BSN: lovingkindness

  • “lovingkindness” appears 182 times in the 1995 NASB, all in the Old Testament. The 2020 NASB omits the use of “lovingkindness” altogether; it appears to render the word as “faithfulness” in many of the cases but nowhere near all.
  • According to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, the underlying Hebrew word is “chesed” which means “goodness” or “kindness,” and appears 239x in the Hebrew OT.
  • This is a word not commonly seen in modern American writing. A search of Ps 25:10 (which contains the word “lovingkindness”) on BibleGateway.com shows, of the 55 English translations they cover, this word is translated in the following ways:
    • “lovingkindness” – 9x
    • “loving” – 9x
    • “steadfast love” – 9x
    • “faithful love” – 2x
    • “faithfulness” – 2x
    • “kind” – 3x
    • “kindness” – 2x
    • “mercy” – 13x
    • and about a dozen other assorted other words, including “grace,” “love,” “gracious love,” “loyal love,” and “unfailing love.”
  • We should not be surprised that “the God-kind-of-love” would be hard to translate, much less define. Especially give how our culture misuses and abuses the word “love.”
  • “God is love” – 1 John 4:8, 16 – The biblical statement “God is love” cannot be understood apart from what God did through Jesus Christ.
  • In Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life we see Him performing miracles rooted in what would have to be called “lovingkindness” – the kind God displayed in the Old Testament. He was compassionate, He was kind.