Kindness

In the UPDV, "kindness" is a wide field. It names Yahweh's covenant disposition toward his people — most often translated "loving-kindness" where the Hebrew lies behind it — and it names the human virtue that, in love, treats neighbor, slave, sojourner, enemy, and even animal with gentleness rather than cruelty. The same Bible that praises the merciful tongue and the law of kindness also catalogs, without flinching, what cruelty looks like when it is loosed in households, fields, courts, and armies. The two poles are inseparable: scripture commends kindness most sharply by setting it against the conduct it forbids.

The Loving-Kindness of Yahweh

Yahweh's loving-kindness is the ground from which human kindness is meant to grow. The Psalmist appeals to it as something already known and tested: "Show your marvelous loving-kindness, O you who save by your right hand those who take refuge [in you]" (Ps 17:7). It steadies daily life — "your loving-kindness is before my eyes; And I have walked in your truth" (Ps 26:3) — and it outranks life itself: "your loving-kindness is better than life, My lips will praise you" (Ps 63:3).

The prophets carry the same vocabulary into Israel's history. Isaiah opens his great recital with it: "I will make mention of the loving-kindnesses of Yahweh, [and] the praises of Yahweh, according to all that Yahweh has bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which he has bestowed on them according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his loving-kindnesses" (Isa 63:7). Jeremiah grounds the call to return in the same disposition: "Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness I have drawn you" (Jer 31:3); the same Yahweh "show[s] loving-kindness to thousands" (Jer 32:18). Hosea makes loving-kindness one of the marriage gifts of the new covenant: "I will betroth you to me forever; yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness, and in justice, and in loving-kindness, and in mercies" (Hos 2:19).

Ben Sira draws the same thread out of Israel's memory: "Then I remembered the lovingkindnesses of Yahweh, And his mercies which have been from of old; He delivers those who put their trust in him, And redeems them from all evil" (Sir 51:8).

Divine Gentleness

The same God whose loving-kindness floods the Psalter is also gentle in dealing with what is fragile. Isaiah's shepherd image is the controlling picture: "Like a shepherd, he will shepherd his flock; he will gather the lambs in his arm, and carry them in his bosom; [and] will gently lead those that have their young" (Isa 40:11). And of the Servant: "A bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench: he will bring forth justice in truth" (Isa 42:3). David sees the same gentleness as the source of his own greatness: "your right hand has held me up, And your [Speech] made me great" (Ps 18:35).

Paul reaches for the same Christological note when he wants to disarm the Corinthians: "Now I Paul myself entreat you⁺ by the meekness and gentleness of Christ" (2 Cor 10:1). The gentleness of God, in Paul's appeal, is not a soft alternative to authority but its proper exercise.

Kindness and Cruelty in the Wisdom Books

Wisdom poetry distills the contrast into single sentences. "The merciful man does good to his own soul; But he who is cruel troubles his own flesh" (Pr 11:17). The cruel man's "tender mercies" are themselves cruel (Pr 12:10). Treatment of the poor reads back onto God: "He who oppresses the poor reproaches his Maker; But he who has mercy on the needy honors him" (Pr 14:31; cf. Pr 22:16; Pr 28:3). The worthy woman of Proverbs 31 is summarized in a phrase: "She opens her mouth with wisdom; And the law of kindness is on her tongue" (Pr 31:26).

Ben Sira lengthens the same logic into a small ethics. Kindness is not optional; it is what endures: "But kindness will never be moved, And righteousness endures forever" (Sir 40:17). It extends past the grave — "Show grace as a gift in the sight of all the living. And likewise to the dead, do not deny kindness" (Sir 7:33) — and into ordinary economic life: "He who lends to his neighbor shows kindness, And he who strengthened him with his hand keeps the commandments" (Sir 29:1). A gift can be unmade by a wounding word, so Sira warns, "do not put a blemish on [your] good deeds, Nor [cause] grief through words in any gift" (Sir 18:15-17), and concludes that "there is a good word which is better than a gift; And both belong to a gracious man." Cruelty in Ben Sira is recognizable by the company it keeps: "Do not walk with one who is cruel" (Sir 8:15), and a tyrant's cruelty is structural — "A ruler will give cruelty and will not spare; Over the soul of many, he makes a conspiracy" (Sir 13:12).

Kindness Toward the Poor, Sojourner, and Slave

The Torah ties kindness to a specific historical memory: "And a sojourner you will not oppress: for you⁺ know the soul of a sojourner, seeing you⁺ were sojourners in the land of Egypt" (Ex 23:9). The day-laborer is protected by the same instinct: "You will not oppress a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether he is of your brothers, or of your sojourners who are in your land inside your gates" (Dt 24:14). Zechariah revives the list almost verbatim: "don't oppress the widow, nor the fatherless, the sojourner, nor the poor; and let none of you⁺ devise evil against his brother in your⁺ heart" (Zec 7:10).

Where this kindness fails, Yahweh himself rises. "Because of the oppression of the poor, because of the sighing of the needy, Now I will arise, says Yahweh; I will set him in the safety he pants for" (Ps 12:5). Where it fails inside the covenant people, the prophets indict it: "they have vexed the poor and needy, and have oppressed the sojourner wrongfully" (Ezek 22:29); "I returned and saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and, look, the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter" (Eccl 4:1).

Ben Sira sharpens the same ethic for everyday cruelty: "do not mock at the life of the poor, And do not grieve the eyes of him who is in bitterness of soul" (Sir 4:1); "Do not afflict a slave who serves faithfully; Or likewise a hired worker who gives his soul" (Sir 7:20); "Do not shame a man who turns from transgression … Do not humiliate an aged [common] man" (Sir 8:5-6); "Do not put off those who weep, But mourn with those who mourn" (Sir 7:34). The slave-owner is reminded that the slave is his own brother in cost and need: "If you have but one servant, let him be as yourself, For with blood have you obtained him … treat him as your brother, For as your own soul you have need of him" (Sir 33:30-31).

Kindness Toward Animals

The cruelty/kindness distinction reaches down into how a person treats a beast. "A righteous man regards the soul of his beast; But the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel" (Pr 12:10). Balaam, with the angel of Yahweh standing in his way, "struck the donkey with his staff" (Num 22:27) — a small notice the narrator does not skip past. David's victory over Hadadezer ends with the hocking of the chariot horses (2 Sam 8:4; 1 Chr 18:4), and the prophets and historians similarly do not turn the camera away.

Examples of Kindness

The narrative books work in figures rather than maxims. Joseph after the death of Jacob: "don't be⁺ afraid: I will nourish you⁺, and your⁺ little ones. And he comforted them, and spoke kindly to them" (Gen 50:21). Moses at the well of Midian, where "the shepherds came and drove them away; but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock" (Ex 2:17). Boaz in the field of Bethlehem, telling his young men, "pull out some for her from the bundles, and leave it, and let her glean, and don't rebuke her" (Ru 2:16). David, once enthroned, asking, "Is there yet any who is left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake?" (2 Sam 9:1). And, in Jesus' parable, the Samaritan who "bound up his wounds, pouring on [them] oil and wine; and he set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him" (Lk 10:34).

Examples of Cruelty

Genesis already supplies the verdict on Simeon and Levi at Shechem: "Simeon and Levi are brothers; They determined to destroy violently" (Gen 49:5); their elder brother Joseph is thrown into a waterless pit (Gen 37:24). Pharaoh's policy makes "their lives bitter with hard service … in which they made them serve with rigor" (Ex 1:14), and his decree against the male children — "Every son who is born you⁺ will cast into the river" (Ex 1:22) — is the Bible's first deliberate slaughter of innocents. Nahash the Ammonite makes the gouging out of right eyes a treaty term (1 Sam 11:2). Jeremiah is let down with cords into a dungeon of mire (Jer 38:6). The sons of Zedekiah are slain before his eyes, and then his own eyes are put out (2 Kgs 25:7). The chief priests, having seen Lazarus raised, "took counsel that they might put Lazarus also to death" (Jn 12:10).

The Psalter and Proverbs supply the language for what the narratives display: "false witnesses have risen up against me, And such as breathe out cruelty" (Ps 27:12); a poor man who oppresses the poor is "[like] a sweeping rain which leaves no food" (Pr 28:3).

The Christian Disposition

The New Testament epistles do not invent a new word for kindness; they translate the wisdom-book ethic into the terms of the church. Love itself is defined by it: "Love suffers long, it is kind" (1 Cor 13:4). The Roman congregation is told, "In love of the brothers be tenderly affectioned one to another" (Rom 12:10). Ephesians sets the negative and positive sides side by side: "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and railing, be put away from you⁺, with all malice: and be⁺ kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, even as God also in Christ forgave you⁺" (Eph 4:31-32). Colossians puts kindness on as part of the elect's clothing: "Put on therefore, as God's elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, long-suffering" (Col 3:12). The pattern, in all of these, is the same: the disposition God has shown his people in [Christ] is the disposition his people are now to show one another.