I reread my comment from years past, in 2010. The phrase "not a man" could be better expressed as "not of mankind," or perhaps "not of Adam." In a literary way we might say that He is not a man, and so He would not lie. Jesus, as Yujin points out, was a man — but a unique kind of man, a new kind of man. Not of Adam, the first kind of man, but a new first kind of man: a sinless one.

Glory!

AI-Expanded Reflection

The commenter's instinct is well grounded in Paul's theology. Paul calls Christ "the last Adam" and "the second man" (1 Corinthians 15:45, 47), contrasting the first Adam, who was "from the earth, a man of dust," with the second, who is "from heaven." Romans 5:12–21 develops the same comparison: through one man's trespass came condemnation, and through one man's obedience came justification and life. Jesus is fully human — "in every respect... tempted as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15) — yet He begins a new humanity rather than merely continuing the old one.

This also helps with the very phrase under discussion. When Numbers 23:19 and 1 Samuel 15:29 say God is "not a man," the point is not that humanity as such is incompatible with God, but that God does not share the frailties of fallen human beings — deception, ignorance of the future, and changeability. In the incarnation, God took human nature without taking those failings. So the two truths the commenter joins hold together: God is not a man that He should lie, and God became man in Christ that He might save us.

"I regret that I have made Saul king" (1 Samuel 15:11), and "the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel" (15:35). The Hebrew word is sometimes rendered "repented."

Does God then repent — that is, change His mind — as people do? No. Within this same chapter we also read that the Glory of Israel "will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man" (a paraphrase of 1 Samuel 15:29).

What, then, does it mean that God "repented" of making Saul king? Does it not simply mean that God was grieved over Saul, in spite of His choice of him and in spite of knowing his future disobedience? The word sometimes translated "repent" can also be understood as "grieved." It is as if Samuel deliberately gives us verse 29 so that there would be no confusion between God's "repenting" and ours. God does not change His mind. The removal of the kingdom from Saul was part of His plan all along. Yet He can still express grief when it happens. Was God not grieved over His Son's crucifixion, though He knew it would take place from the foundation of the world? In the same way, He can grieve over making Saul king even though He knew from the beginning what Saul would do.

John Piper offers a helpful explanation of this in an article titled "God Does Not Repent Like a Man." In summary, he argues that the fact that God regrets some things He has done is not evidence that He failed to foresee the consequences. First, we ourselves can lament an outcome we chose to bring about, and God's heart is capable of far more complex combinations of emotion than ours. He gives an illustration: a father who disciplines a son for blatant disobedience may feel real sorrow when the discipline leads to estrangement, while still approving the decision as right — regretting the situation while affirming the act.

Piper then asks which kind of regret the Bible attributes to God, and answers from the chapter itself. After God says in verse 11, "I regret that I have made Saul king," Samuel says in verse 29, as if to clarify, that the Glory of Israel does not lie or have regret, "for he is not a man, that he should have regret." The point seems to be that although there is a sense in which God does repent (verse 11), there is another sense in which He does not (verse 29). The difference is that God's regret occurs alongside perfect foreknowledge, while human regret usually arises from ignorance of the future. So for God to say, "I feel sorrow that I made Saul king," is not to say, "I would not do it again if I had the choice." God can feel sorrow over an act in view of the evil and pain He foreknows, and still will to do it for wise reasons.

Piper concludes by pointing to Numbers 23:19 — God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should change His mind — and notes why this is precious: God's commitment to His promises depends on His not repenting as people do. Because He foresees all circumstances, He knows that nothing will arise that would cause Him to take His promises back.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The tension the comment addresses has occupied theologians for centuries, and the juxtaposition within a single chapter (15:11, 29, 35) is deliberate. The Hebrew verb (nacham) covers a wide range — to be sorry, to grieve, to relent, to comfort oneself. When used of God, it most often describes His turning from a threatened judgment when people repent, as with Nineveh (Jonah 3:10), or His grief over sin, as in Genesis 6:6.

