Mercy in Scripture

The English word “mercy” is pivotal in all the English Bible.  I say English Bible, because it’s tough to accommodate the main Hebrew word translated “mercy” with just “mercy.”  It is the Hebrew word, chesed.  Maybe you’ve even heard someone say that word in a sermon or class.  Maybe you know Hebrew.

Forms of the English word mercy, which include mercies and merciful, occur 361 times in the King James Version.  The Old Testament usages are not always chesed, but they are mainly chesed, and the Hebrew Old Testament uses that word 261 times.  The first time chesed appears in the Old Testament (Genesis 19:19), the King James Version translates it “mercy.”  The next time in Genesis 20:13, the KJV translates it “kindness.”

I say “colossal emphasis put on mercy in the Bible” because forms of the word “grace” are found 204 times.  “Goodness” is found 50 times.  Yes, “love” is a lot — 310 uses of the noun form in the English.  The adding of the related words to love, including the verb forms, sees “love” in a greater place in the Bible.

Undeserved

Very often when I’ve read about chesed, defining it as “lovingkindness,” and yet it’s main historic English translation is “mercy.”  At the root of this attribute of God and transient attribute, because God allows and even requires mercy from man, is the undeservedness of the recipients.  Mercy is the flip side of justice.  The recipients of God’s mercy deserve justice but receive mercy.  In this is the withholding of punishment deserved.

I want to focus on the first usage in the New Testament in the Sermon on the Mount by Jesus in Matthew 5:7:  “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.”  There are six Greek words in that verse, two of which are related:  eleemon and eleeo.  The first is an adjective, “merciful,” and the second is a verb, “they shall obtain mercy.”

Salvation Evidence

The beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount provide first entrance requirements (5:3-6) and then expected outcomes (5:7-12).  The expected outcomes give the audience the evidence of salvation.  The first evidence or outcome revealed by Jesus:  mercy.  Based on the order, it is the fundamental attribute that indicates salvation in a person.

You can see mercy as the expected outcome of the righteous in the Old Testament.

Hosea 6:6, “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.”

Micah 6:8, “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”

God could just immediately destroy anyone based on what they’ve done.  He doesn’t because mercy characterizes Him.  This is not His nature.  When He saves someone, mercy becomes their nature.

Mercy at the Bottom of Goodness

In recent days, I wrote the following:

Habakkuk 1:13 says about God, “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil.” He can’t even behold evil. Yet, God withholds from men the punishment for sin, and that’s even before salvation. No one would make it to his salvation without the mercy of God. Then after God saves a person, he does not live sinless perfection.

You reader do not live sinless perfection. Yet God doesn’t kill you immediately for that. Mercy should motivate surrender to Jesus Christ. Then once someone receives Jesus Christ, God’s mercy is far, far more than enough to sustain constant living for God, faithfulness to Him and His Word, and continuous love for Him. Think mercy. Mercy, mercy, mercy.

Every goodness every person experiences finds mercy at the bottom of it.  No one deserves it, but deserves just the opposite.

The Mother’s Womb

A common word translated mercy in the Old Testament, rachamim, has at its root, the word “womb.”  When you do a search on the root of the word, “womb” comes up again and again.  Womb?  Yes.  In the womb, the connection forms between child and mother.  Consider Jeremiah 31:20 when you think of “womb” and “mercy”:

Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the LORD.

God made man in His image.  The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have a connection to men.  The goodness men receive evinces the connection God has.

Mothers as a strong instinct do not want the destruction of their children, even when they sin against her.  Notice then this in Jesus in Matthew 23:37:

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

Despite Israel’s treatment of God, this was God’s sentiment toward Israel.  Mercy offers vivification for every human spirit against the bad all around the world.  It’s there to embrace and enjoy.  If you haven’t received Jesus Christ, let mercy provide the impetus to come to Him.