What does the Bible mean when it says that God remembered something?

"And God remembered Noah." The strange work of judgement being over, the saved family, and all in association with them, come into remembrance. "God made a wind to pass over the earth; and the waters assuaged; the fountains also of deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained." … Judgement is God's "strange work." He delights not in, though He is glorified by, it. Blessed be His name, He is ever ready to leave the place of judgement, and enter that of mercy, because He delights in mercy.

But they were more than safe. They were remembered — "God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark." … He who had already shut His remnant in, now remembers them; and in that remembrance there was present life, and, in prospect, a goodly inheritance.

It will be so with another elect remnant, in coming days. Before the same covenant God, who was now keeping Noah in mind, a book of remembrance will be written for them that fear the Lord and think upon His name. … And of them the Lord says, "They shall be mine in that day when I make up my jewels;" as now, in virtue of this covenant-remembrance, the Lord causes a wind to pass over the earth, the waters abate, and the ark rests on the mountains of Ararat.

This remembrance of God was most precious. … The divine remembrance was the hidden comfort of faith.

The five months of floating on a shoreless sea would seem interminable to Noah and his family, and it can be well imagined that they would feel that God had forgotten them. "But God remembered Noah, and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark."

"And the children of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and cried; and their cry came up to God because of the bondage. And God heard their groaning; and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God took notice."

O ye that boast of Herodotus and Thucydides, of Livy and Tacitus, produce any sentence from those classic historians, or from any since down to our day, for words approaching these for tenderness, soon to be rendered into undying facts, now for everlasting principles of truth and righteousness in earthly things which test the soul whether we care for the living God or are in heart His enemies!

If Lot is saved from the overthrow of the cities it is because "God remembered Abraham." Lot, as he sat in the gate of Sodom, might have said, "What good is Abraham to the world dwelling apart in his tent?" Yet it is of Abraham, in the separate path, that God had said, "Thou shalt be a blessing." So it came to pass; for if Lot is saved it is because God remembered Abraham.

When God saved Lot from the holocaust of judgment that swept in all its devouring fury over the doomed cities, we are told, "And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow." God's dealings with Lot at this time were in keeping with the discipline his soul required, but the need for these disciplinary dealings being past, He can look back on that history, and select the elements of good which His eye only could discern; that which He noted all through, and which He placed to Lot's account, He makes mention of in His own good time. Such is our God! such is His holiness, such is His grace.

Rachel at length … becomes the occasion of refreshment for the heart in the considerate tenderness of God's ways; Who, after her long humiliation because of her unworthy self-seeking, was pleased to pity her and give her a son so earnestly desired. Then she said, God hath taken away my reproach. … The name she gave her firstborn is striking; for Joseph means He will add. As she said, Jehovah will add to me another. Her faith saw in Joseph the promise of Benjamin.

"I" says God, "Will remember." How sweet to think of what God will, and what He will not remember! He will remember His own covenant, but He will not remember His people's sins. The cross, which ratifies the former, puts away the latter. The belief of this gives peace to the troubled and uneasy conscience.

He does not remember our sins and iniquities when He treats us as though these had never happened, in virtue of the atoning work of Christ. How blessed to see nothing whatever in His conduct toward us which would indicate His remembrance of them. As another has said, "When not only they are no more a shadow in our heavens, but not a mote even in the sunshine of His perfect love." His "not remembering" has its solemn as well as its gracious side. Love would gladly remember. What must our past have been when love graciously draws the veil over it?