Every Road Not Taken
Every place God names an outcome that did not happen, with every speaker named and every parse read off the tagged text.
The Hebrew particle for the case contrary to fact, lu, occurs 21 times. God is the speaker in four, and in two of those the speaker cannot be argued and the clause is a lament over a good that did not arrive. In the Gospels the contrary-to-fact conditional appears seven times in the mouth of Christ. The reversals number fourteen, under a policy God states himself.
The falsifier, set before the scan: a place where God names an unrealized outcome and attaches it to something other than a human response, or where the reversal texts show God changing course with no human response named. Result: not found. Every member names the response.
Exact versus assisted: The counts, the verse wording, the parses and the stems are exact. The identification of the speaker, and the classification of a clause as lament rather than hypothetical, are assisted (judgment) and are marked wherever they are load-bearing.
The Hebrew counterfactual particle lu (H3863): all 21 uses
lu is the particle Hebrew reserves for the case contrary to fact, “if only”, “would that”. Own-field matches across the Hebrew Bible: 21, in 21 distinct verses. The speaker column is assisted judgment; the verse text is exact. The 17 human uses are printed so the exclusion can be checked.
| Reference | Speaker | KJV |
|---|---|---|
| Genesis 17:18 | Abraham | “And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!” |
| Genesis 23:13 | Abraham | “And he spake unto Ephron in the audience of the people of the land, saying, But if thou wilt give it, I pray thee, hear me: I will give thee money for the field; take it of me, and I will bury my dead there.” |
| Genesis 30:34 | Laban | “And Laban said, Behold, I would it might be according to thy word.” |
| Genesis 50:15 | Joseph’s brethren | “And when Joseph’s brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him.” |
| Numbers 14:2 | the congregation | “And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness!” |
| Numbers 20:3 | the people | “And the people chode with Moses, and spake, saying, Would God that we had died when our brethren died before the LORD!” |
| Numbers 22:29 | Balaam | “And Balaam said unto the ass, Because thou hast mocked me: I would there were a sword in mine hand, for now would I kill thee.” |
| Deuteronomy 32:29 | GOD (contested) | “O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!” |
| Joshua 7:7 | Joshua | “And Joshua said, Alas, O Lord GOD, wherefore hast thou at all brought this people over Jordan, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us? would to God we had been content, and dwelt on the other side Jordan!” |
| Judges 8:19 | Gideon | “And he said, They were my brethren, even the sons of my mother: as the LORD liveth, if ye had saved them alive, I would not slay you.” |
| Judges 13:23 | Manoah’s wife | “But his wife said unto him, If the LORD were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands, neither would he have shewed us all these things, nor would as at this time have told us such things as these.” |
| 1 Samuel 14:30 | Jonathan | “How much more, if haply the people had eaten freely to day of the spoil of their enemies which they found? for had there not been now a much greater slaughter among the Philistines?” |
| 2 Samuel 18:12 | the man | “And the man said unto Joab, Though I should receive a thousand shekels of silver in mine hand, yet would I not put forth mine hand against the king’s son: for in our hearing the king charged thee and Abishai and Ittai, saying, Beware that none touch the young man Absalom.” |
| 2 Samuel 19:6 | Joab | “In that thou lovest thine enemies, and hatest thy friends. For thou hast declared this day, that thou regardest neither princes nor servants: for this day I perceive, that if Absalom had lived, and all we had died this day, then it had pleased thee well.” |
| Job 6:2 | Job | “O that my grief were throughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together!” |
| Job 16:4 | Job | “I also could speak as ye do: if your soul were in my soul’s stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you.” |
| Psalms 81:13 | GOD | “Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways!” |
| Isaiah 48:18 | GOD | “O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea:” |
| Isaiah 64:1 | the prophet | “Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence,” |
| Ezekiel 14:15 | GOD | “If I cause noisome beasts to pass through the land, and they spoil it, so that it be desolate, that no man may pass through because of the beasts:” |
| Micah 2:11 | Micah | “If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink; he shall even be the prophet of this people.” |
Exact: God is the speaker in four (Deuteronomy 32:29, Psalms 81:13, Isaiah 48:18, Ezekiel 14:15). Two of those are unmistakable laments over an unrealized good, and they carry the census: Psalm 81:13 and Isaiah 48:18.
The two laments, with their neighbours
Psalm 81. The refusal is named first, then the giving-up, then the lament, then four things God did not do.
“I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.”
“But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me.”
“So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own counsels.”
“Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways!”
“I should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries.”
“The haters of the LORD should have submitted themselves unto him: but their time should have endured for ever.”
“He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee.”
Exact: 81:11 states the refusal (“my people would not hearken to my voice”); 81:12 states God’s response to it; 81:13 is the lu clause; 81:14-16 are four unrealized divine acts in the perfect and imperfect of counterfactual apodosis (“I should soon have subdued”, “He should have fed them”, “should I have satisfied thee”). The hinge is stated in the passage itself, one verse before the lament.
