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.
tsedaqah
Righteousness, and just as often justice. English splits them.
Genesis 15:6, in every translation this tool compares.
That was not right. That was not just. Two complaints in English, one in Hebrew.
Because the same noun is rendered righteousness when it is about a person and justice when it is about society, and the Hebrew makes no such division.
Versions read righteousness in narrative and justice in the Prophets, from one word.
צְדָקָה tsedaqah · H6666
Tsedaqah is rightness inside relationship, including obligations to people with no legal claim on you. In the Prophets it is regularly paired with mishpat and concerns the treatment of the poor.
English divided the word along a line Hebrew never drew, and the two halves now sound like different subjects.
Read a passage substituting the other English word. It is the quickest way to hear what the division costs.
Righteousness is the majority rendering in the Torah and justice in the Prophets.
- tsedaqah with mishpat: Amos 5:24; Isaiah 1:27
- Genesis 15:6; Deuteronomy 24:13
- Septuagint dikaiosune for tsedaqah
