God repents? God considers an evil action?

[I_Thirst]

From the daily readings of Oct 6, 2009 …

When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out. (Jonah 3:10 [NAB])

I always thought that God was incapable of even considering evil. And why would God need to repent? Assuming that the NAB accurately translates “evil” and “repent”, what’s going on in this passage? I’m sure that my understanding of this is inaccurate, so please help me out.

 

[FidesSpesCarita]

Definition of the word evil used in this verse based on Strong… no personal commentary, but information only

Strongs

H7451 ra` rah

from H7489;

bad or (as noun) evil (natural or moral):-- adversity, affliction, bad, calamity, +
displease(-ure), distress, evil((- favouredness), man, thing), + exceedingly, X
great, grief(-vous), harm, heavy, hurt(-ful), ill (favoured), + mark, mischief(-
vous), misery, naught(-ty), noisome, + not please, sad(-ly), sore, sorrow,
trouble, vex, wicked(-ly, -ness, one), worse(-st), wretchedness, wrong. (Incl.
feminine raaah; as adjective or noun.).

 

[juliamajor]

God changes his mind or has it changed several times in the OT.Abraham tries to talk God out of destroying Sodom and Gomorrah and God is willing to go by abraham’s criteria of judging life or death.Moses(prophetic intercessor) talks God out of destroying the Israelites after the golden calf incident by telling God basically that it would look bad to the pagans if yhwh first saved and the destroyed a whole people in a matter of a year or two.