Exodus 32:9-14 Does God change His mind?

[praisingHisname]

Can someone tell me where in the Bible it explains when and why God changes His mind? I know that in Exodus 32:9-14 Moses asks Him not to destroy the Jewish nation and God relents. Does intercessory prayer cause God to change His mind? Does He only "appear" to change His mind but won't if it interferes with His overall plan for a person? Like when we pray for a loved one to be spared and not to die. Does prayer change His mind or was the person really not going to die anyway....? Thanks in advance for any answers or direction in the Bible to find the answer.

[Enlightened]

I'd like a good answer for this question also. Might as well throw Isaiah 38:1-5 onto the list of examples.

1 In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, "This is what the LORD says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover."

2 Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD,

3 "Remember, O LORD, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes." And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

4 Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah:

5 "Go and tell Hezekiah, 'This is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life.

[praisingHisname]

That is a good example of what I am curious about! Also when Abraham asked the God to spare any good men in Sodom....even when it boiled down to just Lot and his family. God kept relenting over how many until it was just down to LOT! So...is there a guideline somewhere as to how we can know if intercessory prayer will be answered? We are also told to pray and believe and give thanks as if our prayers have already been answered.

Am I praying wrong?

[Rondaben]

Hey praisingHisname,

I wanted to give you a quick response. God doesn't change his mind in scriptures as far as I can tell, but the consequences of his proclamations/judgments can be delayed for a season.

Exodus 32:9-14 DOES show that intercession by the faithful can allow the Righteous Judgement of God to be forestalled. Originally God had said that he would destroy all of the Israelites and create a new nation in Moses as he had done in Abraham--following God's method of always preserving a remnant. It was Moses' intercession that caused the degree of punishment to be altered. Note that in the remainder of Exodus 32 the reprobate Israelites were destroyed by the Levites. It is important to note that the pattern of salvation is consistent throughout OT and NT scriptures:


Agree with God that our actions were sinful (Levites agreed, others didn't)
Repent--literally turn towards God's direction and away from our sin. Note that the Levites had to physically turn from the Golden Calf to "rally to Moses" who was on the peripheral entrance to the camp--kinda cool, huh!
Deal with the sin amongst us--The Levites returned to the camp and destroyed those who stood with the idol instead of with God. This partially satisfied Gods Judgement.
Accept that our sin, though forgiven, still has ramifications--The remnant that was preserved had their punishment commuted from death to affliction with disease.


This same model holds true in Jonah with God's pronounced destruction of Nineveh. God relented because of the repentance of the people of that city. His promise to destroy the wickedness was, however, eventually fulfilled as the city was utterly destroyed after it had returned to its idolatrous ways.

Understanding this in the light of God is beyond my capabilities. The way I can understand it is that God exists separate from the connotations of time. That is, he exists in all times past and all times future simultaneously. He sees time with an understanding of what will happen. We see time in a linear flow A--->B--->C. God can see ABC, CBA and all points in between. Another way for us to understand it is that our actions don't effect God--He's already baked Grace into our cake ;)

[Rapture Me]

I don't believe that God changes his mind. God is never surprised or learning anything new, he knows all things. Therefore, the bible could say of God that he knows all of his works from before the world began (Acts 15:18). For this reason God cannot change his mind because he is not a man. God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it (Num 23:19)? The bible is written in different literary styles, and anthropomorphism, is only one of the many ways. All that being said, we should remember that the God who ordains the end of a thing, also ordains the means by which that end would come to pass. Prayer is one of God means to bring about change. Not that God, in time, changed his mind, but that God, before time began, ordain the means by which change would come.

[Gabby]

I've always believed that God uses His Word with these examples of 'seeming' to change His mind as a lesson to us that He hears us and answers our prayers. He always knew what He would do, but He uses these events as illustrations to teach us that He hears and answers our prayers.

[goinghome]

I've always believed that God uses His Word with these examples of 'seeming' to change His mind as a lesson to us that He hears us and answers our prayers. He always knew what He would do, but He uses these events as illustrations to teach us that He hears and answers our prayers.


This is how I see it as well. Good post! I'd also add that he uses this method to make us question our own motives in prayer and to learn how He wants us to think as well as His mode of operation. From our perspective, He is changing His mind. From His perspective, He is changing our mind/heart.

[scapegoat]

Perhaps God was testing Moses..... to see if he would resist being the father of a new nation.