It happened that, when they made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, "Lord Yahweh, forgive, I beg you! How could Jacob stand? For he is small."
"Jehovah repented ..." Such expressions in the scriptures do not imply any instability, fickleness, or indecision on the part of God, his repentance always meaning that some justifying change had occurred in the threatened people themselves.