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NASB | Genesis 6:6 The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Genesis 6:6 The LORD regretted that He had made mankind on the earth, and He was [deeply] grieved in His heart. |
Subject: How does foreknowledge preclude free? |
Bible Note: Steve, I would interpret Jesus statement at Luke 10:13 as hyperbole, in the sense of Luke 18:25. My reason for saying this relates to God's ability to read hearts and his justice. If God used his foreknowledge to determine that these people would have responded positively to the works Jesus did, he would not have grounds for executing them. Likewise, when armageddon comes, God will have to determine whether each of the relatively few that have not had the opportunity to respond to the good news, repenting and dedicating their life to God on the basis of the ransom, will be destroyed or not. The following supports God's selective use of his ability to foresee the future: The Scriptures say that “God put Abraham to the test” by commanding him to sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering. When Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac, God stopped him and said: “Now I do know that you are God-fearing in that you have not withheld your son, your only one, from me.” (Genesis 22:1-12) Would God have made that statement if he knew in advance that Abraham would obey this command? Would it have been an honest test? Genesis 18:20,21 states: "Then the LORD said, "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know." Furthermore, the ancient prophets report that God repeatedly spoke of himself as ‘feeling regret’ over something he had done or was thinking of doing. For example, God said that he “regretted [from the Hebrew na·cham'] that he had made Saul king over Israel.” (1 Samuel 15:11, 35; compare Jeremiah 18:7-10; Jonah 3:10.) Because God is perfect, these verses cannot mean that God made a mistake in selecting Saul to be Israel’s first king. Rather, they must indicate that God felt sorry that Saul turned out to be faithless and disobedient. God’s using such an expression in referring to himself would be nonsensical if he had foreknown Saul’s actions. The same term appears in the most ancient of the Scriptures where, in referring to the days of Noah, it says: “The LORD felt regrets that he had made men in the earth, and he felt hurt at his heart. So Jehovah said: ‘I am going to wipe men whom I have created off the surface of the ground . . . because I do regret that I have made them.’” (Genesis 6:6, 7) Here again, this indicates that man’s actions are not predestined by God. God felt regret, grief, and even hurt, not because his own actions were mistaken, but because man’s wickedness became rife. The Creator regretted that it had become necessary to destroy all mankind except Noah and his family. God assures us: ‘I take no delight in the death of the wicked.’—Ezekiel 33:11; compare Deuteronomy 32:4, 5. Hope this proves helpful. Dan |