Classical Christian theology has explained such language as anthropopathism — God describing His own responses in terms drawn from human experience, as when Scripture speaks of His arm, His eyes, or His nostrils. The alternative view associated with "open theism" holds that God genuinely does not know some future free choices; that view has been rejected by the great majority of Christian traditions, both Reformed and Arminian, as inconsistent with texts like Isaiah 46:10 ("declaring the end from the beginning") and Psalm 139:4. What all sides agree on is the comment's pastoral point: God is not fickle, His promises are secure, and His grief over sin is real. As Samuel's own grief over Saul shows (15:35; 16:1), sorrow and sovereignty are not opposites.

Saul told Samuel that he had obeyed the voice of the Lord and gone on the mission the Lord gave him; he had brought back Agag the king of Amalek and devoted the Amalekites to destruction, but the people had taken sheep and oxen from the spoil, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord at Gilgal (a paraphrase of 1 Samuel 15:20–21).

Saul tried to defend his disobedience by appealing to his partial obedience and the people's good intentions. Although he did not kill the Amalekite king, he did destroy the others. Although the people took the choicest spoils, they planned to sacrifice some of them to the Lord.

Samuel replied that the Lord does not delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying His voice: "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams." Rebellion is like the sin of divination, and presumption like iniquity and idolatry; because Saul rejected the word of the Lord, the Lord rejected him from being king (a paraphrase of 1 Samuel 15:22–23).

Samuel makes clear that partial obedience is disobedience, and that good intentions cannot cover the sin of disobedience. God had commanded complete destruction and had even specified its extent, because of what Amalek did in opposing Israel on the way up from Egypt (cf. 1 Samuel 15:2–3).

In the New Testament, the religious leaders had built an extensive set of traditions around the Law of Moses, supposedly to help people obey it. In doing so, they not only gave themselves authority they did not have, but also led the people to neglect God's true Law in favor of human traditions. Seeing this, Jesus declared that they had left the commandment of God to hold to the tradition of men, "making void the word of God by your tradition" (a paraphrase of Mark 7:8, 13).

Friends, I believe this happens in our churches today. Some leaders press believers to "tithe" and "give sacrificially" to increase their churches' affluence, even when those believers are in debt or have families in need. And what is the reason given? The leaders say the money is for "God's work," and so God will multiply His blessings back to them. Listen to how closely this kind of pressure parallels the very tradition Jesus rebuked. Jesus said that they had a fine way of rejecting God's commandment to keep their tradition: Moses commanded, "Honor your father and your mother," but they taught that if someone declared what might have helped his parents to be "Corban" — given to God — he no longer needed to do anything for them, "thus making void the word of God by your tradition" (a paraphrase of Mark 7:9–13).

Friends, aside from the fact that I believe there is no command for believers after the cross to tithe, there is certainly no basis for elevating the tithe above the command to honor one's parents or to pay one's debts.

Consider also what I believe is poor handling of Scripture in some prophetic movements. They try to justify failed prophecies and extra-biblical practices by reading Scripture allegorically and symbolically, or "between the lines." In doing so, they lend credibility to the common but misguided saying, "The Bible is subject to everyone's interpretation." They ignore the fundamental rule for understanding the Bible: while there can be many applications of a given truth of Scripture, there is only one right interpretation. Rather than treating the Bible as the Word of God expressing His will, they treat it like modern art, where each person — especially the self-proclaimed "prophet" — decides what it means.

Friends, even when there are good intentions, good intentions cannot cover the sin of disobedience. Even if distortions of biblical truth are mixed with some orthodox Christian teaching, that does not justify the distortions. Every cult mixes truth with falsehood. Let us all be wise and discerning, holding fast to the inerrant and infallible Word of God over against the traditions and extra-biblical practices of men.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Samuel's words in 1 Samuel 15:22 became a touchstone for the prophets. Hosea wrote, "I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings" (Hosea 6:6), and Jesus quoted that line twice to religious leaders who valued ritual over mercy (Matthew 9:13; 12:7). Micah asked whether God would be pleased with "thousands of rams," and answered, what the Lord requires is "to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly" with God (Micah 6:7–8). The principle the comment draws — that religious activity cannot substitute for obedience — runs throughout Scripture.

