The Hesed of God

Any of you that know me or have been reading the last of my blogs know that I have been going through a lot the last couple of years. Though I wouldn't particularly wish to go through any of it again, these experiences have given me some perspective on a particular Hebrew concept.

Yes you heard me right, today is a linguistics lesson - sort of.

My last post was an interpretation of Psalm 136. You can look at that post here. Some of you may notice that I did not use love, but rather covenant faithfulness. If you look at the range of translations you will see things like lovingkindness and steadfast love. All this variation is because of one Hebrew word:

חםד

This variation occurs because we don't have a direct corollary to hesed in English. The Hebrew concept of this word is vast and relies on history of the people to fully flesh out. All the above translations are correct, yet they don't really get at the complete understanding of the word.

So what does hesed mean?

Well first lets look at Psalm 136. If you look at it in the Hebrew you will find that every single line ends with hesed. (Technically it's hasdow, but that is because the pronoun is part of the word in Hebrew. Ok seriously I'm done with the technical.) What I want you to see is that Psalm 136 is sort of describing what hesed means.

Here we have the Psalmist going through the history of Israel and describing how God protected and cared for them. He starts with the might wondrous miracle of creation. Yet the very next thing is the death of the first born of Egypt. Some might find this odd if we are talking about the love of God. Yet hesed is more than just love. In fact if we look at the rest of the Psalm it talks about striking down kings and bringing Israel into the land.

Now the NIV translates this simply as love. Which I guess is correct, but love is a word that we use so much and is used to translate three separate Greek words. Add to this the fact that we are talking about God striking down kings. Love is really not enough to understand hesed.

The NASB translates hesed as lovingkindness. This is better. But again we might come across the same issues. ESV has steadfast love. Again we see love as part of the translation. It would seem that the translators think this is part of the concept.

Maybe we need to rethink how we view love?

Let's think about what happened to the people of Israel during the time described by Psalm 136. They were in slavery to Egypt for generations. They were forced to build the pyramids for the Pharaohs. This was not a fun family vacation. If we look at Exodus 3 we find that God did not think so either.

“I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey"

We don't ever really know why Israel was enslaved. Often we can look at things like the Babylonian exile and see that Israel turned from God. However that does not matter. What matters here is that God has not left his people. He has determined to save them. God is not going to continue to let His people remain in slavery. Yet to bring them out He must show his power. He must defeat the so called gods of Egypt and slay the first born of Pharaoh. This is the love of God. A love so strong that He is willing to defend His people in any way He can.

I once heard Matt Chandler (yes it's that guy again from this post) talk about the love of God. He made the analogy to himself. Matt is a pacifist. He doesn't want to hurt you. But he also loves his family. And though he is a pacifist he will not hesitate to hurt you if you try and harm his family.

For love to be true love it must also have wrath.

See this concept of hesed is one that is so close to my heart. It is a lesson that God has been teaching me for the last several years. When I did my interpretation of Psalm 136 I chose not to use the word love. Not because I don't think that God loves us. But rather because I think we need a fuller concept of love. For me the love of God is shown through His covenant faithfulness.

God did not abandon Israel and God has not abandoned us either. His love for us is vast and unending. Yet we think that love is a feeling. Not for God. Love is a choice. He chose to die for us. He chose to give up all the privileges afforded Him because He was God and become human. God did not give up on us. In fact God made the first move. With Israel (bringing them out of Egypt) and with us (dying before we were even born). Our God is a God whose covenant faithfulness knows no end.

The hesed of God is something that cannot and will not be stopped. God is faithful. But not only is he faithful, He has promised good to us. That is the covenant part. Not only will God always be there to deliver us, but He has promised to do so. This is the covenant faithfulness of God. He will not break His promise. He will always be faithful.

“Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

In my own life I have wondered if God is really faithful. When my ex-wife and I had a miss carriage God was faithful. When my marriage fell apart God was faithful. When I lost my job as a teacher God was faithful. When I found a new job and remembered my calling God was faithful. When I had to move for the third time in a year God was faithful. When I was provided a home and a living God was faithful.

The hesed of God is not about never having troubles. The hesed of God is about knowing that God will never leave us. It is about knowing that God is faithful to protect us. It is about God remembering His people. When you are in distress remember that God will not leave you there.

May the God who brought Israel out of Egypt save you in your distress. May you grow in your understanding of His hesed. And may His praises ever be on your lips.

Amen!