IS "HESED" THE SAME AS "AGAPE"?

IS "HESED" THE SAME AS "AGAPE"?
GOD'S LOVE DEFINED BY COVENANT IN THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS

Kindness and faithful love (hesed) pursue me every day of my life. I make my home in the house of Yahweh for all time to come.
Psalm 23:6

For this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
John 3:16

God's love for His covenant people in the Old Testament is expressed by the Hebrew word hesed (checed), which English translations usually render as "love," or "faithful love" (expressed in the Hebrew as hesed we'emet for example in Gen 24:49; 32:11; 47:29; Ex 34:6; Jos 2:14; 2 Sam 2:6; 15:20).⁽¹⁾ However, hesed has a much narrower definition than the English word "love" conveys. In the Hebrew Scriptures, hesed refers to the kind of love that is both promised and owed. It is an exchange of affection and loyalty based on mutual obligations: love formed in the bonds of a covenant. Contracts concern material possessions, but covenants concern intangibles like honor and loyalty. When used for human relationships, this Hebrew word means union, fidelity, and committment in the context of the marriage covenant (Gen 24:49), and when used between men or nations, it expresses the covenant bond of family loyalty or a treaty obligation (Gen 21:27; 1 Sam 11:1).

When hesed defines God's interaction with a person or persons, the word expresses God's faithfulness to His covenant and the benevolent blessings and mercy He shows His obedient covenant people, as in Exodus 34:6-7. In that passage, God passed before Moses: Then Yahweh passed before him and called out. "Yahweh, Yahweh, God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in faithful love (hesed) and constancy, maintaining his faithful-love (hesed) to thousands, forgiving fault, crime and sin, yet letting nothing go unchecked, and punishing the parent's fault in the children and in the grandchildren to the third and fourth generation!"⁽²⁾ The word hesed also appears in this same context of covenant love in many other passages in Old Testament Scripture. For example, Psalm 136 repeats the word hesed twenty-six times, once in every verse. Psalm 136 is the Great Hallel ("praise-God") Psalm. At the Passover meal, on the first night of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the faithful recited the "Great Hallel" after the "Lesser Hallel" (Ps 113-118) at the end of the sacrificial meal, a tradition Jesus and His disciples followed after the Last Supper (Mt 26:30; Mk 14:26).

Another example is in Hosea 2:21/19 where Yahweh, addressing Israel as His covenant bride says: "I shall betroth you to myself forever, I shall betroth you in uprightness and justice, and faithful love (hesed) and tenderness." In the Hosea passage, Yahweh uses the word hesed in the context of marital love to demonstrate His faithfulness to His covenant with Israel, the kindness He bestows on His people (cf., Ps 136; Jer 31:3; etc.), and the benefits He extends to them as the expression of His tender covenant love (Ex 20:6; Dt 5:10; 2 Sam 22:51; Ps 18:50; Jer 32:18). However, Yahweh's divine hesed/covenant love calls for the same kind of commitment from the human beings who have entered into a covenant relationship with Him. A covenant with Yahweh forms a mutual bond of commitment based on self-giving, piety, trust, loyalty, deep affection, and joyful submission to the Law of the covenant as an expression of love. The prophet Hosea writes: I praise your name for your faithful love [hesed] and your constancy; your promises surpass even your fame ... Though I live surrounded by trouble, you give me life, to my enemies' fury! You stretch out your right hand and save me; Yahweh will do all things for me. Yahweh, your faithful love [hesed] endures forever, do not abandon what you have made (Ps 138:2b, 7-8). Hesed love is not a static love but a love that must be returned: faithful love is what pleases me, not sacrifice; knowledge of God, not burnt offerings (Hos 6:6).

The expression of Yahweh's faithful covenant love is not limited to a single generation. When a repentant Israel returns to her Lord, Yahweh promises blessings which come to Israel from her obedience to her Divine Spouse, expressed in His everlasting hesed/love which will extend through the generations of covenant children:

Exodus 20:6: ...but I act with faithful love [hesed] towards thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Deuteronomy 5:10: ...but I show faithful love [hesed] to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments.

Yahweh also promised His faithful love/hesed to Israel's Davidic kings who serve Him as faithful sons to a loving father (2 Sam 7:12-14). For this covenant promise, King David praised God's faithful covenant love in 2 Samuel 22:50-51: For this I will praise you, Yahweh, among the nations, and sing praise to your name. He saves his king, time after time, displays faithful love [hesed] for his anointed, for David and his heirs forever.

In the prophet Jeremiah's hopeful passages of covenant renewal in Jeremiah Chapter 31, Yahweh tells His prophet His plans for Israel, His wayward Bride, if she will return to Him in faithfulness: When that time comes, Yahweh declares, I shall be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be my people. Yahweh says this: They have found pardon in the desert, those who have survived the sword. Israel is marching to his rest. Yahweh has appeared to me from afar; I have loved you with an everlasting love, and so I still maintain my faithful love for you (Jer 31:1-3).

However, just as Yahweh's hesed covenant love will extend to the descendants of the faithful, His punishment for Israel's lack of love and loyalty will also reach down through generations as the prophet Jeremiah warned: You show faithful love [hesed] to thousands but repay the fathers' guilt in full to their children after them. Great and mighty God, whose name is Yahweh Sabaoth, great in purpose, mighty in deed, whose eyes are open on all human ways, rewarding every individual as that person's ways and actions deserve! (Jer 32:18-19).

