This coming Lord’s Day we are returning to the amazing, if not bewildering, passage we began considering last week. As you remember, it concerns Saul, the first king of Israel, the king that the elders of Israel had demanded, and the one whom the Lord had specifically commanded Samuel to anoint.

And as we discovered, Saul very quickly proved to be a disobedient king, failing to carry out the command of the Lord regarding the total destruction of the Amalekites—the fierce enemy of Israel, and the very nation who was to become the object of God’s wrath as executed by the covenant people. As 1 Samuel 15:9 makes clear, king Saul led the Israelites to disobey the Lord. The material wealth of the Amalekites and their abundant flocks and herds were too much of a temptation for the people of Israel. So they did not “utterly destroy them” as the Lord God had ordered (v. 9).

Well, in the light of Saul’s tragic failure to listen to and obey the voice of the Lord, we are confronted with the mystifying words of verses 10 and 11:

The word of the Lord came to Samuel: “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.” And Samuel was angry, and he cried to the Lord all night.

Of course, the obvious difficulty we have with this verse—that asserts the Lord’s “regret” that He had made Saul the king in the first place—is that it seems to suggest that God has, as we say, second-guessed His previous decision. And this would appear to contradict something that we affirm to be true about Him; namely, that our God is unchanging and unchangeable. Theologians speak of this quality, or attribute, as His immutability. And Divine immutability is a fundamental belief about God that all orthodox believers share, as we find it explicitly declared in the Bible.

So what are we to do with this perplexing statement about the Lord’s regret? And are there some essential lessons here about our Heavenly Father that will move us to love and serve Him with greater faithfulness?

Let’s unite our hearts in prayer that the Spirit of the Living God will open the Word to us, revealing our Savior, and blessing us with sanctifying power as we come under its gracious influences.