What Is God's Steadfast Love?

*God’s mercy and truth *watch over the king *as the steadfast foundation *to his throne *with lovingkindness. (mast)

Proverbs 20:28 (NKJV)

28 Mercy and truth preserve the king, And by lovingkindness he upholds his throne.

*[God’s mercy and truth] literally, mercy and truth, but this Hebrew noun hesed at its core meaning is always about God’s covenant love. Therefore it is often translated as lovingkindness. So this is not founded upon any human understanding of mercy, which is often conditional through human standards. Therefore, neither of these terms are to be left naked and empty by defining it through a group of men watching over the king with a ‘common’ mercy and bond of loyalty according to their own standards.

No, this hesed comes down directly from the covenant of love in Israel’s unconditional election to be preserved in the shadow of the elect substitute that secured Israel’s calling out from Egypt, and for the purpose of their election as the head of nations, for she was never chosen to be the tail of Christ’s headship over the nations (Dt.28:13), but it is Christ alone who fulfills this covenant for her; therefore it will only be by the acceptance of his headship that she will be restored as head of the nations (Dt.28:44; James 1:17; Rev.21:2). So I find it essential to include these two terms of truth in association with the unconditional covenant of the Father’s love for the kingdom of the Son (Col.1:13). Therefore translators sometimes emphasize the noun hesed as the steadfast love (of God), zeroing in on God’s determination to uphold the promises of his love in his people (Zech.9:16; Matt.1:21).

The following Hebrew noun (truth) is in the feminine form of trustworthiness. The promises of this covenant can be trusted. While the Hebrew term hesed is in the absolute form, describing the engine or motivation, which is of God’s initiative in Christ’s keeping of the covenant on man’s behalf, the additional term for truth is added to the first hesed by describing the state or condition of the verb that is defining the purpose of the king, who by the way represents both God to the people and the people to God as the slave or servant to the covenant of God’s righteousness (Job. 33:23; Gal.3:20; 1Tim.2:5). So, in reality, the king is the embodiment of mercy and truth (in the form and likeness of a man) according to God’s covenant of grace and election in the children of Israel (Rom.6:17). Therefore, the king (and the court of his sovereign choice) is to be honored as trustworthy because of the hesed Yahweh has entered into with, in honor of the king and all he represents globally (1Cor 1:27; Eph.5:23; Col.1:18). So this hesed is circular in nature as the court of the king revolves around the covenant (or the book of the law in this case). In practical terms, the king is nothing more than God’s covenant working itself out in the courts of the law as he represents the individual people of the covenant (Phil.2:12). And of course, it is pointing forward to Christ and him crucified, fulfilling both the covenant of God’s mercy and truthfulness and establishing the new covenant with Christ’s resurrection life as the King of kings in his death as the King of the Jews (Jn.19:22).

*[watch over the king] literally, to keep. Again, as the feminine noun faithfulness defines the verb, it is aiding the definition of the verb in the ‘steadfast’ action of fulfilling the covenant (Rev.3:14; 19:11; 22:6). This hesed or steadfast love faithfully keeps or preserves us as the loyal subjects of the covenant that the king appointed for its physical representation. Therefore the covenant is ‘living and active’ in the people of the court to uphold the seat of the king’s judgments. It says that the king is not acting on his own authority as a dictator but is proceeding, operating, and functioning out of this hesed that comes from above. So there is this guardianship of the king in preparation to the one chosen to be seated upon the throne of the covenant’s true representation (Gal.4:1-7). However, the embodiment of this hesed is in everyone that observes the covenant and continues to have a love for its fidelity (1Tim.2:15). These watchers are the loyal workers that love the truth and trustworthiness of the covenant’s testimony. They believe in its standards and principles of love, which creates this faithfulness and loyalty to its precepts in each of them (Rev.1:6; 1Pet.2:9).

*[as the steadfast foundation] conjunctively, to support. As this verb runs in conjunction with the noun hesed and the feminine form of truth, she acts as the active subject like a verbal noun such as the term foundation. About the hesed, the covenant of grace, this mercy and loyalty is the strength and support of the king’s throne. So as this covenant guards and protects the earthly position of this throne, it is the foundation of the earthly representation of the image of God’s heavenly throne. The King’s ‘hesed’ comes down from above to establish this earthly throne. And so the action of the verb is conjunctive (with) the consistent and constant lovingkindness that is poured out from the mercy and faithfulness of the heavenly throne like concrete into a mold to uphold and sustain itself in the image of love in the person of Jesus Christ (Jude 20-25). Also, we should make a point to notice the definite article that is absent from all the known translations. The direct article points out that this hesed is rooted in the covenant that ordains this ‘earthly’ throne (Rev.11:8). That makes this proverb divine and not merely a saying preserved by human preference like a Chinese proverb with no standard or accountability to other cultures. It is literally ‘the hesed;’ it is the steadfast love of God. It is the contract of Israel’s election (Jn.19:30). So the action is best defined by the image (or illustration) of a foundation to picture the word structure of its intention. In other words, the foundation of the contract is in the glory of heaven, where Christ is raised from death and seated (Heb.8:1; Eph.1:20; Acts 2:20), but is being established on earth by the representation of this throne (Acts 18:12; Eph.2:4-10; Matt.6:10; Rev.3:21) being poured out like concrete into a mold (Acts 2:33; 10:45; Rom.5:5).

