Nichuwm (plural: nichuwmiym) refers to comfort, compassion, or tender consolation. It is the noun form derived from nacham (H5162, to comfort/repent). It appears in Hosea 11:8, where God's heart recoils in compassion over Ephraim: 'My heart is changed within me; all my compassion [nichuwmiym] is aroused.' In Isaiah 57:18, God promises to restore and offer nichuwm to the mourning. The word describes not just words of comfort but the internal stirring of tender feeling.
Nichuwm in Hosea 11 is one of the most emotionally raw passages in the Old Testament. God speaks as a parent who cannot abandon a wayward child: despite Israel's rebellion, the divine heart is overwhelmed with nichuwm — compassion that overrides what strict justice would demand. This is the heart of God — a God whose compassions fail not (Lam 3:22), who is moved by our suffering (Jn 11:35), and who offers the fullness of His comfort through the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete — the Comforter (Jn 14:16).