God everlasting “Hesed”
August 18, 2023 - Friday, 19th Week in Ordinary Time
Psalm 136:1-3, 16-18, 21-22 and 24
Psalm 136 is a thanksgiving hymn that praises the Lord for his everlasting “hesed”. You are probably wondering what the word “hesed” means. Well, it is hard to translate it into other languages. In our English liturgical translation, it is rendered as “mercy”. In other English versions of the Bible, it is translated as “steadfast love”. The Polish translators rendered it as “grace”. And I once mentioned in our podcast that someone explained it as “love that will never let you go”. So, what is the meaning of this Hebrew word that appears in every verse of Psalm 136?
We encounter “hesed” in the famous passage from Exodus 34:6, where God passed before Moses and declared that he abounds in “hesed”. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines this virtue as “loftiness of spirit enabling one to bear trouble calmly, to disdain meanness and pettiness, and to display a noble generosity”. Saint John Paul II describes “hesed” as “a profound attitude of goodness”. Then he further clarifies its meaning by stating that “hesed” is “love that gives, love more powerful than betrayal, grace stronger than sin” (see Dives in Misericordia).
The psalmist sees God’s “hesed” in the act of creation, in the liberation of Israel from slavery in Egypt, in defeating Israel’s enemies, and in granting them the land to live in. Finally, the psalmist directs our eyes to the natural world and helps us to see that God’s providential care over every created being is also rooted in God’s “hesed”: “He gives food to all flesh, for his ‘hesed’ is everlasting” (Ps 136:25). The psalmist stresses the fact that the Lord’s “hesed” is perpetual. The Lord was, is, and always be magnanimous to all his creatures.
If we want to grasp the meaning of the word “hesed” we need to look into the New Testament and contemplate the life of Jesus. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of “hesed”. His various miracles, his concern for sinners and the downtrodden, and finally, his death on the cross as a ransom for our sins, reveal the meaning of this word. This is indeed “love that gives”, mercy that forgives, and “grace stronger than sin”.
There is a Chinese Christian song that declares that the Lord, like the sun, never changes. “Hesed” is part of his never-changing character. And we can be assured that nothing can separate us from God’s love that we experience in Christ Jesus (see Rom 8:38-39). His profound goodness and magnanimity towards us and all his creatures is everlasting.