The command concerning the Amalekites (15:2–3) is among the hardest passages in the Old Testament, and it deserves careful handling. Scripture presents it as a specific judgment on a people who had attacked Israel's weakest members from behind during the exodus (Deuteronomy 25:17–18) and who had continued in hostility for generations. Christians have understood such commands as unique to that moment in redemptive history, carried out under God's direct command through a prophet, and never as a pattern for God's people today. Jesus' teaching to love one's enemies (Matthew 5:44) and Paul's instruction never to avenge ourselves (Romans 12:19) make clear that the church's calling is entirely different. The passage's enduring lesson, as the comment rightly draws it, concerns the seriousness of obeying what God has actually said.

I am sure that I have read the account of David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17 over a dozen times, but it never fails to stir within me a deeper faith, a greater courage, and a readiness to do battle in the Name of the LORD. I love it!

But I thought I'd share about something else today. On the flip side of David's faith we see Saul's lack of faith. While his actions and excuses are enough to demonstrate his unfaith, I also noticed this in how he addressed the LORD to Samuel:

Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and oxen, to sacrifice to the Lord your God; but the rest we have utterly destroyed" (1 Samuel 15:15).

But the people took some of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the choicest of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God at Gilgal" (1 Samuel 15:21).

Then he said, “I have sinned; but please honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel, and go back with me, that I may worship the Lord your God" (1 Samuel 15:30).

Contrast this with the manner in which David frequently addressed the LORD in the Psalms. Here are just a few examples:

Arise, Lord! Deliver me, my God! (Psalm 3:7).

Answer me when I call to you, my righteous God (Psalm 4:1).

Hear my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray (Psalm 5:2).

Lord my God, I take refuge in you (Psalm 7:1).

The very pronouns used by Saul ("your God") and David ("my God") may suggest the nature of their relationship to the LORD. Saul consistently referred to the LORD as Samuel's God. It is possible that, apart from some ritual obligation, Saul really had no faith-based relationship with God. This surely explains the repeatedly Samuel declared Saul had rejected the word of the LORD (cf. 1 Samuel 15:23,26). In contrast, David, recognized as a man after God's own heart (Acts 13:22), did have a faith-based relationship with God.

As a further example of this, notice how Saul confessed his sin when confronted versus how David confessed his sin.

Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned; I have indeed transgressed the command of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and listened to their voice. Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me, that I may worship the Lord... Then he said, “I have sinned; but please honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel, and go back with me, that I may worship the Lord your God" (1 Samuel 15:24–25,30).

Saul asked Samuel to pardon his sin, as if the sin was against Samuel. He was more concerned with receiving Samuel's approval than he was with receiving the LORD's approval. Contrast this with how David responded when the prophet Nathan confronted him about his sin:

Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord" (2 Samuel 12:13).

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, you who are God my Savior, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.

You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise (Psalm 51:1–4, 7–14, 16–17).

Do you see the difference?!

Friends, are we concerned with the LORD's honor or our own? When we repent, are we recognizing our offense before God or simply sorry because we got caught? Do we scramble to make things better for ourselves so that we can get on with our lives, or do we stand completely disarmed before God, recognizing that we are justly deserving of God's full judgment, and simply humble ourselves with a confident yet trembling expectation of His grace and mercy on account of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?

Is the LORD your God, or is He simply the God that Christians worship and that you pray to as part of your religious observance? Does He mean everything to you? Jesus said,

Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me (Matthew 10:37–38).

God does not expect sinless perfection (cf. 1 John 1:8–10), but He demands undivided loyalty and total surrender to Him. What is your relationship to God?

