This verse under the insistence of framed question, is a high traffic intersection, that requires a lot of unpacking which, while necessary to understand why God phrased Himself in this way, will make those with a pre-commitment to certain dogmas unnecessarily uncomfortable. If the Bible is to be believed, then let it say what it will and let us follow wherever it leads.
“And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.”
Genesis 6:6
The Heavenly Incursion Layer
Context
Until 1828 every Bible contained the apocrypha writings. In the year 1885 the KJV removed the apocrypha writings to save move and make the Bible lighter.
If you wanted context to some of these verses, you had books to cross reference back in the day but today they have been removed and one is left to guess. It is still possible to decipher their meaning using just the 66 books but with more work and less material.
Why would God regret making man?
There is a context to this statement. It’s the sixth chapter, what in the last five chapters could clue us in on motive?
“I will put enmity between you (Nachash) and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall CRUSH ישׁופך your head, and you shall CRUSH his heel.”
Genesis 3:15
What is obvious immediately is that God promises the woman a certain seed(descendent) will crush the head of the deceiver (Nachash).
The immediate reaction for the deceiver is to use his wisdom and stop his head from being crushed. How? By preventing the birth of the promised seed/offspring.
Looking back at v15 God prophesied something that most people miss
and between your offspring and her offspring
And most people reading this would argue that if the Nachash is a heavenly being, then according to Jesus heavenly beings don’t get married
“For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”
Matthew 22:30
And that is correct, heavenly beings or sons of God as they are also known are all male, and were not created with a female counterpart like Adam. However that doesn’t preclude them from having genetic makeup and all the right functioning parts. This is in itself would require its own explanation and how they can interact with the natural world though they are above the natural or supernatural.
These beings are capable of procreation and they have seed, but no women. However these sons of God saw that humans were giving birth to women and they looked beautiful
“When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.”
Genesis 6:1-2
Corrupting the Genome of Man
To this very day until the great tribulation the same strategy is employed to avoid their inevitable end, the sons of God who sinned starting with the Nachash, the deceiver and the accuser, want to corrupt the human genome to either prevent the birth of the messiah or in the end times prevent the full number of the Gentiles from being fulfilled delaying (in their mind) their due judgment.
A certain number of sons of God took (think forced/raped) human women and crossed their genome with the human genome giving rise to a hybrid of halflings. But they went further and corrupted the animals too.
Only Noah and his family were תמים tamayim or without blemish or if you like their genome had not being corrupted. BUT all the rest of mankind’s genetics had been corrupted. The Nachash had almost succeeded in a very short time to prevent the birth of the savior who would crush his head.
God was gracious by destroying the earth
Since the earth was corrupted and there was only a slim chance of restoration God needed to resolve Adam’s need for redemption and the children born from his loins.
“The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
Genesis 6:5
If God had not intervened the genetic code of humans would have been annulled and the seed of the woman would never have been able to bring forth at the right time the child who would redeem the whole world and restore to Eve the paradise lost.
““As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.” I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.”
Psalm 2:6-8
Free willed beings
If the sons of God were not free willed then they would not have been able to act of their desires to rape human women. If men were not free willed then they would not have been able to join with the sons of God and learn the dark arts corrupting the genetic makeup of man and animals, almost to beyond repair.
God changes His mind
How can God change His mind?
Which God?
It is without doubt that the ancient Hebrew people believed in a minimum of an invisible God, a visible God and the Spirit of God but this too is another lengthy discussion. Suffice to say that Jesus said ONLY He has seen the Father which means by extension that every instance that God is seen in the OT it could not have been the Father.
God the Son
In John 17 Jesus twice speaks of a glory He possessed prior to Creation. That alone speaks of His divinity for prior to Creation not even heaven, the residence of heavenly beings existed. And glory in its simplest understanding is that which one is most well known for.
If Jesus had a glory prior to Creation and no longer afterwards, then He took something away. Similar to when He stepped even further into a human body, He limited Himself further.
So what was His first state? He was spirit, fully divine and part of the Godhead. What was His next step down? A heavenly body, supernatural, spiritual with its limitations. What limitations?
Omniscience
Apparently in order to interact with the natural and supernatural world God decide that the Son would take on a heavenly body and enter into the Creation He was about to Create.
The Nachash Lucifer by another name, saw this Angel of the Lord who said He was God, that Created everything but when he sized Him up they looked identical and thought he could grasp equality with God, failing to realize that God the Son volunteered to remove some of His glory and become like the other heavenly beings. They were in fact entirely different
When Jesus was on earth His body placed limits on Him. It is the same with a heavenly body, it too have limitations. One limitation is lack of omniscience. It appears that Jesus as the Angel of the Lord chose not to exercise omniscience but instead engaged in a divine council.
The final point
It is in this context that God, who is the Angel of the Lord, Jesus by deduction, that God says He regrets having made man. Because the decisions made were done according to the divine council in the sky under the firmament with the other divine beings.
“And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.”
Genesis 6:6
Proof this was God Jesus
“All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”
John 1:3
Hence Jesus the Word, who made everything including man regrets and changed His mind about having made man.
This is not the only time that Jesus as the Angel of the Lord makes a statement that perplexes those who would say surely God in His omniscience can’t be making such a statement.
“He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.””
Genesis 22:12
Of course Jesus at all times if He wishes could have relied on His divine attributes or asked the Father but He wanted to experience the fullness of each state.
And that’s why God (the viable God) regretted and changed His mind about having made man, because God who was speaking, the Creator had deliberately and voluntarily suppressed his omniscience.