This I Recall to Mind: Mercies New Every Morning

The book’s most famous hope appears without erasing the pain around it. The speaker deliberately recalls the LORD’s mercies, compassion, faithfulness, and goodness. Hope is not optimism that nothing terrible happened; it is confidence that grief is not the final word and that God’s compassion is deeper than the present moment.

Verse 22 has a real textual/translation question. The Masoretic Hebrew behind the KJV reads, in effect, “because of the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed,” while ancient versions and a number of Hebrew manuscripts support a closely related reading, “the LORD’s mercies never cease.” Both readings lead into verse 23’s affirmation of unfailing compassion, but readers deserve to know why English Bibles differ. Verse 30—giving one’s cheek to the one who strikes—also has a plausible relationship to Jesus’ “turn the other cheek” teaching in Matthew 5:39; scholarship treats that as an allusion possibility, not an explicit quotation.