AI-Expanded Reflection

Saul's repeated language about “the Lord your God” is striking when placed beside David's personal appeals in the Psalms. In 1 Samuel 15, it accompanies attempts to explain disobedience and preserve public honor. Yet a pronoun alone cannot establish the entire state of a person's faith. Biblical speakers can refer to “your God” for several reasons. The stronger evidence lies in the narrative's pattern: Saul shifts responsibility, defends what was done, and asks Samuel to stand beside him before the elders.

Samuel's response exposes the inadequacy of using religious intention to excuse disobedience. The proposed sacrifices cannot turn selective compliance into faithfulness. The issue is not whether worship matters, but whether worship is being used to protect an action God has forbidden. The famous contrast between obedience and sacrifice belongs to that confrontation. Religious activity becomes distorted when it functions as compensation for refusing the clearer command.

David's confession after Nathan confronts him provides a different response, though his own history must not be romanticized. He has committed grave wrongs against real people, and his confession does not erase their suffering or all ensuing consequences. Psalm 51's statement about sin against God intensifies the offense's ultimate seriousness; it does not deny the wrong done to Bathsheba, Uriah, and others. The plea concerning bloodguilt in verse 14 makes the human violence impossible to ignore.

The movement of the psalm is therefore important. David asks for mercy, cleansing, a renewed heart, restored joy, and a willing spirit. He seeks more than relief from exposure. He asks God to address the condition from which his actions arose and to restore a life capable of truthful service. The proposed teaching of transgressors comes after confession and dependence, not as a quick return to a public platform that bypasses accountability.

The contrast should also not imply that asking a human person for forgiveness is inherently wrong. Saul has violated both God's command and Samuel's instruction, so an appeal to Samuel is not by itself proof of insincerity. What makes his response troubling is its surrounding concern for status and the repeated evasion of responsibility. Genuine repentance can include seeking forgiveness from God and from the people harmed, accepting consequences, and relinquishing control over how quickly trust returns.

The practical questions in the original are thus best answered through more than intensity of remorse. Does confession name what was done without minimizing it? Does the person stop the conduct, make restitution where possible, and accept appropriate boundaries? Is there concern for the injured person's good beyond the desire to feel forgiven? Such responses do not purchase God's mercy, but they give concrete expression to turning from sin.

Christ's finished work supplies the ground for hope, so repentance need not become an attempt to suffer enough to deserve acceptance. At the same time, grace frees us from protecting a false image of ourselves. We can come honestly before God, acknowledge the depth of the wrong, and seek the transformed life his mercy makes possible. Personal allegiance to the Lord becomes visible when his truth matters more than preserving our reputation.

The accounts of Saul and David in these chapters provide a study in contrast. Saul gave the appearance of devotion; David was truly devoted.

Saul attacked the Amalekites but kept the king alive and saved the best of the animals, and made a monument to himself at Carmel. When confronted by Samuel he declared he had obeyed God. He excused himself regarding the king by noting he had killed the others, and regarding the animals by saying he planned to sacrifice some of them. When pressed, he finally admitted his sin, which he attributed to fear of the people (1 Samuel 15:24). But even in confession he was more concerned with his own honor: he asked Samuel to honor him before the elders by returning with him (1 Samuel 15:30).

Contrast David. When Samuel went to Jesse's house to anoint the next king, he assumed it would be Eliab, the oldest. It was not, nor any of the next six sons. It was the youngest, David, who had not even been invited to the gathering. God told Samuel not to judge by appearance or height — people judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart (a paraphrase of 1 Samuel 16:7).

AI-Expanded Reflection

The progression of Saul's excuses is worth tracing, because it is a recognizable sequence: partial obedience presented as full obedience, then a religious justification for the shortfall (the animals were for sacrifice), then blame shifted to others (the people made me), then a confession whose main concern is managing appearances.

Samuel's reply is the theological center of the chapter and is worth stating: to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed better than the fat of rams (15:22). Saul's defense was that he intended to worship with what he had withheld, and Samuel's answer is that worship offered in place of obedience is not a partial credit but a category error.

The contrast with David works at the level the comment identifies, though it is worth noting the book does not present David as a counterexample of unbroken integrity — his own catastrophic failures come later, and the same standard is applied to him. What distinguishes the two accounts is not that one man sinned and the other did not, but what each did when confronted. Saul negotiates; David, when Nathan comes, says he has sinned against the LORD.

Moses had already written about Israel's future king back in Deuteronomy 17. It's a short section without many stipulations, but one major requirement stands out — the king was to write out his own copy of the Law and read it every day of his life, so he'd learn to revere the LORD, follow the Law carefully, avoid considering himself above his fellow Israelites, and reign a long time along with his descendants (a paraphrase of Deuteronomy 17:18–20). The LORD had already anticipated the day Israel would demand a king, and prepared instructions accordingly.

Saul's decision to perform the sacrifice before Samuel's arrival in 1 Samuel 13 already revealed his misunderstanding of acceptable worship. Sparing the best plunder and King Agag himself in chapter 15 shows he didn't take seriously the exact, literal instruction to destroy the Amalekites completely — a command given both through Samuel and earlier through Moses, who reminded Israel how the Amalekites had attacked their weary stragglers without fear of God during the Exodus, commanding that Amalek's name be blotted out entirely once Israel found rest in the land (a paraphrase of Deuteronomy 25:17–19). Was God being merely metaphorical with this instruction? A loose general guideline, not meant literally? Saul is found guilty precisely because he didn't obey the literal, exact command from the LORD — and he and his descendants lose the kingdom as a result, exactly as Deuteronomy 17 already warned. Samuel tells him plainly that the LORD delights in obedience more than sacrifice, that rebellion is like divination's sin, arrogance like idolatry's evil — and because Saul rejected the LORD's word, the LORD has rejected him as king (a paraphrase of 1 Samuel 15:22–23).

It's sad how many Christians today reject God's Word in the name of "love" — treating what's clearly written as merely allegorical or metaphorical whenever it conflicts with their own preferred definition of love. Wasn't this exactly Saul's problem — failing to take the LORD's word literally, substituting what he thought was a better idea instead? God is love, and love doesn't delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth (1 Corinthians 13:6).

AI-Expanded Reflection

The specific link this comment draws between Deuteronomy 17's requirement — a king personally copying and reading the Law daily — and Saul's later failure is worth making explicit, since it suggests his disobedience wasn't really a sudden lapse, but the predictable result of never actually establishing the discipline Moses had specifically prescribed to prevent it. A king who genuinely wrote out and read God's Law every single day would have known, without any ambiguity, exactly what "completely destroy" meant regarding the Amalekites. Saul's failure at Gilgal wasn't a one-time misjudgment so much as the visible symptom of an entire missing daily discipline Deuteronomy had already anticipated centuries earlier as the exact safeguard against this kind of failure.

Caught some things I hadn't noticed before: Samuel tells Saul that the kingdom has been given to one who is "not human" — who doesn't lie and doesn't change his mind. Second, David is recognized as both a good musician and a great warrior — he was already known to be a fighter.

Yujin comments... Everything sounds good here except the part about being "not human." Both David, the immediate recipient of the kingdom, and Christ, its ultimate recipient, are human. Jesus is more than human — He is the God-man — but this doesn't take away from His being completely human as well.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Worth tracing exactly where this mix-up comes from: 1 Samuel 15:29 actually says the "Glory of Israel" — God Himself — does not lie or change His mind, because He is not human that He should change His mind. The "not human" description belongs to God, describing His own unwavering character, not to whoever would eventually receive the kingdom. It's an easy line to misread quickly, but worth untangling, since it actually strengthens the passage rather than complicating it: the promise Saul is losing isn't unreliable because a fickle human might renege on it — it's guaranteed precisely because the one making it never changes His mind at all. As for the second observation, David himself later ties his two skills together directly, praising the LORD who trains his hands for war and his fingers for battle in the very same breath (a paraphrase of Psalm 144:1) — musician and warrior were never separate identities for him, but two expressions of the same devotion.