What Matters

Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips will praise You.  Psalm 63:3 NASB

Better – Let’s correct the syntax.  ki-tov comes first.  “Because good” Your ḥesed me ḥayyîm.  The last phrase (me ḥayyîm) adds the “than life” part.  Min is the preposition of comparison, in this case ki-tov me becomes “better than.”  But min has a very wide range, used in many different ways in thousands of instances.  Perhaps David really is comparing ḥesed with life itself.  If he is, we want to know why?

We know a lot about ḥesed.  It involves four elements at the same time.  First, it is relational.  ḥesed is at home only within some sort of bond.  Family, contract, tribe, covenant, promise—whatever the mutual agreement, that’s the groundwork of ḥesed.  In other words, ḥesed is not unmerited favor, so often associated with the idea of grace.  ḥesedmeans intimate connection.

Second, ḥesed is reciprocal.  It’s the biblical equivalent of an IOU.  What one party does for the other party entails payback, reciprocity, debt.  God’s personal bond with His people, with you and I individually, is bathed in the living waters of mutual obligation.  There is no free lunch, even in heaven.  If God rescues us, then we owe Him, and our response to Him is based on this infinite debt of life, as Moshe Chaim Luzzatto so clearly pointed out.

Third, ḥesed is valid only when it is transitive, that is, when it benefits another who is not part of the original bond.  ḥesedis “pay it forward” in Hebrew.  In the process, it replicates.  In this way, ḥesed is really the essence of Hebrew evangelism.

Finally, ḥesed is action.  It’s not cognitive beliefs.  It’s demonstrable effort.  ḥesed does what matters.

When David says ki-tov ḥesedka me ḥayyîm, he is affirming that God has a covenant bond with him, and that bond confirms commitment even if at this moment it doesn’t feel that way.  That’s why ḥesedka is better than life.  It’s the divine guarantee, good even in the dark.

You know, the truth is that life is unpredictable.  Life is fragile.  It can be snatched away from us without a moment’s warning.  You and I (and David) never know what’s going to happen next.  But ḥesedka isn’t like that.  It’s an everlasting promise independent of all the trauma and tragedy of living.  It is God’s solemn oath that He won’t fail us, won’t leave us, won’t turn away.  That, my friend, really is as good as it gets.

Topical Index:  ḥesedka, ḥesed, ḥayyîm, life, Psalm 63:3