God's loving-kindness
How hesed is central to God's revelation of Himself
The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
Psalms 103:8
This is part of an occasional series of meditations on Psalm 103.
We’re not capable of peering into God’s essence. It will remain remote from us until we meet God face to face. Even the voice of God is not God is his essence, although it can reveal certain things about Him.
Perhaps the most repeated quality of God in the Hebrew Scripture is hesed. The profound depths of the word mean any translation will come up short, but we come closest in English by calling it loving-kindness.
The word is used 245 times in the OT, with half of them appearing in the Psalms alone. It appears in line 8 of Psalm 103 as “steadfast love.” Covenant love, merciful kindness, unfailing love, faithfulness, loyal love: these are all ways to understand it.1 In Psalm 144, it is even used to address God directly: Ani Hesed, “My loyal Love.” In medieval Jewish mysticism, it is one of the ten sefirot, or emanations, by which God is known in the world.
Taken together, the qualities of God in this verse–mercy, patience, generosity, and steadfast love–help us to know God by what He does, and how He acts toward His people. This action is manifested most dramatically in the Exodus, and the phrasing of this passage is a direct quote from Exodus 34:6
“So the LORD passed before him and proclaimed: The LORD, the LORD, a God gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in love and fidelity.” Ex 34:6
This a deliberate choice: the Psalmist is looking back to a moment that testifies to all these qualities of God, and none did so more than the Exodus, until Jesus came and laid down his life for us. The formula is found in Psalm 86:15, as well as Joel 2:13, Neh 9:17 & 31, and Psalm 145.
It shouldn’t surprise us that St. Paul, reaching for a way to describe God, chooses to invoke this formula in Romans:
“Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” Romans 2:4.
I recently read someone mocking the idea of “kindness” in Christianity as somehow opposed to the truth or weak, when in fact hesed, loving-kindness, is one of the most prominent qualities attributed to God. And mercy is so important that the word for it (rahum) appears in Psalm 103 as a noun, a verb, and an adjective.
Setting kindness in opposition to truth is merely allowing a sentimental understanding of the word to erode its true meaning. God’s kindness is the kindness of a parent for a child: a gentle, loving guidance through a world that can be harsh and difficult. There is no weakness in being kind. Every parent knows that being kind to a child may mean refusing the child what he wants. None of these qualities can be separated from another.
“Slow to anger” is literally “long of nose” (erek’appayim), a Hebrew idiom meaning patient, since increased breathing is associated with rising anger. A quick-tempered person is literally “short-nosed.” Hebrew frequently somatizes: explaining emotions with physical analogies. As for God’s graciousness (hannun), it describes His generosity in bestowing gifts and blessings upon those He loves.
Hesed is not just a sign of the covenant or even its renewal, but its overwhelming abundance reveals a God worthy of worship, and gives shape and dimension to our lives. In Ps 103:7 God makes himself known, and in Ps 103:9–10 He forgives. In between the two, we learn what He reveals and why He forgives: because his loving kindness is infinite, while our sins are finite. His forgiveness is essential to His being, because his mercy, generosity, kindness, and love transcend time and space.
When the Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity, comes, it is to manifest this abundant loving-kindness. That’s what it means to say God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. All four of the qualities ascribed to God in this verse appear in St. Paul’s description of love from 1 Cor. 13: love is patient, kind, merciful, and generous.
Thus, in a sense, we can say that “God is Hesed,” and this provides a beautiful symmetry with the Old Testament, and in particular the hesed-dominated Psalms. We should meditate on each Psalm as if it is spoken by Jesus. In this case, He is telling some crucial about who He is, and how we can be more like him.
Prayer
Lord, you have shown us your loving-kindness in your patience, forgiveness, and generosity. May we, in turn, pass those gifts on to our children and all those whose lives we touch day in and day out.
Meditation
How does Jesus show us his hesed throughout the Gospels, and how does this tell us us he is the Logos.
Notes in Fourth Week of Lent
I’m still figuring out just what a Substack is. A pseudo-blog? A newsletter? Both? Neither? Anyway, I read some that include multiple sections and more personal bits to make it a little more newslettery, like the annual Xeroxed Christmas report we used to get from an aunt telling everyone how wonderful everything was when, in fact, Cousin Joe was doing 3 months in county for a D&D. I thought I’d add some personal chatter to the end of this meditation for those who might be interested.
Quotes
“The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”–Samuel Johnson
“To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.” ―T.S. Eliot
“This habit of reading, I make bold to tell you, is your pass to the greatest, the purest, and the most perfect pleasure that God has prepared for His creatures. It lasts when all other pleasures fade. It will support you when all other recreations are gone. It will last until your death. It will make your hours pleasant to you as long as you live.”–Anthony Trollope
The Life of a Deacon
We’re getting into to the Busy Season here and the schedule is already filling up. On the horizon for me between now and Easter:
2 masses per weekend
6 baptisms
2 convalidations
1 funeral and committal (so far)
1 week of bereavement duty
Leading Stations, with benediction and adoration
Leading a rosary and giving a brief talk on JP2 to the Holy Rosary Society
Rehearsal for Confirmation
Confirmation
Confirmation reception
Teaching
Hospital duty
A full day of Pre-Cana
OCIA brunch
Holy Thursday
Good Friday
Vigil rehearsal
Vigil
2 Easter masses
Plus work, and all the usual personal stuff like dentists and car repairs
And the absolute certainty that I’ve forgotten something.
And yet with all that, it’s a rewarding ministry and I’m blessed to be able to do it.
Media
Devotional Reading: Michael Casey, The Longest Psalm (ongoing), Bede Jarrett, Returning to the Lord (Lent), Divine Intimacy (occasional), Bernard of Clairvaux: Sermons for Lent (Lent, half off on Amazon right now)
Other Reading: Arthur Conan Doyle: Gothic Tales (re-read), Anthony Trollope: The Vicar of Bullhampton.
Recently Finished:Balzac: Colonel Chabert, Ross Douthat: Believe.
Occasional Reading: Complete Peanuts 1959–1960, Samuel Johnson “Rambler” columns, Ronald Knox: The Layman and His Conscience.
On Deck: Proust: Sodom and Gomorrah, Kingsnorth: The Wake
Watched this Week: Reacher Season 3, Mexican Hayride (Abbott and Costello).
Played: I played games for four reviews this month: Tree Society (board), Command of Nature (board), Ark Nova (Steam), Pairs and Perils (Steam). I also researched and wrote about Conquian, the source of most Rummy games.
On WeirdCatholic.com this week:
Substacks I Recommend:
The Catholic NAB translates it as “abounding in mercy,” which is baffling considering that the verse begins with the word for mercy (rahum). Indeed, the NAB consistently just uses “mercy” for hesed—more than half the time. See below:
It would be super-great if the American church had an official translation that wasn’t so awful.