I will betroth you to me in lovingkindness. (Hosea 2:19)

We commonly speak of love or of kindness. However, the Bible speaks much of God’s “lovingkindness.” There is a multiplication of good things here. God’s love is being multiplied by God’s kindness and the blessed result for His people is lovingkindness. This is no cold, intellectual love. Neither is it cold, practical love. It is a warm and affectionate love which results in thoughtful acts of kindness.

When the mother and wife of the Roman Emperor Alexander Severus incited him to severity and objected to his mildness and readiness to yield to his subjects, saying, “You have made your power more contemptible by your kindness and compliant spirit,” his answer was, “But more secure and lasting.”

This leads us on to the deeper meaning of “lovingkindness.” The Hebrew word here is often used to describe the gracious motivation behind God’s covenants with sinners. All such covenants are started by grace and sustained by grace. This, says the Bible, is lovingkindness. The initial betrothal is gracious, but so is the ongoing divine commitment. This is lovingkindness. The Lord does not start these relationships because of what He can get out of them. And neither will He end them even if oftentimes the relationship is so one-way. This is lovingkindness. His betrothal to His people was not begun because He was attracted to them, and neither is it sustained by any such attraction. This is lovingkindness.

This lovingkindness was vividly demonstrated by Hosea in his relationship with his prostituted wife, Gomer. How shiveringly horrific such a betrothal was! But this was a betrothal in lovingkindness. And this repulsive relationship was designed by God to illustrate His relationship with Israel. This was a betrothal in lovingkindness. And, however much you shudder at this thought, be glad God doesn’t; your only hope is the same lovingkindness of God. Your only hope is that God does not love as you do; that God will say, and continue to say, “I will betroth you to me in lovingkindness.” When you experience this kind of betrothal you will stop shivering and shuddering at the thought, for the repulsive has become your redemption.