Abounding Kindness and Truth

(6) The LORD passed before him and proclaimed: “The LORD! the LORD! a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and truth, (7) extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; yet He does not remit all punishment, but visits the iniquity of parents upon children and children’s children, upon the third and fourth generations.”

(6) In explaining this commandment the sages taught thus: Even as He is called gracious, be thou gracious; even as He is called merciful, be thou merciful; even as He is called holy, be thou holy.⁴Shabbat, 133b.; Sotah, 14a. C. In this wise did the prophets attribute to God all such terms as long-suffering, abundant in benificence, just and right, perfect, mighty and powerful and others like these, to proclaim that they are good and straight paths, and that man is obligated to lead himself in them, and to be like unto Him in proportion to his power.

And great kindness and truth. And great applies to truth also. And it means, that God's ways are not like people's ways. Because a person who is of great kindness is not of great truth, to punish as is deserving. But the Holy One, even though He is of great kindness, he is also of great truth. And, as we say "Praise the Lord, all you nations; extol him, all you peoples. For His merciful kindness is great toward us; and the truth of the Lord endures forever" (Psalms 117:1-2). The praise of the nations to God, is not that his kindness overpowered. But rather the opposite: even though his kindness was so powerful, in any event "the truth of the Lord endures forever."...