Few ideas resonate as deeply in both Jewish and Christian tradition as the idea of the everlasting covenantal fidelity of God to the faithful. It is the idea that empowers and motivates individuals and communities to engage the texts where it is so eloquently expressed as a basis for social identity, personal morality, and spiritual gravity. Within the Hebrew Scriptures, this idea is most often expressed via the Hebrew word ḥesed, but this term cannot easily be translated into a simple English-language parallel due to the diversity of purposes it serves in the texts that enshrine it. In some cases, ḥesed expresses the idea of a binding love that the divine has for all creation; in others, it characterizes aspects of the formal relationship between God and Biblical Israel in both monarchic and non-monarchic terms. And it also may denote a cosmic principle that expresses the relationship between Heaven, Earth, and all points in between. In viewing the aggregate tradition of Hebrew Scripture, ḥesed is perhaps best defined as the enduring, steadfast, and loving loyalty of God for humanity, emerging in diverse forms throughout the unfurling of their relationship over time.

The Psalms are especially rich with these various understandings of ḥesed. Post-biblical Jewish liturgy, for example, draws from two collections known as the hallel (“praise”) recited on special holidays in remembrance of hallowed antiquity and to sanctify the present. In these collections, ḥesed is the repeated focus of meditation and the concept upon which sanctification turns (e.g. Psalms 145:8; 147:11). It is not only God’s ḥesed that maintains holiness and orders the world; it is the duties of the faithful—the hasidim—to share in this task (Pss. 116:15; 148:14; 149:9; see further below). It is with this in mind that we periodically encounter the petitioner appealing to God’s ḥesed not only as the reason for why his or her prayers should be affirmed by the divine but also as the reason for the petitioner’s right to utter the prayer in the first place because God’s ḥesed empowered the community of faith to exist all together. Psalm 136 exemplifies this understanding in a liturgical context, with the refrain “for his ḥesed endures forever” providing an explanation for how Israel may account for its own history:

In such proclamations of faith, the petitioner affirms that it is ḥesed that allows the petitioner the right to countenance the divine majesty, for all the people live and breathe as extensions of it. We might profitably compare this to God’s response to Job that relativizes Job’s cosmic stature in comparison to the divine: in God’s view, Job is but a tiny speck of matter in the universe and cannot ever understand God’s inscrutable ways. The petitioner in hymns such as Psalm 136, however, appeals to God’s ḥesed while doing that for which Job is criticized, namely, defining and discerning the ways of God in the world and in history. Ḥesed here is the vehicle that not only provides him with the means to recall God’s great deeds but to qualify them in relation to himself and his community. It is a powerful force that transforms the individual into a beneficiary of a collective relationship with the divine that long preceded him and which will certainly extend beyond his own lifetime.

If ḥesed is a dimension of the human relationship to God that allows for the inscrutable to become defined, it is also a form of revelation that infuses history with mythic and spiritual meaning. It should therefore not surprise us that some of the most prominent discourses on ḥesed are in the oracles of the prophets. Perhaps the most famous of these is the “Promise to David” in 2 Samuel 7, conveyed through the oracle of the prophet Nathan, which lays out the divine intention for a Davidic dynasty over Israel. A central motif in Nathan’s oracle is that the enduring nature of the dynasty is bound by God’s enduring commitment to David’s descendants, from Solomon onward:

This sentiment, that closes the Promise to David, positions God’s ḥesed as a cornerstone of the monarchic society established by David and that was inherited by his offspring. The divine favor, blessing, and protection offered by God to the founder will be sustained in later generations, irrespective of the failings of individual kings who would come to sit on David’s throne. Many view this divine grant as part of a contractual relationship of sorts: David’s son will build God a temple, and in return God offers his ḥesed to David’s lineage, ensuring their place in Israel’s history and religion. But a subtlety within the biblical text cited above shows that there is more at work here than a simple quid pro quo contract. In Nathan’s oracle, God states that David’s son may build him a temple, but he will establish his throne forever, and his ḥesed will never depart. The implication is that the building of a temple for God may certainly be a pious gesture, but it pales in comparison to the gift of ḥesed that God bestows unto David and his lineage. This gift outshines the physical structure of a temple that was eventually destroyed by Babylon (in 587 BCE). Nathan’s oracle makes clear that God’s ḥesed will sustain the idea of a king over Israel even after the monarchic period comes to an end—human kingship is simply a symbol of a far grander divine kingship and, to be sure, a far grander divine kingdom.

Ḥesed becomes a recurring motif in subsequent prophetic oracles that offer insights into the expansive nature of this grander realm under the aegis of a divine king. It emerges prominently in the oracles preserved in the book of Isaiah, especially in chapters 40–66:

Most scholars identify these verses with writers who worked toward the end of the Babylonian Exile (ca. 550–540 BCE) or the beginning of the Restoration under the Persian Empire (ca. 538–500 BCE); for these writers, God’s ḥesed is no longer simply a matter of royal status but—as already implied in Nathan’s oracle—the force that expands and offers redemption for all Israel and which indeed orders the cosmos. As Israelite religion began to evolve into the earliest form of ancient Judaism, ḥesed became a primary concept for identifying how a person of faith could find a sure foothold and position of safety in an ever changing, ever-more complex social and political universe. One of the most moving examples of this is in the prayer of Daniel—part of a late work composed in the Hellenistic period (ca. 165 BCE)—where the realization of peace and an end to suffering in spiritual exile for all Jews will occur only through God’s ḥesed (Dan 9:18). Indeed 1–2 Maccabees similarly identifies those who fought for the survival of Judaism in the face of Greek threats to hasidim (1 Macc 2:13–14; 2 Macc 14:6; akin to terms from the Psalter discussed above). The enduring loyalty God first granted to David and his descendants became the public trust of the Jewish people, and something worth defending. God’s ḥesed offered sustenance to the community of the faithful even as this same community sustained it as a bedrock of identity, anticipating an eventual return of Davidic kingship and ultimate restoration to political and spiritual autonomy.

About the author

Mark Leuchter wrote one article for this publication.

Professor Leuchter received his PhD from the Centre for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto in 2003. He currently serves as the series editor for Perspectives in Biblical Literature for Gorgias Press, is a member of the editorial board for the journal Biblical Theology Bulletin, is on the steering committee for the Society of Biblical Literature, Literature of Exile/Forced Migration Consultation group, co-chairs both the Literature and History of the Persian Period group (with Anselm Hagedorn, Berlin) and the Priests and Levites in Social and Literary Context group (with Jeremy Hutton, Princeton Theological Seminary) for the annual SBL meetings, and is program unit coordinator for the Bible and Cinema section at the International SBL meetings.

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