This article presents a new investigation of חסד, a much-discussed Biblical Hebrew lexeme. A short history of research reveals that the most influential studies of חסד lack a sound linguistic methodology. Cognitive linguistics, particularly frame semantics, provides a methodology that deliberately takes cultural and social knowledge into account. The meaning of חסד turns out to be an action or an event rather than an attitude. It can be described as ‘an action performed by one person for the benefit of another to avert some danger or critical impairment from the beneficiary’. This definition is then applied to some difficult passages which contain the lexeme חסד including Hos. 6.6 and Isa. 40.6 and arguably produces better readings.
