“For the LORD your God is a compassionate God; He will not fail you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them. (Deuteronomy 4:31)

Virtually every other English translation (besides NASB) renders this, “For the LORD your God is a merciful God.” The root meaning of the word has to do with a deep love, usually of a “superior” for an “inferior” and can be translated compassion, pity, mercy (Theological Wordbook of the OT). Isaiah 49:15 uses it (in slightly different form) for a mother’s love, and Psalm 103:13 uses it for a father’s love. Clearly, God looks at His people as a parent who feels for his or her children. Indeed, God extends His compassion (mercy) to whomever He chooses. God proclaimed to Moses, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.” (Ex 33:19).

God’s mercy, then, is remarkable—precisely because mercy is not something that can be deserved. This is popularly stated: grace is undeserved favor; mercy is withholding deserved judgment. Nothing we do can invoke any obligation on God’s part to show mercy. We commonly use the saying, “throw oneself on the mercy of the court.” To accept or appreciate mercy, one must accept one’s own guiltiness. In Israel’s case, this promise to show compassion follows God’s prediction that they will abandon Him:

“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will surely perish quickly from the land where you are going over the Jordan to possess it. You shall not live long on it, but will be utterly destroyed. The LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD drives you. There you will serve gods, the work of man’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul.” (Deut 4:26–29)

To seek God, then, is to find mercy—and this despite our sin and deserved judgment by God. When a person wholeheartedly seeks God, then His judgment is replaced with mercy. For it is in His eternal character to be compassionate to all who seek Him.

Lord, this describes me. I was a sinner, but have sought and found You. Now I enjoy fully the mercy, so undeserved, but appreciated.