The Hebrew word for love kept up out of loyalty, 249 times in the Old Testament and more than half of them in the Psalms; the BSB calls it “loving devotion”, the KJV “mercy”.
Chesed is the faithfulness of someone bound to you: kindness, love and mercy, kept up because of a promise. It is what God proclaims his name to be full of at Sinai, “abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness”, and what Ruth shows Naomi and then Boaz. It belongs with the covenant: God “keeps His covenant of loving devotion”. English has no single word for it, so each translation picks one, and they have never agreed: the KJV says mercy, the WEB loving kindness, the LSV and YLT kindness, the BSB loving devotion.
One word in ten translations
Psalm 136:1, “Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good. His chesed endures forever.”
The refrain fills all 26 verses of Psalm 136. No English word holds the whole of it: love, kindness and mercy, kept up out of loyalty, the way a covenant partner keeps faith.
How the BSB translates it
It stands beside “faithfulness” (emet) in 33 verses and beside “covenant” in 13. The BSB keeps the familiar “mercy” in Psalm 23, Hosea and Micah, where readers know the words by heart.
Where it is used
Counted in the site’s Hebrew text by Strong’s number H2617. The same letters spell a second, rarer word, “disgrace” (Leviticus 20:17, Proverbs 14:34), which is left out. 12 Old Testament books never use the word, Ezekiel among them.