Tool Beta
Hebrew and Greek Without Learning Either
A walk through Genesis, the Psalms, and John, plus the key Hebrew and Greek words worth knowing. Each card is a place the English Bibles part company, and what in the Hebrew or Greek made them.
dikaiosune
Righteousness. English splits this into righteousness and justice; Greek and Hebrew do not.
Romans 1:17, in every translation this tool compares.
That was not right. That was not just. English keeps two words and lets you pick which complaint you are making. Imagine one word and no choice.
Because a reader who hears righteousness thinks personal moral standing, and a reader who hears justice thinks courts and fairness. One Greek word covers both, so half the argument of Romans is invisible depending on which English word you were raised on.
Nearly every English version reads righteousness in Paul and justice in some Old Testament contexts, from one Greek and one Hebrew word.
δικαιοσύνη dikaiosune · G1343
Dikaiosune translates Hebrew tsedaqah, which is rightness inside a relationship, including doing right by people who have no claim on you. The legal and the moral senses are one idea.
English divided the word centuries ago along a line Greek never drew, and the two halves now feel like different subjects.
When one original word is rendered by two English words in different books, read a passage substituting the other one. It is the fastest way to hear what was lost.
Righteousness is the majority rendering in the New Testament and justice in the Prophets, from the same underlying vocabulary.
- dikaiosune for tsedaqah throughout the Septuagint
- Matthew 6:33, seek first his kingdom and his dikaiosune
- Amos 5:24 renders the same field as justice in English
