SEVEN. “Besides Those Already Gathered”
Part II: The Widening of God’s Mercy in the New Testament
- EIGHT. Jesus Upsets People
- NINE. Sabbath as a Time for Healing
- TEN. Mercy, Not Sacrifice
- ELEVEN. Mercy to Foreigners and Outsiders
- TWELVE. The Holy Spirit Begins to Change the Church’s Mind
- THIRTEEN. The Conscripted Apostle
- FOURTEEN. “Who Was I That I Could Block God?”
- FIFTEEN. The Jerusalem Council: Community Discernment
- SIXTEEN. Mercy All the Way Down
Part III: The Widening of God’s Mercy in the Present Day
- SEVENTEEN. Moral Re-Vision: What We Must Say About Human Sexuality
Epilogue
Notes
General Index
Index of Biblical References and Other Ancient Sources
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