Some words carry so much that every translation of them leaks. The Hebrew word חֶסֶד, usually written ḥesed or chesed, is one of them. It appears about 250 times in the Old Testament, around half of them in the Psalms. It is at the centre of how Israel described God, and of how Israelites were expected to treat one another. English Bibles have tried “mercy”, “kindness”, “lovingkindness”, “steadfast love”, “loyalty”, “faithful love” and more. Each says something true, and each leaves something out.
What the word holds
Start with a story rather than a definition. In the book of Ruth, two young widows set out with their mother-in-law Naomi for Bethlehem. Naomi stops on the road and tells them to go home:
But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go home, both of you, each to the house of your mother. May the LORD show you faithful love, just as you showed it to the men who died and to me.
The meaning decision for this verse describes ḥesed as goodness shown out of loyalty, more than duty requires, to someone to whom one is bound. The young women owed Naomi nothing more. Their husbands were dead, and custom would have let them go home and remarry. They had kept faith anyway. Naomi asks God to keep faith with them in the same way.
Later, Ruth goes to Boaz at night and asks him to act as the family’s redeemer and marry her. He answers:
He said, “May the LORD bless you, my daughter! This faithful love you have shown now is greater than what you showed before, since you have not looked to the young men for a husband, whether poor or rich.
The record explains the two acts. The first was most likely Ruth leaving her own land to care for Naomi. The second is this request: instead of choosing a husband for herself, she has chosen a marriage that will keep her dead husband’s name and Naomi’s family line alive. That is ḥesed: love that sees what a relationship calls for and then goes further than anyone could demand.
Three things come together in the word, and English rarely gets all three into one phrase:
- loyalty: it is shown within a bond, such as a family, a friendship, a promise or a covenant;
- kindness: it is warm and generous, not grudging;
- action: it is something done, not only felt. People “do” or “show” ḥesed.
God’s own name
The most important use of the word comes on Mount Sinai. Israel has just made the golden calf, and Moses has asked to see God’s glory. God passes by and proclaims his name:
The LORD passed in front of Moses and called out, “The LORD, the LORD, a God of tender compassion and grace, slow to grow angry, rich in faithful love and in truth,
The word is חֶ֥סֶד, and the next verse adds that God keeps it “for thousands” while still not leaving the guilty unpunished. The meaning decision describes it as kindness and love that are loyal to a relationship and do not give up. It is the love God promised in the commandments (20:6) and showed in bringing his people out of Egypt (15:13).
These verses become Israel’s confession of who God is. The record lists the places that echo them: Numbers 14:18, Psalms 86:15, 103:8 and 145:8, Nehemiah 9:17, Joel 2:13 and Jonah 4:2. Jonah quotes them as a complaint: he ran away because he knew God was like this, and that he would spare Nineveh.
Psalm 136 turns the word into a refrain. Every one of its twenty-six verses ends with the same three words, כִּ֖י לְעוֹלָ֣ם חַסְדּֽוֹ, “for his loyal love lasts forever”:
Give the LORD thanks, for he is good; his loyal love lasts forever.
The psalm walks through creation, the exodus and the gift of the land, and after each line the people answer with the refrain. The record notes that the same call to give thanks was sung when the ark came to Jerusalem and when the temple was dedicated.
Why each English word falls short
”Mercy.” This is the oldest English rendering, and it came by way of Greek and Latin. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, usually rendered ḥesed with eleos, “mercy, pity”. Jerome’s Latin used misericordia. The King James Version often says “mercy”, and Psalm 136 in that version repeats “for his mercy endureth for ever”. But mercy is pity shown to someone who has no claim on you, often someone in the wrong. Ruth was not being merciful to Naomi. Mercy catches the generosity in ḥesed and loses the loyalty.
Lamentations 3:22 shows the difference. It puts ḥesed and the Hebrew word for mercy side by side:
It is by the LORD’s loyal love that we have not been wiped out, for his mercies have not failed.
The first line has חַֽסְדֵ֤י, the plural of ḥesed: the Lord’s many acts of loyal love. The second line has raḥămîm, a word related to the word for the womb, the tender feeling of a parent for a child. The record keeps them apart: “loyal love” for the first and “mercies” for the second, at every level. If both were “mercy”, the verse would say the same thing twice.
”Lovingkindness.” This word was coined for the Bible. It is usually credited to Miles Coverdale, whose English Bible of 1535 used it in the Psalms, and the King James Version kept it in many places. It is a good attempt: it joins love and kindness into one word. But it is no longer ordinary English, and it misses the loyalty, the sense that this kindness is owed within a bond and kept over time.
”Kindness.” Too weak on its own. A stranger can be kind once. Ḥesed is the kindness of someone who stays.
”Loyalty.” This catches the bond but loses the warmth. A soldier can be loyal to a commander he dislikes. Ḥesed is loyalty with love in it.
”Steadfast love.” The Revised Standard Version made this phrase familiar from 1952, and several translations since have followed. It is probably the closest common English phrase, joining love and constancy. Its weakness is that “steadfast” is a word most people rarely use, and it sounds more like a feeling that endures than like loyalty within a relationship.
Scholars have argued over which side of the word matters most. Nelson Glueck, in a study first published in German in 1927, stressed mutual obligation within a relationship: ḥesed as the conduct a bond requires. Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, in The Meaning of Hesed in the Hebrew Bible (1978), stressed freedom: it is help given by someone able to give it, to someone in real need, within a relationship, when the giver could have refused. Most readers now hold both together. The word is loyal, and it is free.
What Open Word Bible does
The records use a small set of renderings, chosen so that each one keeps the loyalty in the word. A rendering decision at Ruth 1:8 says it directly: “kindness” alone would leave the loyalty out.
In the Law, the historical books and Ruth, the Literal level says “steadfast love” and the Balanced and Readable levels say “faithful love”. So in Exodus 34:6 God is “great in steadfast love” at Literal and “rich in faithful love” at Balanced. Joshua 2:12, where Rahab asks the spies to show her family the ḥesed she has shown them, and 2 Samuel 9:1, where David looks for someone of Saul’s house to show ḥesed to for Jonathan’s sake, follow the same pattern.
In the Psalms and the prophets, the Literal and Balanced levels say “loyal love” and Readable says “faithful love”. That is what you see in Psalm 136 and in Lamentations 3:22 above.
The difference is in wording only. The meaning decisions describe the same sense in every one of these places: love that keeps faith within a bond. The two wordings were set in the term tables for different groups of books, and the project’s notes flag one place where they meet awkwardly: when Joel and Jonah quote Exodus 34:6, they do not yet agree with each other. That is an open question for review, and one wording is to be chosen for those quotations.
Some verses depart from the pattern, each with a recorded reason.
- Genesis 24:27. Abraham’s servant praises God for not withdrawing “his loyalty and his faithfulness” from his master. Balanced turns the pair into “He has not stopped being kind and true to my master”, and Readable says God “has kept his loving promises”.
- Esther 2:9. Esther “won kindness” before the official in charge of the women. A meaning decision explains that here, with a superior who shows it, the word means goodwill, and a rendering decision says that the usual “faithful love” would mislead. Balanced says “won his favor”.
- Micah 6:8. The prophet’s summary of what God asks is “to do justice, to love ḥesed, and to walk humbly with your God”. The Hebrew puts the verb “love” in front of the noun, and “to love loyal love” is hard English. By the founder’s ruling Literal keeps it, Balanced says “to love loyalty”, and Readable says “to love being kind and loyal”. The rendering decision notes that the departure is in wording only.
- Isaiah 40:6. “All flesh is grass, and all its ḥesed is like the flower of the field.” Said of people, the word means their faithfulness, which does not last. The records say “loyalty” at Literal and Balanced and “faithfulness” at Readable, and a footnote notes that the Septuagint reads “glory” here, the form 1 Peter 1:24 quotes.
When the Greek says “mercy”
One case shows why the project translates each text from its own language. Hosea 6:6 says:
For I want loyal love, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
Many English Bibles say “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice” here, because that is how the line reads in Greek, and Jesus quotes it twice in Matthew (9:13; 12:7). A footnote explains the choice. Matthew gives the words in Greek, where the word is “mercy”, and Matthew is translated as Matthew. Hosea is translated from the Hebrew, and Hosea’s word is wider: loyal love toward God and toward others. When Jesus applies the saying to showing mercy to tax collectors and to hungry disciples, he takes up one part of what the word means.
A word to read slowly
Because no single English word will do, it helps to know what is underneath. When you read “steadfast love”, “faithful love” or “loyal love” in Open Word Bible, the word behind it is the same, and it means the love of someone who has bound themselves to you and will not let go. Ruth showed it to Naomi. Jonathan asked David for it and David kept it. And it is the word God chose, on the mountain, to say who he is.
The records are in the reader: Open Ruth 1, Open Exodus 34, Open Psalm 136 and Open Hosea 6. For a related question about how a translation handles God’s name in Exodus 34:6, see The divine name in translation.