ḥsd and
Covenant Relationships
The category ḥsd is associated with covenant
relationships. Three such relationships are evident in texts that Paul quotes
or alludes to in Rom 15:7–13. Psalm 18 mentions the line of David, Ps 117
mentions yhwh’s ḥsd toward
Israel (“us”), and Mic 7 concludes with the parallel statements “ʾmt to
Jacob” and “ḥsd to Abraham.”
For Paul, covenant promises to David’s line are fulfilled
in Jesus, David’s anointed descendant. The excerpt from Ps 18 (17 LXX) quoted
in Rom 15:9b indicates that the psalmist will praise God among the
nations/Gentiles. Dunn understands the words of this passage as “the words of
the devout Jew (David) foreshadowing the situation of the diaspora Jew, and now
particularly of the Jewish Christian.” However, the ones who benefit from yhwh’s ḥsd (LXX: eleos)
in Ps 18:51 MT (17:51 LXX) are yhwh’s
anointed one, King David, and his descendants. If, as the superscription
implies, the psalmist is also David, then the one who praises the Lord in Rom
15 is not a representative “Jewish Christian,” but one specific Jew, a
descendant of David. Indeed, when reflecting on the significance of David’s
victory for the Rom 15 context, Moo suggests that Paul may include the
quotation “as a claim of the risen Christ.” This “messianic” interpretation of
Ps 17:50 LXX is consistent with the omission of kyrie in the quotation and
Paul’s attribution of the words of another psalm “of David” to Christ (Ps 68:10
LXX in Rom 15:3). In Ps 68 LXX, the appeal for salvation/deliverance is also on
the basis of the Lord’s eleos (MT: ḥsd; vv. 2, 14–15). But, for
Paul, eleos (MT: ḥsd) is demonstrated by the great
“salvation/victory” (sōtēria; Ps 18:50 [18:51 MT; 17:51 LXX]) for King
David’s descendant, Christ Jesus (Rom 15:8–9; cf. 10:9–13; 11:11).
Regarding the Lord’s eleos (MT: ḥsd) toward
Israel, Paul refers to another psalm (Rom 15:11). Psalm 116 LXX is concerned
with the response of all peoples and nations to the Lord’s eleos (MT: ḥsd)
toward Israel and the Lord’s abiding alētheia (MT: ʾmt). Reading
Rom 15:8–9 in light of the parallelism between eleos and alētheia in
that psalm, it appears that Christ becoming a servant to the circumcised is an
expression of God’s abiding alētheia, and the Gentiles are praising the
Lord for his eleos toward his covenant people. Indeed, Paul consistently
emphasizes God’s faithfulness to the covenant with / promises to Israel.
On the other hand, this combination of terms occurs also
in Mic 7:20, in the same order as in Rom 15:8–9 (first, alētheia [cf. ʾmt];
second, eleos [cf. ḥsd]). Building on the idea that, in Christ,
“God has been faithful . . . to the promises he made to Abraham” (Rom 4; 9;
11),the distinction between alētheia and eleos in Rom 15:8–9 may
also be explained in terms of the associations between the Gentiles and the
Lord’s promises to Abraham (Gen 18:18), between the Jews and the Lord’s
promises to Jacob (as well as Abraham). This interpretation would bring a
fitting culmination to an overarching theme of Romans, introduced in 1:16–17,
that the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who
believes—first the Jew and also the Greek.
Thus, in Rom 15:9, as in each scriptural
quotation/allusion discussed here, eleos evokes yhwh/God’s ḥsd, expressed within covenant
relationships. According to Paul, the events he describes occur or have
occurred on the basis of those covenants. (Karen Nelson, ḥesed and the New Testament: An
Intertextual Categorization Study [University Park, Pa.: Eisenbrauns,
2023], 96-97)
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