Dr. Jim Richards

God gets the wrap for being mean and hateful, but the truth is that generation after generation He shows love and compassion to people. When God began to declare His name or His goodness to Moses, He started with compassion. In other words, God is filled with loving sympathy for human frailty, does not put people into situations of temptation, and eases the punishment of the guilty. The word “compassionate” is a concept of what happens in the heart of the person receiving compassion. But there is also this concept of compassion happening in the heart of the person who IS compassionate. God as being compassionate, based on the Hebrew word, means “to bend or to stoop in kindness to an inferior, to bestow favor, to implore, in other words, to call that person back to you.”