*[to his throne] conjunctively, established with the lovingkindness, she is his throne. In other words, in conjunction with the faithfulness, loyalty, and trustworthiness of the feminine noun’s marriage to the covenant of God’s love, she, as the noun is in the feminine form because she is subservient to the king’s representation and headship, she represents the [faithful] people of the covenant. So they are the throne (or seat) of the King of the covenant. Her heart and mind are the seat of his rule, and her will is subject in obedience to his will (Rom.6:16-20). But the king also serves the covenant in the strength and sustenance (according to the weakness of the flesh, as the throne is represented in the earth) that covenant people provide (1Cor.1:25-31; 1Pet.3:7; 2Cor.12:9). Therefore it is to be a self-sufficient throne on earth as it is heaven. The following proverb in verse 29 hints at this by honoring the strength of the youth and the wisdom of the aged as one organism seated on this throne (1Cor.12:12-27). Age sits on this throne to direct its strength. And so while strength, and thus youth, is at its base by human standards, it is the glory of age in the man of wisdom born from above that gives the throne (of God on earth) its beauty and splendor because of the wisdom that illuminates from the presence of the covenant’s oversight, retaining the strength of the youth that justifies a man’s glory and honor in the work and fulfillment of Christ. Therefore Christ is called the Ancient of Days in fulfillment of the Old Covenant (Ps.77:5; Isa.51:9; Dan.7:9,13,22).

Consider now how ‘the man of sin’ progresses (2Thess.2:3). No matter how hard he works and tries to retain the power, strength, and beauty of youth, in the wisdom of natural things, his progress becomes more and more difficult to abide in the ecosystem of his own creation and scheme of sin in by use of the nature of darkness (Rom.6:23). His wisdom doesn’t burn any brighter or purer with age, for his schemes are upheld by deception in the ignorance of his own weaknesses. Consider even our ignorance of the common elements in how they function together to sustain the life of the flesh. It’s not that God condemns the use of drugs when we can understand their proper function and purpose in their proportional uses, for God [did] make all things very good, but God condemns man’s corruption of them in the industry to sell these elementary truths by sorcery in the pyramid schemes of the food chain in the domain of Sheol and Hades (Rev.18:23; Pr.23:23). That’s what God calls pharmakeia! According to human standards, he just becomes more and more useless to the community of labor and strength, for he cannot retain it in himself because of the curse of his death in the pursuit of the glory of this natural wisdom (Matt.6:31-34); no matter how hard he tries to feed the life of his flesh, his life in truth is sin which produces death (Rom.6:23), because his one goal is to be sufficient in himself (above the rest) to give life to himself (Matt.5:20). He thinks in his heart that he is the pinnacle of God’s creation and exalts himself over others who are created from the same lump of clay and dust, but only the wisdom of the cross makes such vessels prepared and fit for honor (Rom.9:17-24). Even the false convert who believes and trusts in God to give life to the mortal body grows corrupt by making age the standard of which a man is to be served and cared for, neglecting to learn or care whether or not that soul can offer wisdom in spiritual things that are seated above (Col.3:1, 11; Rom.8:12-30), for they cannot because their age (in the flesh) adds nothing to the wisdom of God (Tit.2:15; 1Tim.4:1-12).

So then, what is Solomon saying? Why is an aged man, by the sign of gray hair, ‘beauty’ to the strength of youth? He is not saying strength is worthless without the direction of the aged, for strength is naturally profitable to youth. But Solomon’s theme is the beauty of God’s wisdom! But what makes gray hair beautiful in an aged man as worthless by strength’s standards in the beauty of youth? Well, this is because spiritual wisdom makes the aged beautiful. Gray hair is a gift to a spiritual man in prolonging his days with the fear of the Lord. Without wisdom, the aged are worthless in truth. And there are many aged who are always learning but are never able to understand and come to the knowledge of the truth as it exists in Jesus Christ (Dt.14:23; 2Tim.3:7; Heb.11:6). In their age, they are in a position to direct the strength of the youth, but they have no wisdom to perform it (Isa.1:14; 40:30; 46:1; 47:13; Pr.25:17; Mal.2:17; Matt.9:36; Isa.28:12; 40:29-31). These are some of the questions, Lord willing, we will answer in the subsequent Proverbial study. But for a quick application, regarding the hesed, that is joined to the eternal promise of this throne, in the name of David’s earthly kingdom and successes, Christ will fulfill every promise of it because he has first come to fulfill the hesed of Moses (in) David’s throne. Therefore as we observe the corruption, that now is, of the kingdoms of men who reject the Word of God, the pharmakeia of their sorceries will be destroyed in Christ’s bodily return, to give life to that which is true life in the kingdom of David’s son and David’s Lord (Matt.18:4; Lk.7:28). Where we lack wisdom but pride liberty in the ignorance of our present spiritual depravity and inability in the flesh (Hos.4:6; 1Cor.6:12; 10:23), the future fulfillment of Christ’s representation of David’s kingdom will restore the world’s goods to their first and pure purpose of God’s created order in the destruction of the Devil’s deceptions, where even the life that is in the flesh will flourish in that kingdom (Rev.19-20); but the heads of the nations will not rule by flesh and blood but will return with the glorified Christ to rule with a rod of iron (1Cor.15:50; Eph.6:12). All pyramid schemes that men have built for their own glory will perish at his sovereign command (Ecc.7:29; Ps.2:9; Rev.2:27; 12:5; 19:13-15).

