Ḥesed and the New Testament

An enlightening and rigorous intertextual analysis of the Hebrew term for devotion and steadfast love in the New Testament.

In the Hebrew Bible, ḥesed (steadfast love, loyalty, devotion) denotes an important concept that is relevant to interpersonal relationships in every generation. In this book, Karen Nelson investigates New Testament engagement with that concept and the exegetical value of recognizing such engagement.

This investigation employs an original hybrid of two methodological approaches: intertextuality, used to consider how New Testament authors appropriate texts that evoke ḥesed or ḥāsîd, and categorization, used to analyze and compare instances of the categories ḥsdand ḥsyd within the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. Nelson’s work challenges assertions that the New Testament equivalent of ḥesed is agapē (love) or charis (grace). Rather, she contends that ḥesed and ḥāsîd are more likely to be evoked by the terms with which they are most often rendered in the Septuagint: eleos and hosios, respectively. Nelson rereads selected New Testament pericopes in light of ḥesed, highlighting points about ongoing devotion to kinship and covenantal relationships often overlooked in those contexts and showing how New Testament authors and figures utilize the ḥesed tradition to critique the contemporary socioreligious situation and encourage belief, enduring commitment, and appropriately changed lifestyles.

Addressing a topic that spans the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, this study will be of value to biblical scholars, especially those who are interested in semantics.