The Lord is merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.
Parallel translations
- WEB Yahweh is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and of great loving kindness.
- KJV The LORD is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy.
- BSB The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in loving devotion.
- NKJV The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, Slow to anger and great in mercy.
- NASB ¶The Lord is gracious and compassionate; Slow to anger and great in mercy.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and rich in steadfast love. This is the heart of His self-revealed character toward His people.
Overview
This verse echoes God's self-disclosure to Moses at Sinai (Exodus 34:6), a confession repeated throughout Scripture. It assures sinners that God's default disposition toward the penitent is mercy, not wrath. This grace and loving kindness find their fullest expression in Christ, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Num 14:18‘Yahweh is slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, forgiving iniquity and disobedience; and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation.’
- Ps 103:8Yahweh is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness.
- Ps 86:5For you, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive; abundant in loving kindness to all those who call on you.
- Ps 100:5For Yahweh is good. His loving kindness endures forever, his faithfulness to all generations.
- Ps 116:5Yahweh is Gracious and righteous. Yes, our God is merciful.
- Rom 5:20–21The law came in besides, that the trespass might abound; but where sin abounded, grace abounded more exceedingly;
- Ps 86:15But you, Lord, are a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth.
- Mic 7:18–20Who is a God like you, who pardons iniquity, and passes over the disobedience of the remnant of his heritage? He doesn’t retain his anger forever, because he delights in loving kindness.
- Exod 34:6–7Yahweh passed by before him, and proclaimed, “Yahweh! Yahweh, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth,
- Eph 2:4But God, being rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us,
- Jonah 4:2He prayed to Yahweh, and said, “Please, Yahweh, wasn’t this what I said when I was still in my own country? Therefore I hurried to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and you relent of doing harm.
- Eph 1:8which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence,
- Dan 9:9To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness; for we have rebelled against him;
- Eph 1:6to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he freely gave us favor in the Beloved,
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 145:8 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.