Rachamim #66

Rachamim is the plural form of a noun from the same root as rechem, the Hebrew word for “womb,” and the verb racham, “to have compassion.” The connection to the womb gives the word a family feeling: it describes the tenderness a mother has for the child she bore. Strong’s lists the base form as a singular noun, but the plural is what usually appears in the text, which is why this entry uses rachamim.

Biblical Usage

The bodily side of the word is clear in the story of Joseph, who “made haste; for his bowels did yearn upon his brother” when he saw Benjamin and went to weep in private (Genesis 43:30). In the judgment of Solomon, the true mother’s “bowels yearned upon her son” and she gave up her claim rather than see him harmed (1 Kings 3:26), the King James Version’s rendering of the physical language. The verb form is used of God in Isaiah 49:15, which asks whether a woman can forget the child at her breast or fail to have compassion on the son of her womb, and answers that God will not forget his people.

Elsewhere the word describes God’s ongoing character. The psalmist says that as a father pities his children, the LORD pities those who fear him (Psalm 103:13). In the middle of the destruction of Jerusalem, Lamentations 3:22-23 says it is because of the LORD’s mercies that his people are not consumed, “because his compassions fail not,” and that they are new every morning. Hosea uses it in the promise to betroth Israel to God forever in lovingkindness and “in mercies” (Hosea 2:19).

Theological Significance

Rachamim is closely related to hesed, and the two often appear together, but they emphasize different things: hesed is loyalty to a commitment, while rachamim is warm feeling that moves someone to help. The Old Testament uses both to describe God’s unwillingness to abandon his people despite their failure. Because the image is drawn from motherhood, it is one of the few places where the Old Testament describes God’s love through a maternal picture, though interpreters disagree about how much weight to put on the connection, and the Bible’s own language for God is predominantly masculine. In later Jewish liturgy the word is used as a title of God, “the Merciful.”