Word studies · Hebrew · Strong's H5162
נָחַם · nâcham · appears 108 times in the Old Testament
In one line: Compassion that sighs with you and then acts.
“Comfort, comfort My people,” says your God.
Isaiah 40:1
Nacham is to comfort — a deep, sighing compassion that moves someone to act, and the word used when God relents from judgment.
Nacham covers consoling the grieving, having compassion, and — in a striking use — God changing course over threatened judgment. Isaiah's “Comfort, comfort my people” and the LORD's relenting at Nineveh both use it, so the word joins tenderness to action.
Nacham's root sense is to sigh or breathe deeply — the physical sound of strong feeling. From there it moves in two directions: sighing with someone in their grief (comfort), and sighing over a course of action (regret or relenting), which is why translations differ so widely.
Because one Hebrew verb carries both comfort and relenting, passages where God “repented” are not describing a change of character but a movement of compassion. The word says God is not indifferent — He is moved, and what moves Him tends toward mercy.
Nacham (H5162) appears 106 times in the Hebrew Bible, and Genesis 5:29 links it to the name Noah, given in hope that “this one shall bring us relief.”
Comfort in Scripture is not sentiment but intervention: God comforts by acting for His people, and the prophets announce comfort as a coming rescue. That grounds the New Testament's God of all comfort, who consoles so that the consoled can console others.
Comfort someone this week by doing something rather than by saying something. Sit with one person in their trouble without hurrying to fix or explain it.
properly, to sigh, i.e. breathe strongly; by implication, to be sorry, i.e. (in a favorable sense) to pity, console or (reflexively) rue; or (unfavorably) to avenge (oneself)
And he named him Noah, saying, “May this one comfort us in the labor and toil of our hands caused by the ground that the LORD has cursed.”
Genesis 5:29When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them along the road through the land of the Philistines, though it was shorter. For God said, “If the people face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.”
Exodus 13:17God is not a man, that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and not act? Does He promise and not fulfill?
Numbers 23:19For the LORD will vindicate His people and have compassion on His servants when He sees that their strength is gone and no one remains, slave or free.
Deuteronomy 32:36Whenever the LORD raised up a judge for the Israelites, He was with that judge and saved them from the hands of their enemies while the judge was still alive; for the LORD was moved to pity by their groaning under those who oppressed them and afflicted them.
Judges 2:18“My lord,” she said, “may I continue to find favor in your eyes, for you have comforted and spoken kindly to your maidservant, though I am not like one of your servant girls.”
Ruth 2:13Press and hold comfort in any chapter and this study opens on the verse you are reading, with the lexicons, every occurrence and the commentaries beside it. The Bible is free to read.
Scripture quoted from the Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Strong's definitions are public domain. Counts come from The Pillar's own tagged text.