15:13 steadfast love. This translates the Hebrew word hesed, the precise sense of which is difficult to render in English. Here it refers to God’s loyalty and devotion to His people, a loyalty created by the bond of God’s covenant with His people. Though we might expect it to be used for the devotion of God’s people to Him, its overwhelming use is as a description of God’s devotion to His people. Since God reveals Himself in devotion to His own, there is no stronger term to express the free and faithful grace of His love (34:6, “abounding in steadfast love”; Ps. 136, “his steadfast love endures forever”). God’s abiding covenant love and mercy find particular illustration in the Book of Hosea (Hos. 2:19).