Ps 103:8 The LORD [is] merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.
Plenteous in mercy. I guess that means God has gobs and gobs of mercy. What kind of bothers me is that word plenteous. Come Halloween neighbors are stacking up with a plenteous supply of candy. By the evening’s end that plenteous is going to be pretty empty. In other words the very word plenteous suggest a limit, that there is a good supply now but that supply can run low after much use. God may be plenteous in mercy but there are also plenty of people in need of mercy. Is that mercy going to run out?
The word for plenteous in Hebrew is rab which means abundant, Yet is a word often used as a comparison. In other words it means more numerous than_____ (fill in the blank). So in this verse His mercy is more numerous than _____, there is nothing given to compare it to. So this word rab can also be a way of saying that His mercy is so abundant, that there is nothing to compare it to.
Still, this gives the impression that mercy is sort of like a gift package that is handed out. Which, if you think about it, that is exactly what it is. It is something that is given to us every time we sin. In other words we do not have a blanket one mercy fits all. Every time we sin we have to appeal to God for mercy. One for this sin, one for that sin and oh yeah, we sure need one for that sin. We really need to take a closer look at this mercy business. You may think I did that already because at the beginning of this passage we find the Lord is merciful and now we find He is plenteous in mercy. Mercy is mercy right? Not in the Hebrew. The first word used for mercy is racham, which is a passionate love some translations say tender mercies. I love that even though that falls short of what racham is. Racham is God’s passionate love. It is a love that a mother had for a newborn infant that pure love before that child turns rebellious and wounds the mother’s heart. The mother still loves that child, but that love has taken a beaten. God loves us with a love that is just as deep as it was before we were even born and had a chance to sin and wound His heart. But then we read that He has an abundance of mercy. Here it is not the word racham but the word chased. He is love racham and this love carries a whole lot of mercy chased.
What is odd about this word chased is that is not only means goodness, kindness and faithfulness, but it also means shame and reproach. I explained in an earlier study that the relationship between goodness, kindness and faithfulness and shame and reproach is that this goodness, kindness and faithfulness is so great, so strong, so true that when we stand before it, our humble attempts at goodness, kindness and faithfulness pales before His, in fact our goodness is much lessor than that of the chased that we are ashamed of our feeble attempts at goodness, kindness and faithfulness. No matter how hard we try, there will still be a selfish element to our kindness, goodness and faithfulness. We may be kind, good and faithful so people will like us and accept us, we may be trying to make up for some past failure or just trying to impress God so he will do us a favor or even because we may have some misconception that it will keep us out of hell. Whatever the reason, there is a certain degree of selfishness in our attempts to be kind, good and faithful.
Yet with God, He is racham, He is pure love. He has such an abundance of mercy or chasad that he does not need any selfish motivation to inspire or motivate Him to kindness, goodness and faithfulness, which is just the way He is. Our kindness, goodness and faithfulness have a limit. If the person we are trying to be kind to continues to return our kindness with scorn and mockery, there will eventually come a time when we will just throw up our hands and say: “Forget it, I am getting nothing out of this.”
That is why this verse starts off by saying God is racham. Racham love has no limits, it does not give up. It is the closest word we have in the Hebrew to agape which is an unconditional love. It is a love that expects nothing in return except to be loved, it is love that has no end, it is a love with no strings attached other than just returning that love. If God has that type of love then his mercy or chased has no end, it has not personal agenda. He has chased not because he wants to be liked or loved, not because He is trying to persuade us to do His bidding. He has this chased for no other reason than the fact that He wants to be merciful.
What this means to us, today is that God’s mercy has no limits. No matter how much we sin He will continue to show us mercy if we continue to love Him. I know, the problem with that is someone can sin all they want, have themselves one big blast because God will always forgive, it is like a license to sin.
That is why the word racham is used. If you continue to sin, you really don’t love Him. Racham is a love that needs to be returned. This is also why the word chased is built upon the idea of shame and reproach. If you really love God in return then every time He shows you mercy when he should give you a swift kick in the kester you will feel same and reproach. My father never whipped me or spanked me. In fact I can never even remembering that he yelled at me. But he disciplined me nonetheless. If I did something wrong he would just get so hurt and so sad that I would feel ashamed of myself, I would feel such reproach that I would vow never to commit that infraction again.
We tend to bring God down to our human level. At that level we feel that there must be a form of punishment to keep us in line. But when it comes to a corporal form of punishment, you can always figure that you might talk your way out of it, run away from it or do something to avoid freeing you up to keep committing that sin. But when that sin fills you with shame and reproach because you offended someone who loves you and love them, then you cannot run away from that. God does not need to keep us in line with lightning bolts or fire from heaven. He can do it by showing us His chased, his mercy which in the face of it we become so ashamed of ourselves and feel such reproach that we vow never to do it again.
Oh, but you say, does not the Bible say spare the rod and spoil the child? God believes in inflicting pain to keep us in line. Let me quote this verse for you because it is so often misquoted. Proverbs 13:24: “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” Note he that spares the rod hates his son. The word for spare is chasak which is closely related to the word chased and means to withhold, hold back. That is exactly what mercy is, holding back or withholding any punishment or condemnation. The word rod is shebet. It comes from a Semitic root which means a staff or scepter. A king in ancient times ruled with a scepter. The king often acted as a judge and would decide on a criminal or civil matter. If he held his scepter out it was bad news, thumbs down, your goose was cooked. But if he withheld his scepter chasak shebet, then he was showing mercy and withholding any punishment.
Thus, this passage of sparing the rod and spoiling the child has an entirely opposite meaning. It is instructing the father to show mercy to his son, if he will not show mercy to his son then he hates his son. The scepter was a symbol of authority. If the father did not use his authority over his son he would spoil him. This verse has nothing to do with punishment, especially physical punishment but everything to do with mercy – chased.
God is not in the business of punishing us for our sins. He is in the business of forgiving our sins and then shaming us and filling us with such reproach that we will not want to sin ever again.
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