Tender Mercies and Loving-Kindness

I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me, O God: incline thine ear unto me, and hear my speech.
Shew thy marvelous lovingkindness, O thou that savest by thy right hand them which put their trust in thee from those that rise up against them.

-- Psalm 17: 6-7 (KJV)

 
Remember, O Lord, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindnesses; for they have been ever of old.

-- Psalm 25: 6 (KJV)

Though their emphases differ, Psalms 17 and 25 share a common theme: the Lord is loving and merciful to those who trust and obey him. The Psalmist -- both poems are attributed to David -- cries unto God to show him "tender mercies" and "lovingkindness," both by pardoning his lapses and by protecting him against the wickedness of his enemies, who "are inclosed in their own fat" (Psalm 17: 10).

Both "tender mercies" and "loving-kindness" (now hyphenated) were coined by Miles Coverdale for his 1535 rendition of the Psalms and then adopted by the King James translators. The former phrase still has the whiff of the Authorized Version about it, Hollywood and ironic quotation notwithstanding. But "loving-kindness" had by the nineteenth century settled into a more generic and secular usage, as in Washington Irving's reference to a "lady of unbounded loving-kindness" (Salmagundi).

 
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Michael Macrone is Associate Site Producer of GraceCom and the author of nine books on language, literature, and ideas, including the best-selling Brush Up Your Shakespeare!