Isaiah 48. The speaker is named in the verse before.
“Thus saith the LORD, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am the LORD thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go.”
“O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea:”
“Thy seed also had been as the sand, and the offspring of thy bowels like the gravel thereof; his name should not have been cut off nor destroyed from before me.”
Exact: 48:17 identifies the speaker, “Thus saith the LORD, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel”. 48:18 is the lu clause with “then had” as its apodosis; 48:19 continues it. The hinge is “hadst hearkened to my commandments”.
The contested third, and the nearest miss
Deuteronomy 32, the Song, with the verses on either side. the speaker at Deuteronomy 32:29 is contested. The divine first person speaks at 32:26-27 (“I said, I would scatter them”), but 32:30-31 says “their Rock” and “our Rock”, which reads as the narrator. Do not build on Deuteronomy 32:29 alone.
“I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men:”
“Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the LORD hath not done all this.”
“For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them.”
“O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!”
“How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had shut them up?”
“For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.”
Nearest miss: Ezekiel 14:15, where God is the speaker and the particle is the counterfactual one, but the clause is a hypothetical judgment scenario, not a lament over a refused good. It is listed and classified, not hidden. Its text is in the table above.
The other Hebrew counterfactuals, and one flagged exclusion
“O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!”
“Not to many people of a strange speech and of an hard language, whose words thou canst not understand. Surely, had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened unto thee.”
“But the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee; for they will not hearken unto me: for all the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted.”
“But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.”
“And Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of the LORD thy God, which he commanded thee: for now would the LORD have established thy kingdom upon Israel for ever.”
The Greek: contrary-to-fact conditionals in the mouth of Christ
The second-class condition states a case contrary to fact: ei with the indicative in the protasis, an with the indicative in the apodosis. Every parse was read off the STEPBible TAGNT row.
| Reference | Construction | Class | KJV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Matthew 11:21 | ei + egenonto (V-2ADI-3P) / an + metenoesan (V-AAI-3P) | second class, contrary to fact | “Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.” |
| Matthew 11:23 | ei + egenethesan (V-2AOI-3P) / an + emeinen (V-AAI-3S) | second class, contrary to fact | “And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.” |
| Luke 10:13 | ei + egenethesan (V-2AOI-3P) / an + metenoesan (V-AAI-3P) | second class, contrary to fact | “Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which have been done in you, they had a great while ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.” |
| Luke 19:42 | ei + egnos (V-2AAI-2S); no apodosis | protasis only: the sentence breaks off | “Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.” |
| John 15:22 | ei me + elthon (V-2AAI-1S) / eichosan (V-IAI-3P) | second class, contrary to fact | “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin.” |
| John 15:24 | ei me + epoiesa (V-AAI-1S) / eichosan (V-IAI-3P) | second class, contrary to fact | “If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.” |
| John 5:46 | ei + episteuete (V-IAI-2P) / an + episteuete (V-IAI-2P) | second class, present time | “For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.” |
Luke 19:42 is the exception worth naming: the protasis stands (ei with the second aorist indicative, egnos, “if thou hadst known”) and the apodosis is never spoken. The sentence breaks off and turns to what is now hidden. Christ does not finish the sentence about the road not taken.
The reversals, and the policy that governs them
God states the policy himself. This is the passage the whole class must be read under, and the one the essay concedes first: the announcement is revisable by design.
“At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it;”
“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 at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it;”
“If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.”
“Now therefore go to, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: return ye now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good.”
Exact: the human verb is shuv, to turn; the divine verb is nacham in the Niphal, first person; and what God relents of is what he chashav, planned. The same three verbs carry the whole class.
Members: 14. Each is listed with the human response the text itself names as the hinge.
