“Everlasting Kindness”

K. Douglas Bassett

(Isa. 54:8; D&C 133:52–53, 56)

God’s love is complete and without limit for you and for all mankind… . He is perfectly kind and understands your circumstances and condition. He knows you better than you know yourself.
Because your Heavenly Father is perfect, you can have complete faith in Him. You can trust Him.

(Joseph B. Wirthlin, Ensign, Nov. 1999, 38.)

The relationship between the Savior and Zion is one of “everlasting kindness.” The Hebrew word for kindness is hesed, which has connotations of mercy, courtship, favors, loyalty, cherishing, marital duty, and constant attention. The mercy of the Lord is linked with the intimacy of kindness within the family. The earliest known source for the English word kindness is the reconstructed Indo-European root gen-, meaning “to give birth, beget; with derivatives referring to … procreation and to familial and tribal groups.” Several other terms come from the same root as kindness: kin, king, kindred, and kinder (the German word for “children”), gentile, gentle, generation, genealogy, genesis, progenitor, pregnant, natal, nation, nativity. Such terms of kindness and relationship are woven throughout the scriptures as a testimony of the Savior.

(Cynthia L. Hallen, “Redeeming the Desolate Woman,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, vol. 7, no. 1:45.)

Commentaries on Isaiah: In the Book or Mormon

References