Hesed: The Misunderstood Love

Your lovingkindness is better than life. Psalm 63:3

I had the privilege of growing up in one of America’s first mega churches, the Church of the Open Door in downtown Los Angeles. At the time, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, one of the great Bible expositors of the twentieth century, was the pastor.

Hesed is Nothing Trivial

I remember on a few occasions Dr. McGee discussing the concept of lovingkindness in the Bible. The term “lovingkindness” is the English word most often used to translate the Hebrew “hesed” in the Old Testament, where it occurs over two hundred times.

In his typical homespun way, Dr. McGee would say that there is a difference between kindness and lovingkindness. Kindness is when you ask your mom for bread with butter and she gives you bread with butter. But lovingkindness, or hesed, is when you ask your mom for bread with butter and she gives you bread with butter and jam.

It was a succinct illustration, but, unfortunately, it was inaccurate. The term hesed in the Old Testament involves much more than trivial acts of unexpected kindness.

Hesed Has Dramatic Implications

In reality, hesed in the Bible is a very big deal (See, for example, Psalm 136) and involves complex Hebrew concepts that are difficult to translate in a way that expresses its full and weighty meaning. Entire books have been devoted to explaining what hesed is. One generally agreed upon translation is the rather clunky “covenant keeping love.”

Bible translators use “covenant keeping love” as a translation for hesed because commitment that is motivated by love is one of its key ideas. The following poignant illustration given by Dr. Jim Wilder, and related by Barbara Moon in her post on hesed, is one of the best illustrations of this covenant aspect of hesed that I have read.

A Vivid Demonstration of Hesed

“When I (Dr. Jim Wilder) was about 19, I went to work in a camp that allowed seniors from the city to enjoy a week in the countryside with trees and flowers. One lady at the camp was very annoying. There was a special line at meals for those using walkers and that line was shorter. When the bell rang for people to begin going through the line, this lady rushed in and knocked over people, even those with walkers. She demanded her food and then pigged out. They tried having someone there to keep her at the back of the line, but it didn’t stop her. On top of that she stunk to high heaven. It was really bad. She refused to take a shower; she yelled at people and had a short temper. She was a very unpleasant person. Finally seven lady counselors dragged her screaming and kicking into the showers and gave her a shower. It was awful.

That afternoon I was talking to one of the men from the camp. He knew 19 languages; he was dressed nicely, a refined and educated gentleman who could talk about many subjects. The lady walked by who had been the bane of the camp. I said to the gentleman how glad we all were that they were able to get her cleaned up. The man then said to me, “That lady is my wife.” He then showed me the tattoo on his arm from one of the concentration camps. He said that his wife had been a concert pianist, a sophisticated educated woman. The Nazis had done brain experiments on her. He said, “’She has been this way ever since we were liberated. People say I should put her in a home. I just can’t do it.” At that point the husband had been watching her for over 30 years.

This is hesed. Then it dawned on me why she didn’t want to go to the showers.” (From “What is Hesed?” by Barbara Moon.)

Several elements in Dr. Wilder’s story highlight the covenant nature of hesed.

The Critical Elements of Hesed

First of all, this amazing husband had been caring for his extremely difficult wife for 30 years. As all marriages are, their marriage was a covenant relationship that bound this couple in commitment and fidelity “for better or for worse.” They had freely and joyfully entered into their marriage covenant, even though they could not know all of the ramifications of the commitment they were making. For this couple, the particular circumstances turned out to be “for worse:” the wife became almost impossible to live with.

Furthermore, people on the outside of this marriage counseled the husband to “put her in a home.” But the husband had intimate knowledge of his wife that they did not. He knew what she had been like as a sophisticated and talented young concert pianist. He had shared with her the terror and deprivation of a Nazi concentration camp. He had witnessed the cruel brain experiments that were done to her by Nazi scientists.

Because of this knowledge, he loved his wife with a compassion that made it impossible for him to break his marriage covenant with her. We see this love and compassion in all its glory when he responded to the suggestion of putting his wife away with, “I just can’t do it.”

That is hesed. Someone who is in a covenant relationship with someone else, and who loves them with hesed, feels compelled to keep their covenant even to their own detriment. They have covenant keeping love, not because they feel obligated to keep it, but because they feel compassion for the object of their love and they “just can’t break their covenant.”

At the Core of Hesed is a Compulsion to Keep a Covenant

A biblical and non-marital example of this compulsion to keep a covenant that is driven by compassion, even to one’s own detriment, is Judah offering himself up as a substitute for his brother Benjamin.

“Now then, please let your servant [Judah] remain here as my lord’s [Judah’s unrecognized brother, Joseph] slave in place of the boy [Benjamin], and let the boy return with his brothers. How can I go back to my father [Jacob] if the boy is not with me? No! Do not let me see the misery that would come on my father.” (Genesis 44:33-34)

Judah had sworn to his father Jacob, who had already unknowingly lost his beloved son Joseph at the hands of Judah and his brothers, that he would guarantee Benjamin’s safety while going down to Egypt to get much needed food during a famine.

