The Hebrew word for "mercy" is "chesedh"; and it is an untranslatable word. It does not mean only to sympathize with a person...it does not mean simply to feel sorry for someone in trouble. "Chesedh", "mercy", means the ability to get right inside other people until we can see things with their eyes, think things with their minds, and feel things with their feelings...This is just what God did; He came to us, not as the remote, detached, isolated, majestic God, but as a man. The supreme instance of "mercy", "chesedh", is the coming of God in Jesus Christ.-----William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew