"God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?"
Samuel says nearly the same thing in I Samuel 15:29:
"And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent."
Then, just a few verses later, verse 35, is says this:
"...and the LORD repented that he had made Saul king over Israel."
God does not SIN and need forgiveness for sins like a man--NO WAY! BUT, He does REGRET certain decisions He's made and decides to take A NEW COURSE OF ACTION. This is made so clear in I Samuel. If you can't accept the Word on this, what can I say?
God never regrets His decisions. He only regrets the decisions of man. Since He knows what those decisions will be there is no "new course of action".
Again, the scriptures says God is not like man. To think He changes His mind is to abscribe man-like traits to God.
A search will show the word "repented" in verse 35 is better translated as "grieved" which is far different then the Lord "changing His mind". I have found this to be the case in just about all the places where it says "the Lord repented".
However, this is not the case in 1 Samuel 15 or Numbers 23:19 where it means "changing one's mind". The problem you have in these verses is that they are in the negative. It tells what God is NOT. God does not lie. God does not change His mind. God is not like man.
Usually when people list the attributes of God they list immutable as one. Do you disagree with that ?
If God changes his mind, is there a chance he will change his mind about saving men that repent and believe?