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.
eleos
Mercy. In the Septuagint it is the word chosen for Hebrew chesed, which is much larger.
Matthew 9:13, in every translation this tool compares.
He showed mercy. You picture someone being let off. Now picture a word that also covers standing by someone for thirty years, and you can see the join not fitting.
Because English mercy means leniency toward someone in trouble, and the Greek word inherited a Hebrew noun about covenant loyalty. The two do not match and the Septuagint is why.
Every version reads mercy. Some render compassion or lovingkindness where the Old Testament background is being quoted.
ἔλεος eleos · G1656
Eleos translates chesed hundreds of times in the Septuagint. So when a New Testament writer quotes Hosea 6:6, I desired mercy and not sacrifice, the word underneath is covenant loyalty rather than leniency.
English split obligation from kindness. Greek eleos on its own is nearer pity, and it is carrying a Hebrew load it was not built for.
When a Greek word sits under a quotation from the Old Testament, find the Hebrew word it is standing in for. Septuagint vocabulary is the bridge between the two Testaments and almost nothing else explains it.
Mercy is the majority rendering and has been since Tyndale. Nothing else has ever been in serious contention.
- Septuagint eleos for chesed throughout the Psalms
- Hosea 6:6 quoted at Matthew 9:13 and 12:7
- Compare oiktirmos, compassion, which is the narrower Greek word
