God’s Loving Kindness
Luv - ing - kind’nes (חסד, hesedh): “Lovingkindness” in the King James Version always represents this word (30 times), but of hesedh there are many other renderings, e.g. “mercy” (frequently), “kindness” (38), “goodness” (12). The word is derived from hasadh, meaning, perhaps, “to bend or bow oneself,” “to incline oneself”; hence, “to be gracious or merciful.” The English Revised Version has not many changes, but in the American Standard Revised Version “lovingkindness” is invariably employed when hesedh is used of God, and, as a rule, “kindness” when it is used of man.
When used of God hesedh denotes, in general, “the Divine Love condescending to His creatures, more especially to sinners, in unmerited kindness” (Delitzsch). It is frequency associated with forgiveness, and is practically equivalent to “mercy” or “mercifulness” (Ex 20:6), “showing lovingkindness (R.V) unto thousands of them that love me”; Ex 34:6 f, “slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness” (RV “plenteous in mercy”); (Ex 34:7) “keeping lovingkindness (RV “mercy”) for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (compare Num 14:18 ); Micah 7:18, “He retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in lovingkindness” (RV “mercy”).
This quality in Yahweh was one by which He sought to bind His people to Himself. It is greatly magnified in the Old Testament, highly extolled and gloried in, in many of the Psalms (Ps 136 has the constant refrain, “For his lovingkindness endureth forever”). In Deut 7:12 it is associated with the covenant, and in 2 Sam 7:15 with the covenant with David. It was something that could always be relied on.
Being such an essential and distinctive quality of God, the prophets taught that it should also characterize His people. It is part of the Divine requirement in Micah 6:8, “to love kindness” Zech 7:9, “Show kindness and compassion every man to his brother”. The want of it in the nation was a cause of Yahweh’s controversy with them, e.g. Hosea 4:1, “There is no truth, nor goodness (h es edh) (KJV and RV “mercy”), nor knowledge of God in the land”; Hosea 12:6, “Therefore turn thou to thy God: keep kindness (the KJV and the English Revised Version “mercy”) and justice, and wait for thy God continually.” Cheyne (Encyclopedia Biblica) regards hesedh as denoting paternal affection on God’s part, answered by filial and loyal affection and brotherly love on man’s part in the New Testament.
Bro Stephen Siamabi (Mazabuka, Zambia)
