N-CH-M – ‘set aside, release, renounce [to conserve]’

Now, the verb נוח thus generalized by the collective sign ם signifies literally, to renounce wholly, to cease entirely, to desist, to lay aside care, to abandon an action, a sentiment, etc. The meaning that should be attached to this verb, depends therefore upon the care, the sentiment, the action, whose suspension it indicates. If it is an evil act, as sin, it can indeed signify to repent, as it can also signify to be consoled, if it is a pain, an affliction: but neither sin nor pain can be attributed to God; this verb could never involve this meaning relative to him. If God renounces a sentiment, if he ceases entirely from making a thing, as the verb נוחם expresses it, this sentiment can be only love, this action can be only the conservation of his work. Therefore, he does not repent, as Saint Jerome says; but he renounces, he forsakes; and at the most is angry. This last meaning which is the strongest that can be given to the verb נוחם, has been quite generally followed by the Hebrew writers subsequent to Moses. But one must observe that when they use it, it is only as a sequence of the suspension of the love and of the conservative action of the Divinity; for this meaning is not inherent in the verb in question. (The Hebraic Tongue Restored, Fabré d’Olivet, p. 185-186)