The Burning Bush - Far Eastern Bible College

The Burning Bush 16/1 (January 2010)Apostles concerning the relation of repentance to the gospel andsalvation.Biblical Definition of RepentanceIn order to better understand repentance, it must first be necessary todefine what repentance is in light of the Holy Scriptures.Old TestamentIn the Old Testament, there are two main Hebrew words that aretranslated as “repent” in the English Bible. The first word is nachamwhich is often used to convey the idea of simply regretting or changingone’s mind. Of the close to 40 times when it is translated as “repent”,“repented”, “repenteth” etc., it is often applied to God, who “repents” ofthe judgement which He threatened to bring upon wicked men. Examplesof such would be verses like Genesis 6:6 “And it repented the LORD thathe had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart”, and Jonah3:10 “And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; andGod repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them;and he did it not”. In the context of such verses, it is clear that God wasnot repenting from sin or from any evil that He had done, but was simplyusing anthropomorphism to express His grief and sorrow over the eviland wickedness of men, and His withholding of judgement on conditionof man’s repentance. 8 It ought to be noted that “God is not a man, that heshould lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent (nacham)” (Num23:19). Thus, depending on the context, this Hebrew word has a range ofmeanings, even in the various instances in which it is translated as“repent”, what is repented of is also different, and whenever used of Godit is anthropomorphic.There are instances in which the word nacham is applied to man tomean a regretting of a decision made or a changing of mind about acertain thing, for example Exodus 13:17, “And it came to pass, whenPharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way ofthe land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, Lestperadventure the people repent when they see war, and they return toEgypt”. Here, God was explaining His reason for not leading theIsraelites through the way of the Philistines lest they should change theirminds, or regret leaving Egypt and desire to return.8