God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? (Numbers 23:19; see also 1 Samuel 15:29) If one chooses to say “God repents,” the phrase must be considered an anthropomorphism. This is a way of speaking of God’s actions in terms of man’s actions, for the purpose of trying to better understand God. But because the phrase “God repents” is subject to easy misunderstanding, it is perhaps best to use
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