In this verse we have the second event in which God reacts to the wickedness of humanity. If verse 5 has been translated as a dependent clause, then this verse must be the main clause.
And the LORD was sorry is a consequence of Gen 6.5. Was sorry translates the passive form of a verb meaning to be sorry, be grieved, regret, that is, to have regrets, a change of heart or mind about something. The Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation rendering was sorry calls attention to the feeling of God in reaction to the evil of humanity in Gen 6.5. This rendering leads then into the expression of pain in God’s heart in the second line. See below for a discussion of the parallelism. Some translations express the thought of sorrow for past action as “regretted.” Another possibility, which does not by itself suggest sorrow, is “changed his mind…”; this is a common sense of the Hebrew term in other contexts.
In some languages expressions such as this are in the form of figures of speech; for example, “The LORD’s heart was broken,” “The LORD’s head was lowered,” or “The LORD cried inside himself.”
The idea of regret for having made people can be expressed in many ways, some of them idiomatic and some of them direct. One translation, for instance, says “The LORD thought it would have been better if he had not made people.” Another has “The LORD thought about how he had made them and put them in the world, and he felt very bad about it.” Other translations are able to follow the literal meaning of the Hebrew term and say “The LORD changed [or, turned] his thinking about having made the people….”
Made man: made is one of the terms used for “create” in chapters 1 and 2. Man again refers to humanity or people in general and not to men in contrast to women. On the earth is as in verse 5, and some translations do not repeat it here.
The second half of verse 6 goes beyond the first half in describing the feelings of God. Grieved him to his heart: grieved translates a verb that means to be pained or hurt. Here is pain that goes all the way to God’s heart. The poetic intensification in Hebrew is from literal expression in the first line to metaphorical expression in the second. Translators may find that for them this does not result in increased impact in the second line; and if this is the case, they should use the poetic devices of their own language to reflect this dramatic movement in the second line. Some translations bring the final line forward and say “He was saddened and regretted” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch) or “he bitterly regretted” (Revised English Bible). In some languages both lines may have to be translated in idiomatic language. Some examples of expressions used to translate this line are “his mind became very distressed,” “his inside was very heavy,” and “his inside was very very sad.”
Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .