Old Testament writers
often describe God in human terms, though we know from other statements in
scripture that many of the human qualities they ascribe to God cannot possibly
be true of him in precisely the same way they are true of us.
Memory is a good example, as Ashrei points out:
“To remember, so we are inclined to think, is primarily to preserve in our
consciousness a fact or an experience. A ‘good memory’ is one which
retains precisely and vividly that which has been seen, heard or learned. In
short, we tend to regard memory as simply one comprehensive archive. Retention
of the past has great significance per se. However, it hardly exhausts the
full range of memory.”
When the Old Testament speaks of God “remembering”, it does not merely refer to his ability to retain information, as it might with us.