Steadfast love translates the Hebrew chesed, which is in Good News Translation “unfailing love,” and in New English Bible “true love.” This important Old Testament word refers to the faithful, loyal, constant goodness and love that God shows to his people. Love of the LORD is God’s act of loving his people. The Revised Standard Version footnote shows that Revised Standard Version follows the ancient versions with ceases by making a slight alteration in the Hebrew. The Hebrew text says “we are not cut off.” Some scholars feel that the isolated use of “we” in a discourse where only the first person singular is used is not likely to be correct. Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, on the other hand, keeps the Hebrew and says something like “We have not come to the end of the LORD’s steadfast love.” If “we” is to be avoided, the clause may be rendered, for example, “The faithful love of the LORD has not come to an end” or “The LORD’s unfailing love has not finished.” Stating it positively we may say “The LORD still shows his loyal love to his people.”
The second half-line of this verse is fully parallel in meaning with the first. Mercies, meaning kindness, goodness, compassion, love, is in the plural form in the Hebrew. If the first half-line has been translated positively, it may be best to do the same with the second; for example, “His kindness lasts forever.” It will be noticed that Good News Translation has restructured the parallel half-lines so that the one verb phrase “still continue” serves for both topics: “unfailing love and mercy.”
The translation of steadfast love of the LORD requires restructuring into a verb phrase in many languages and naming the object of the act of love. For example, “The LORD has loved his people faithfully,” or idiomatically, “The LORD has loved his people with one heart.” This entire verse may sometimes be translated, for example, “The LORD has shown kindness and has loved his people faithfully, and he still does” or “… and he has never stopped loving them.”
Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. A Handbook on Lamentations. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1992. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .