What Does Exodus 32:14 Mean in the King James?
And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The LORD relents from harm he had spoken to do, so even a declared outcome remains capable of changing.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s announced harm is not mechanically inevitable: even when destruction has been spoken over a people, the LORD can relent, and the outcome can turn. For you now, the verse leaves room between a word of judgment and its fulfillment; what has been declared is not beyond response.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a judgment once spoken is irreversible. Here the LORD withdraws the harm he has declared.
THE ROOT
וַיִּנָּחֶם
wayyinnaḥem
GROWS FROM
נחם
To comfort or console; in this form, to relent, regret, or be moved to a change of course.
“repented” in this verse is wayyinnaḥem. This root carries both the sense of relenting and the sense of comforting. The verse’s turn away from harm belongs to the same word family as consolation, giving the change a relational texture.
ALSO GROWS
niḥēm: Comforted or consoled
נִחֵם
This branch reveals that comfort and the verse’s relenting share the same root.
tanḥumim: Consolations
תַּנְחוּמִים
The plural noun keeps the root’s consoling sense visible alongside the LORD’s turn from harm.
דִּבֶּר
dibber
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak or utter.
The Hebrew verb beneath the KJV’s ‘thought’ means ‘spoke.’ The verse holds the announced intention and the intended act close together, then describes the LORD relenting from that spoken course.
ALSO GROWS
dābār: Word, utterance, matter, or thing
דָּבָר
This related word shows how speech and the matter spoken of belong to one root family.
medabbēr: Speaking; one who speaks
מְדַבֵּר
This form keeps the spoken quality of דִּבֶּר visible in the verse’s statement of intended action.
THE PATTERN
A word of threatened harm is not always the final outcome; the LORD can turn from the destruction announced.
If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.THE THREAD
God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?The same Hebrew root נחם (naḥam), meaning to relent or be moved, stands behind ‘repent’ in both verses. Numbers rejects human-like deception and fickleness; Exodus shows the LORD relenting from announced harm, sharpening the difference between instability and response.
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