Read: Psalm 145
The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love (Psalm 145:8, NRSV).
Have you ever found yourself thinking, “There ought to be a word for that!”? Half the fun of learning other languages is discovering such words. For instance, iktsuarpok is Inuit for “that feeling of anticipation you have when you’re waiting for someone to show up at your house and you keep going outside to see if they’re there yet.” Or there’s the German word, kummerspeck, which refers to “the excess weight one gains from emotional overeating.” (Literally, it translates as “grief bacon.”) Or there is the Scots word, tartle, for “that panicky hesitation just before you have to introduce someone whose name you can’t remember….”*
I don’t know about you, but I need all of these words.
Whenever it takes more than one English word to capture something from another language, it’s a sign that there might be more going on than we realize. And wouldn’t you know it, that’s exactly the case with the Hebrew word that I would argue is the most important word in the whole Old Testament.
I’m talking about the word ḥesed. In the NRSV it’s usually translated as “steadfast love.” Other times you’ll see it as “mercy” or “kindness,” or even “goodness.” If you grew up with the King James Version, you’ll know it as “lovingkindness.” But all these translations are attempts to capture something we don’t really have a word for in English.
Ḥesed (pronounced chĕsĕd) is love that goes above and beyond the call of duty. It’s selfless, covenant love. Sacrificial love.
Most of the 248 times this word is used, it is used to describe the way God loves. When God comes to Moses on Mt. Sinai in Exodus 34:6, for instance, it says that “the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love (ḥesed) and faithfulness….’” The fact that God shows up at all just two chapters after the golden calf incident is the perfect illustration of a love that goes “above and beyond.”
The psalmists are understandably fond of this word. In Psalm 51, for instance, the psalmist knows that it will completely change the calculus between his sins and their consequences. “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love (ḥesed); according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.”
The prophet Jonah is the only one who has the temerity to complain about God’s ḥesed, but that’s precisely because he doesn’t want God to show it to people Jonah doesn’t like (see Jonah 4:2). There you go again God, he whines, loving extravagantly. I hate when that happens—unless, of course, it happens to me.
Petulant prophets aside, ḥesed is sometimes a human quality. Ruth and Boaz, for instance are both people who go above and beyond the call of duty—acting with love and loyalty even when there’s nothing “in it” for them.
The fact that the English language has no precise equivalent for ḥesed makes me wonder about how this has shaped those of us who use that language. Maybe it’s time we learned a new word.
Ponder: How does the Hebrew word ḥesed lay a foundation for what we learn about God in the New Testament?
Pray: May our own ḥesed reflect your own, O God.
*Taken from 51 Wonderful Words With No English Equivalent