Kindness חֶ֫סֶד

Our word for today is one of my favorite words in the Bible. We are still in Genesis chapter 24 today. חֶ֫סֶד steadfast love, loyalty, joint obligation, faithfulness, loyal love, goodness, unfailing love. It is used 245 times in the Old Testament. This will be hard to keep under a few minutes because it is such a huge concept in God’s word that he doesn’t want us to miss. So we will revisit our word for today in the future. For today let’s look at just a few great examples of this word in the lives of Ruth and King David. Our word is found three times in the book of Ruth. Ruth 1:8 Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show you חֶ֫סֶד kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. Ruth 2:20 “The Lord bless him!” Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. “He has not stopped showing his חֶ֫סֶד kindness to the living and the dead.” She added, “That man is our close relative; he is one of our guardian-redeemers. Ruth 3:10 “The Lord bless you, my daughter,” he replied. “This חֶ֫סֶד kindness is greater than that which you showed earlier: You have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor. Now the present kindness Boaz is referring to is her interest in him as a husband. But here is the great picture of the fullness of this word. Boaz refers to an earlier kindness. He is referring to Ruth’s not leaving her mother-in-law but staying with her. We see this word lived out in Ruth 1:14-17 At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her. “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.” But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” Now that is a beautiful picture of unfailing steadfast love and of faithful kindness. It is hard to translate this word with just one word. Back to our chapter. The servant asks God for his kindness in the task he swore on oath to accomplish. Genesis 24:12 Then he prayed, “Lord, God of my master Abraham, make me successful today, and show חֶ֫סֶד kindness to my master Abraham. Genesis 24:14 May it be that when I say to a young woman, ‘Please let down your jar that I may have a drink,’ and she says, ‘Drink, and I’ll water your camels too’—let her be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown חֶ֫סֶד kindness to my master. If find this interesting that the servant is asking God to show him kindness in a way that will show if this woman is also kind because she is not only caring about him but also his animals. The servant knows God is kind which he probably learned from Abraham and his own relationship with God. One of the big words of how God defines himself is with this word. Exodus 34:6-7 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in חֶ֫סֶד unfailing love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Our word is the Old Testament word for the New Testament word Grace. Which is why it is such a huge concept. God doesn’t want us to miss out on how much he loves us. There is so much more but for today I will close with how David uses the word in the most popular Psalm of all. Psalm 23:6 Surely your goodness and חֶ֫סֶד love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. What makes this amazing is the word for follow, which we will look at on another day, is the word for hunt or persecute. So God hunts us down with his love. He pursues us he doesn’t give up on us. His love is unfailing.