After witnessing the extreme grief Judah’s previous betrayal of Joseph had caused his father, Judah could not countenance the additional grief that losing another beloved son would cause Jacob. Judah’s compassion for his father Jacob and for his brother Benjamin forced him to keep his covenant to his father even though it meant that he himself would become a slave in Egypt instead of Benjamin.

At this point, we can summarize hesed this way:

Hesed is love that motivates someone to freely obligate themselves with a binding covenant to someone who has, or may come to have, a significant need, for the purpose of meeting that need. They then follow through and fulfill that self imposed obligation regardless of the consequences to themselves – not grudgingly, but out of an irresistible compulsion motivated by compassion.

Hesed is Not Just Covenant Keeping Love But Covenant Making Love

Notice in this summary that hesed can not only be covenant keeping love, but also covenant making love.

In the previous two illustrations, the husband made his marriage commitment to his wife without knowing that she would be tortured by Nazis in a concentration camp and that he would have to care for her for over 30 years, and Judah made his covenant commitment to his father without knowing that he would have to offer himself as a sacrifice for Benjamin.

But sometimes hesed motivates people to enter into a committed covenant relationship with a loved one who is already in extremis. That is, they know full well in advance what sacrifices they will have to make. Thus, the greatest expression of hesed happens when the “for better or for worse” is known from the very beginning; when the critical need happens before the covenant is made and the one loving with hesed choses to obligate themselves anyway.

Ruth entering into a covenant of hesed with the widow Naomi in Ruth 1 beautifully illustrates this type of covenant making love. She knew in advance that Naomi would have no source of income after she returned to Israel. She also knew that she herself was a widow who had been unable to have children with her former husband, and that by accompanying Naomi to Israel she would be an alien in a foreign land with limited prospects.

And yet, knowing all this beforehand, Ruth still solemnly swore to do everything she could to protect Naomi: “May the Lord do this to me (i.e., kill me), and more also, if anything but death separates me from you.” Ruth’s compassion for Naomi in her time of need compelled her to obligate herself to Naomi at great cost to herself – including the loss of her country, her gods, her culture, and her family – from the very beginning. That is covenant making love, not just covenant keeping love.

Understanding Hesed Helps Us Understand God’s Love for Us

Having this deeper understanding of hesed gives us a clearer picture of the kind of love God has for believers.

God has freely obligated himself to us by entering into a covenant relationship with us. That covenant is the New Covenant, as described in communion: “This cup is the New Covenant in my blood which is poured out for you.” (Luke 22:20)
God established this covenant with us knowing in advance that it would cost him his Son. (Ephesians 1:3-10)
Believers enter into this covenant with God through faith in his Son, Jesus Christ, as the one who paid for our sin on the cross. (John 3:16)
Because of his compassionate nature, God is faithful to his covenant with us even when we are not. (2 Timothy 2:13) Thus, God is both a covenant making God and a covenant keeping God.

Understanding Hesed Helps Us Understand How Believers Should Love Each Other

But not only does an understanding of hesed illuminate God’s love for us, it also helps us understand how we are to love our fellow believers; for living in hesed (covenant making and covenant keeping love) with God also means that we live in hesed (covenant making and covenant keeping love) with our fellow believers. “This is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.” (1 John 3:23)

Let us now take the definition of hesed above and apply it specifically to how Christians are to love one another:

Hesed is love that motivates Christians to freely obligate themselves as an expression of their New Covenant relationship to God to their fellow Christians who have, or may come to have, a significant need, for the purpose of meeting that need. Then they follow through and fulfill that self imposed obligation regardless of the consequences to themselves – not grudgingly, but out of an irresistible compulsion motivated by compassion.

We see, then, that practicing hesed within the church has dramatic implications for the body of Christ. The New Testament explicitly states these implications in passages like 1 John 3:16 – “By this we perceive the love of Christ, that he laid down his life for us. And we ought also to lay down our lives for the brethren.” – and Acts 20:35 – “I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.'”

We Cannot Obey Christ’s Command for Us to Love Each Other Without Hesed

Clearly, we cannot obey commands like these without having hesed. If we do not know the extent of a fellow believer’s need, then we cannot practice hesed. Without this knowledge, we will have no compassion. And without compassion, we will not be willing to enter into a covenant that obligates ourselves to fulfill the need. And without a covenant commitment, we will not stick it out long enough to faithfully carry it out.

The absence of hesed makes it just as impossible for believers to love each other the way Christ loves us as it was for the attendees at that adult camp in the illustration above to love the woman who had been abused by Nazi prison guards. Why? Because, unlike her husband, the attendees had no knowledge, no understanding, no compassion and no covenant with her…no hesed.

Furthermore, the church tends to limit hesed to marriage. But while marriage, being itself a covenant of love, is a beautiful example of hesed, marriage is by no means the sole application of it. The radical nature of hesed extends far beyond marriage to the entire body of Christ as an eternal covenant community. Thus, when we fail to practice hesed in the church, we betray our calling.

And finally, there are many people in the church who need hesed but are not getting it. They need a hearing. They need understanding. They need compassion. They need commitment. They need sacrifice. They simply need us to practice our covenant with them. The majority of these believers, but not all of them, is made up of three groups: widows, single moms, and fatherless children. Will believers in churches nationwide take the steps they need to take to express hesed to these often needy fellow believers?

Only time will tell.

This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.

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