Kind or godly describes faithful conduct or a person characterized by devotion, with the referent and passage shaping the translation. Psalm 4:3 says that the Lord has set apart the godly for Himself and hears the speaker's call.
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Reader summary
Full entry for חָסִיד (H2623) · Open the biblical lexicon
Kind or godly describes faithful conduct or a person characterized by devotion, with the referent and passage shaping the translation. Psalm 4:3 says that the LORD has set apart the godly for Himself and hears the speaker's call.
The BSB source-word alignment has 32 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include His saints (5), of His saints (3), the godly (3), and Your saints (2), of Your saints (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Deuteronomy 33:8. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (25), 1 Samuel (1), 2 Chronicles (1), 2 Samuel (1).
Kind or godly describes faithful conduct or a person characterized by devotion, with the referent and passage shaping the translation. Psalm 4:3 says that the Lord has set apart the godly for Himself and hears the speaker's call. Psalm 145:17 describes the Lord as righteous in His ways and kind in His deeds. Psalm 16:10 speaks of God's Holy One not being allowed to see decay, a statement Peter explicitly interprets concerning Christ's resurrection in Acts 2.
These settings concern devoted people, God's character and a particular canonical promise. They must not be flattened into a claim that every person called godly is sinless or cannot die. The adjective alone does not establish the full argument about resurrection. Readers should identify whom it describes and follow the passage's own claims, especially where the New Testament explicitly explains an earlier text.
The godly person in prayer, the Lord's kind deeds and the Holy One in Psalm 16 have different referents. Acts supplies the explicit resurrection interpretation rather than leaving the adjective to bear that doctrine alone.
Know that the Lord has set apart the godly for Himself; the Lord hears when I call to Him.
The Lord's setting apart of the godly supports the speaker's confidence that his prayer is heard, followed by instruction about sin, stillness and trust.
For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol, nor will You let Your Holy One see decay.
The promise concerning God's Holy One belongs to the psalm's confidence in His presence; Acts 2 explicitly quotes and interprets it concerning Christ's resurrection.
The Lord is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His deeds.
Kindness is attributed to the Lord's deeds beside righteousness in His ways and provision for living creatures, describing His character rather than a human status title.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. One devoted to covenant loyalty; the pious person who embodies both kindness and religious devotion to God.
One devoted to covenant loyalty; the pious person who embodies both kindness and religious devotion to God.
properly, kind, i.e. (religiously) pious (a saint) BDB: kind Usage: godly (man), good, holy (one), merciful, saint, (un-) godly.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 4 selected witnesses from 34 lexical occurrence verses.
חָסִיד is built from this root:
Its disappearance signals deep spiritual erosion within the community.Micah 7:1-6
Peter does more than notice a word that can be translated holy. He quotes Psalm 16, acknowledges that David died and was buried, and explains the psalm's promise concerning the resurrection of Christ. The canonical argument gives the Christian reader a reason to speak of Jesus here that a dictionary gloss alone could not provide. Psalm 4's godly person and Psalm 145's kind God still keep their own statements: God hears the worshiper's call, and His deeds are righteous and kind.
Those descriptions do not mean every devoted person possesses Christ's unique resurrection fulfillment or God's flawless character. Teachers should affirm faithful devotion as a response to God while locating salvation and hope in what the texts say God has done. A label of godliness must remain open to truthful accountability rather than becoming protection against examination.
Ps.16.10
The adjective can describe kind or devoted conduct and can function as a description of a person. Translation depends on its referent; its relationship to other devotion vocabulary does not authorize merging distinct identifiers or assigning every gloss to each occurrence.
Acts 2:25-32 explicitly quotes Psalm 16 and interprets its promise concerning Christ's resurrection while acknowledging David's death. That stated canonical exposition supports the Christian reading; it is not an inference from the Hebrew adjective alone. Other New Testament descriptions of holy service or divine faithfulness provide thematic comparisons and must not transfer Christ's particular fulfillment to every devoted worshiper.