| Reference | The hinge the text names | KJV |
|---|---|---|
| Exodus 32:14 | Moses intercedes (32:11-13) | “And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.” |
| Numbers 14:20 | Moses intercedes | “And the LORD said, I have pardoned according to thy word:” |
| Judges 2:18 | Israel groans under oppression | “And when the LORD raised them up judges, then the LORD was with the judge, and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge: for it repented the LORD because of their groanings by reason of them that oppressed them and vexed them.” |
| 1 Samuel 15:11 | Saul turns back from following | “It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the LORD all night.” |
| 2 Samuel 24:16 | the destroying angel stayed | “And when the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed the people, It is enough: stay now thine hand. And the angel of the LORD was by the threshingplace of Araunah the Jebusite.” |
| 1 Chronicles 21:15 | the parallel | “And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was destroying, the LORD beheld, and he repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed, It is enough, stay now thine hand. And the angel of the LORD stood by the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.” |
| 1 Kings 21:29 | Ahab humbles himself | “Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days: but in his son’s days will I bring the evil upon his house.” |
| 2 Kings 20:5 | Hezekiah prays and weeps | “Turn again, and tell Hezekiah the captain of my people, Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will heal thee: on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the LORD.” |
| 2 Chronicles 12:7 | they humble themselves | “And when the LORD saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the LORD came to Shemaiah, saying, They have humbled themselves; therefore I will not destroy them, but I will grant them some deliverance; and my wrath shall not be poured out upon Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak.” |
| Jeremiah 26:19 | Hezekiah besought the LORD | “Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put him at all to death? did he not fear the LORD, and besought the LORD, and the LORD repented him of the evil which he had pronounced against them? Thus might we procure great evil against our souls.” |
| Amos 7:3 | Amos intercedes (7:2) | “The LORD repented for this: It shall not be, saith the LORD.” |
| Amos 7:6 | Amos intercedes (7:5) | “The LORD repented for this: This also shall not be, saith the Lord GOD.” |
| Jonah 3:10 | Nineveh turns (3:5-9) | “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.” |
| Psalms 106:45 | he remembered his covenant | “And he remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his mercies.” |
The nacham census
nacham, own-field, whole Hebrew Bible: 106 occurrences. By stem: Niphal 48 (relent, regret, be moved to pity), Piel 49 (comfort), Hithpael 7, Pual 2.
Of the 48 Niphal forms, God is the subject in 34 and a human or other creature in 14. Of the 34 divine ones, 7 are DENIALS, places that say God does not or will not relent: 1 Samuel 15:29 (twice), Jeremiah 4:28, Jeremiah 20:16, Psalms 110:4, Ezekiel 24:14, Zechariah 8:14. The remaining 27 affirm that he did or will.
The tension, and what settles it
“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?”
“And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent.”
Exact, and this is the part to get right. Numbers 23:19 uses the HITHPAEL; the relenting texts use the NIPHAL. That difference is real but it does not settle the question, because 1 Samuel 15:29 uses the NIPHAL, the same stem as Exodus 32:14 and Jonah 3:10.
1 Samuel 15 uses the same Niphal stem three times: at 15:11 God says “It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king”; at 15:29 Samuel says “the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent”; at 15:35 the narrator says “the LORD repented that he had made Saul king”. The writer who recorded verse 29 wrote verses 11 and 35.
“It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the LORD all night.”
“And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent.”
“And Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death: nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul: and the LORD repented that he had made Saul king over Israel.”
One set says God does not go back on his sworn word; the other says he does not execute a threat when the threatened turn. Those are two different claims, and the canon makes both without embarrassment.
What this census does not settle
- It does not refute compatibilism. The standard answer is that a counterfactual states what a creature would do given a nature God authored, in circumstances God did not actualise. That answer is coherent and must be named in the essay.
- It is not an argument for Molinism. Matthew 11:21 and Ezekiel 3:6 are Craig’s texts. Say what they show, that the alternative is spoken of as real, and say that the account of divine knowledge you hold is the Boethian one.
- 1 Samuel 13:13 is Samuel’s word, not God’s. Keep it in its own column.
- Jeremiah 18:7-10 concedes the reversal class before the opponent raises it: the announcement was revisable by design. Lead with that concession.
- It does not prove libertarian freedom. It proves that unrealized alternatives are spoken of as real and tied to a human response.
- Deuteronomy 32:29’s speaker is contested. Do not build on it alone.
- Ezekiel 14:15 is God speaking with the same particle and is NOT a lament. List it; do not bury it.
- Do not say the Hithpael/Niphal distinction resolves Numbers 23:19 against 1 Samuel 15:29. 1 Samuel 15:29 is Niphal.
- Do not call the reversals broken promises. Every one of them is a threat withdrawn, not a promise revoked, and the canon distinguishes those.
- Do not say ’God repents’ without the object. In every divine Niphal the object is an announced evil or an arrangement, never a sin.
Method
- English: the King James Version from the project database, all 31,102 rows; every quotation on this page was asserted at generation time to be the exact text of the verse named, and to appear in the dataset.
- Hebrew: STEPBible TAHOT (CC BY 4.0), matched on the braced root only. Greek: STEPBible TAGNT (CC BY 4.0), matched on the word’s own Strong’s field.
- Corrections recorded while building: an early scan of nacham returned 26 Niphal forms against a true 48 (the stem test dropped unprefixed forms); an early report said God speaks lu three times against a true four; and Exodus 32:14’s “the evil which he thought to do” is dibber, “had spoken”, not chashav.
- Inclusion criteria, fixed before the scan: the speaker is God or Christ; the outcome is contrary to fact or was announced and not executed; the condition is a human response. Passages failing the first test are listed and excluded by name, not silently dropped.
Scripture quoted from the King James Version. Hebrew and Greek forms from STEPBible TAHOT and TAGNT (CC BY 4.0). The classification of each row and every conclusion drawn from it are the author’s, and are argued in The Road Not Taken.