Nacham (נָחַם) is often translated as “comfort”, “sorry”, “relent”, “repent”, “moved with pity”, or “grieved”, making it difficult to understand its true meaning. The basic meaning of נָחַם is “to relent”; however, in context it can also express “to console,” since by the nature of relenting one concedes from his distress.
The first occurrence of נָחַם (nacham) in Scripture is when Lamech named his son Noah, which is a form of נָחַם (nacham), meaning, “one who brings comfort,” Genesis 5:29. The birth of a son brought comfort to his parents because they would be able to relent from their work, having an additional hand to assist.
In Genesis 6:6, after seeing that mankind had rejected good and only goes after wrong all day long, for even every formation of the intent of his heart only sought after evil, God determines to destroy these wicked humans. Although many of our translations use the word “sorry” or “regret”, neither of these actually expresses the meaning of נָחַם (nacham), and both imply something about God that is not true. God did not change His mind, or feel regret, concerning creating humans; instead, He relented from striving with humans because of their wickedness. God did not forget His word to Adam, Eve, and the serpent. Due to the wickedness of these humans, God chose to destroy them to stop their evil ways. However, He saved eight souls, allowing humanity to continue and His word to be fulfilled. Genesis 6:6-7 show us that wickedness is very repulsive to God and that He will only permit it to go so far before bringing judgment. To ensure the wickedness of humans would not again get to the point that it was at before the flood, when the offspring of Noah’s sons attempted to bring back these malignantly evil ways, God introduced different languages to the human race, which caused great confusion and scattered humans across the earth.
When Rebekah became Isaac’s wife, she was a comfort to him after his mother’s death, because he relented from mourning her death, Genesis 24:67. After Jacob stole his father’s blessing from Esau, his mother became aware of a plot that Esau was working on to console himself by killing his brother, Genesis 27:42. Although Esau cared little for his birthright, which he sold to Jacob for a bowl of lentil soup, the blessing was a whole other matter, for it involved Esau’s financial wellbeing. To relent from his grief and anger, Esau determined to kill his brother, claiming all of the possessions of his father for himself and thereby forcibly taking the blessing from Jacob.
After bringing Israel out of Egypt, due to their stiff-neck behavior, God became angry with them and told Moses that He would destroy them all and raise up a nation from his seed. Moses pleaded with God for Israel and God relented and withheld His anger, Exodus 32:14. This encounter is why Moses is referred to as meek, which actually means having an objectivity of mind. God gave him a task to do in leading the Israelites, and Moses was not going to change his focus, even when given the opportunity to destroy these obstinate people who continually complained and were difficult to manage.
The concept of “repent” in Hebrew comes from the word שׁוּב (shuv), which fundamentally means “to return” or “to turn back”. This correlates with the Greek concept of “repent” found in the New Testament, meaning, “to change the mind.” However, due to theology, the concept of remorse for sins has crept into the definition of “repent,” even though it has nothing to do with the original meaning. Therefore, in Numbers 23:19, we see that God is not a man, nor the son of man that He should relent, not repent or regret as though He has done something wrong. He is not going to be persuaded to relent from His word.
The Hebrew word נָחַם (nacham) carries the meaning of relent, never the concept of repentance or remorse. The wickedness of humans was so bad before the flood that God relented on striving with them, not emotionally, but logically, by determining to destroy them and raise up a new generation from the eight souls that He saved, for God does not lie, nor change His mind concerning what He has said He will do. He promised Satan that the seed of the woman would crush his head, and even though humans and angels sought to corrupt all flesh, God destroyed them and preserved the human race so that Christ would be born of a virgin and bring about the destruction of Satan through His death concerning sins and resurrection three days later.