One cannot separate true knowledge of God from love for God: Yahweh says this, "Let the sage not boast of wisdom, nor the valiant of valor, nor the wealthy of riches! But let anyone who wants to boast, boast of this: of understanding and knowing me. For I am Yahweh, who acts with faithful love (hesed), justice, and uprightness on earth; yes, these are what please me," Yahweh declares (Jer 9:22-23). Knowledge of God is not merely an intellectual assent that God exists. To "know" in the language of the Bible indicates an intimate knowledge of the person either in a sexual sense or in a covenantal sense. Biblical covenants form families, in marriages and the sense of extended families. When David forms a covenant bond with King Saul's son Jonathan (1 Sam 20:14-17), Jonathan becomes David's "brother," and it is as a brother that David laments Jonathan's death in 2 Samuel 1:26, crying out: Jonathan, by your dying I too am stricken, I am desolate for you, Jonathan my brother.

When Yahweh forms a covenant with an individual or with a people, He unites Himself to them, not only as Bridegroom to Bride as in the sense of the corporate covenant with Israel at Mt. Sinai, but in the case of the Davidic covenant. God became David's and Solomon's father, and David and Solomon became God's sons (2 Sam 7:14; 1 Chr 17:11-14). God shows His hesed for his covenant children by the blessings he confers upon them and, similarly, God's covenant children "know God" when they observe the covenant obligations and show their gratitude for God's blessings by returning His love:

...then you will understand what the fear of Yahweh is, and discover the knowledge of God. For Yahweh himself is giver of wisdom, from his mouth issue knowledge and understanding. He reserves his advice for the honest, a shield to those whose ways are sound; he stands guard over the paths of equity, he keeps watch over the way of those faithful to him (Pro 2:5-8).
Look, the days are coming, Yahweh declares, when I shall make a new covenant with the House of Israel ... Then I shall be their God and they will be my people. There will be no further need for everyone to teach neighbor or brother, saying, "Learn to know Yahweh!" No, they will all know me, from the least to the greatest, Yahweh declares, since I shall forgive their guilt and never more call their sin to mind (Jer 31:31-34).

The bond of covenant love between Yahweh and His children, like marital love, is neither optional nor unconditional; it is obligatory, and its intimacy is limited to the beloved. That is not to say hesed as covenant love is forced or compelled. The covenant partner enters freely into the bond of love. Just as in marriage, one cannot force love, but it is expected in fulfillment of the union. Covenant love should be freely and graciously given, but from the Biblical perspective, there is no such thing as "free love." In this way, the covenant love expressed as hesed is not so much a feeling as a decision of free will. In the Bible, when God called His people to "love" in the context of the covenant, He is asking them to respond lovingly to the love of God whether they feel like it or not. Consider Jesus' command to His disciples when He tells them to love your enemies (Mt 5:44) or love one another as I have loved you (Jn 15:12). In these New Testament passages, Jesus uses the Greek word agape; it is the same word used for hesed in the Greek translation of the Old Testament.

In the Greek language, as in Hebrew, there are several terms to express the emotion of "love." Eros is passionate or physical love; phileo is the love of family or humanity in general, and agape is the Greek word for spiritual or divine love. In the New Testament, agape can express the love that God has for humanity in general as in John 3:16: For God so loved the world... In this verse, agape differs from hesed in that it does not refer to a love already promised to a specific group of people.

The second use of agape is not only for God's love for us but also for the human response to God's love as well as for love shared and expressed between covenant believers who are brothers and sisters in the covenant family. For example, in John 21:15, Jesus asks Peter: "do you love (agapas) me more than these?" In Matthew 5:43 agape refers to the love of one's neighbor and seems interchangeable with philos, brotherly love. Jesus says, "You have heard how it was said, You will love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say this to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you..." In this case, Jesus uses agape when referring to loving an enemy. Therefore, agape is not just a covenant love owed in loyalty to a particular person or group with whom one is in a committed relationship whether it is God or another person in the human family. Agape love refers to a unique love defined by Jesus as an unconditional, self-sacrificing love which does not expect a reward.

In 1 Corinthians Chapter 13, St. Paul gives instructions to all Christians on how they should use their spiritual gifts. He begins his treatise with the words: Though I command languages both human and angelic "if I speak without love (agape), I am no more than a gong booming or a cymbal clashing (1 Cor 13:1). Paul uses the word agape as the expression of love all Christians should exhibit using the spiritual gifts God has given them. Therefore, agape love, whether divine or human, is a self-sacrificial love which the Gospel of John says characterizes God, and which should describe all of us in our response to God and each other. The Gospel of John tells us: For this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life (John 3:16).

For the Christian, agape love is defined as an expression of divine grace which means it is undeserved and unmerited. In its unique, redefined Christian definition, agape is a love human beings cannot give themselves apart from God because agape, expressed as self-sacrificial love, is the example Jesus set for us on the altar of the cross. The true expression of agape love flows from Christ in abundance to us and from us to the world, just as the blood and water flowed from His side on the altar of the Cross. For the Christian then, agape love is a higher order love than hesed because Christ Himself divinely inspired it. Hesed is based on obedience, but agape is founded in unmerited grace. Agape love, unconditional, self-sacrificial love, is the standard of love Jesus commanded us to express in the human family when He said: This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you.

Endnotes:
1. Other Hebrew words that are translated as "love" in our Old Testament English translations in addition to hesed are ahab in the masculine and ahabah in the feminine; chashaq; dod; racham (compassionate love); ra'yah (fem., sisterly love); reya (masc., brotherly love); chashaq (in love).

2. All Biblical passages quoted in this document are from the New Jerusalem Bible translation. The Divine Name in the Hebrew text, YHWH/Yahweh, is rendered as LORD or GOD in other translations.