*[with lovingkindness] conjunctively, the overflow of the first cause. It is the repetition of the hesed covenant by the standard of God’s saving purpose (Ps.23:5; Lk.6:38). This Hebrew noun, in its own word form, is such a tiny word but with a broad definition under the context of its understanding, by the conjunction with the feminine form that broadens it, and by the verbs that enlarge the heart of our understanding in it (1Pet.3:7; 1Cor.11:7), the covenant of this tiny seed in word form comes down to us from above everything created in the visible form (Matt.13:31; 17:20; James 1:17; 3:17). This tiny, little word, in association with the image of the invisible God, as he is the light of the world (Col.1:15; Rom.1:20-21; Jn.8:12; 9:5; 11:5; 12:36; Matt.5:14; Phil.2:15; ), gives understanding to the things God has made in darkness (Mk.4:31; Lk.13:19; 17:6). It literally is the seed of truth as it is embodied in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth (2Tim.2:8; 1Pet.1:23; 1Jn.3:9). It is a loving contract that provides constant and consistent mercy and kindness in the covenant of God’s grace for his chosen priesthood. These kindnesses are representative of the covenant’s love and grace instituted in Israel’s Law that provided mercy and kindness to all who sought shelter under the wings of her beloved hesed (Matt.23:37; Lk.13:34; Jn.21:18). So this is referring to David’s covenant by which tender mercies were promised to him in his anointing for the throne and Israel’s headship over the nations (Ps.89:3; 103:4; 2Chr.7:18; 13:5; 21:7; Isa.55:3; Jer.33:21), because of the sufferings he would have to endure to obtain it from Saul’s grip after being rejected (as king) by the covenant (of the throne) (1Sam.13:13). So again, this hesed is in addition to the first hesed that was (only) mercy to the whole nation, but this new covenant of hesed is a definite atonement or a direct satisfaction of justice in the grace of Jesus Christ as the substitute in fulfillment of the first covenant and hesed (Heb.8:7, 13; 9:1, 15, 18). Therefore, this hesed is grace upon grace (Acts 4:33; Jn.1:16-17; Rom.5:15; Eph.2:8; Rom.1:17). It is a greater mercy and a greater grace to be seated upon this throne, David’s throne, with Christ (Mk.2:23-28). It is a grace that was promised never to be removed and eternally established as the foundation for all truth.

Therefore, it is exclusively pointing forward in the shadow of Christ’s throne, being the fulfillment of the throne’s perfection in bodily form, when he was crucified as the King of the Jews (being David’s Lord) and instituting the fulness of the covenant in glory by his resurrection and ascension to the heavenly throne (Ps.110:1; Matt.22:44; Mk.12:36; Lk.20:42; Acts 2:34). So for application, this additional hesed, in fulfillment of the first, is called ‘the hesed’ by the direct article and is called God’s covenant of mercy (and grace) in the truth through the fulness of the Proverbial definition. God shows mercy to all of creation by not giving to us what we deserve in the justice of God because of the works of our unrighteousness; but in addition to that, the first covenant was given by Moses to show mercy through the revelation of the truth of God’s wrath in the heart of this disobedience (Rom.1:18-32; 5:12-21), for by that first mercy of the riches of God’s hesed (Rom.2:4-6), in the condemnation of Adam’s children, who are the sons of disobedience (Eph.2:2; 5:6; Col.3:6), God stores up justice against the sons of this present darkness (Rom.2:4-6; Rev.20:11-15). But this additional hesed is called grace in the unconditional terms of the new covenant in Christ’s blood as the substitute for sinners because truth and goodwill exist exclusively in Jesus Christ of Nazareth (Jn.14:6). Therefore this Jesus, who was crucified and raised again to life, in the bodily ascension to this eternal throne, is the only means by which we can obtain the blessings and benefits of the better hesed.

According to the foolishness of the wisdom of the cross preached, the beauty of this song is not a winner by the tower of Trump’s standards, but she is a keeper by the standard of our Brother’s keeping (Jude 20-25; 1Thess.5:21).