righteous, righteousness

Click here to view graphically

The Greek, Hebrew, Ge’ez, and Latin terms that are translated in English mostly as “righteous” or “righteousness” (see below for a discussion of the English translation) are most commonly expressed with concept of “straightness,” though this may be expressed in a number of ways. (Click or tap here to see the details)

Following is a list of (back-) translations of various languages:

  • Bambara, Southern Bobo Madaré, Chokwe (ululi), Amganad Ifugao, Chol, Eastern Maninkakan, Toraja-Sa’dan, Pamona, Batak Toba, Bilua, Tiv: “be straight”
  • Laka: “follow the straight way” or “to straight-straight” (a reduplicated form for emphasis)
  • Sayula Popoluca: “walk straight”
  • Highland Puebla Nahuatl, Kekchí, Muna: “have a straight heart”
  • Kipsigis: “do the truth”
  • Mezquital Otomi: “do according to the truth”
  • Huautla Mazatec: “have truth”
  • Yine: “fulfill what one should do”
  • Indonesian: “be true”
  • Navajo (Dinė): “do just so”
  • Anuak: “do as it should be”
  • Mossi: “have a white stomach” (see also happiness / joy)
  • Paasaal: “white heart” (source: Fabian N. Dapila in The Bible Translator 2024, p. 415ff.)
  • (San Mateo del Mar Huave: “completely good” (the translation does not imply sinless perfection)
  • Nuer: “way of right” (“there is a complex concept of “right” vs. ‘left’ in Nuer where ‘right’ indicates that which is masculine, strong, good, and moral, and ‘left’ denotes what is feminine, weak, and sinful (a strictly masculine viewpoint!) The ‘way of right’ is therefore righteousness, but of course women may also attain this way, for the opposition is more classificatory than descriptive.”) (This and all above from Bratcher / Nida except for Bilua: Carl Gross; Tiv: Rob Koops; Muna: René van den Berg)
  • Central Subanen: “wise-good” (source: Robert Brichoux in OPTAT 1988/2, p. 80ff. )
  • Xicotepec De Juárez Totonac: “live well”
  • Mezquital Otomi: “goodness before the face of God” (source for this and one above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
  • Eastern Huasteca Nahuatl: “the result of heart-straightening” (source: Nida 1947, p. 224)
  • Eastern Highland Otomi: “entirely good” (when referred to God), “do good” or “not be a debtor as God sees one” (when referred to people)
  • Carib: “level”
  • Tzotzil: “straight-hearted”
  • Ojitlán Chinantec: “right and straight”
  • Yatzachi Zapotec: “walk straight” (source for this and four previous: John Beekman in Notes on Translation November 1964, p. 1-22)
  • Makonde: “doing what God wants” (in a context of us doing) and “be good in God’s eyes” (in the context of being made righteous by God) (note that justify / justification is translated as “to be made good in the eyes of God.” (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext)
  • Aari: The Pauline word for “righteous” is generally rendered by “makes one without sin” in the Aari, sometimes “before God” is added for clarity. (Source: Loren Bliese)
  • North Alaskan Inupiatun: “having sin taken away” (Source: Nida 1952, p. 144)
  • Nyamwezi: wa lole: “just” or “someone who follows the law of God” (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
  • Venda: “nothing wrong, OK” (Source: J.A. van Roy in The Bible Translator 1972, p. 418ff. )
  • Ekari: maakodo bokouto or “enormous truth” (the same word that is also used for “truth“; bokouto — “enormous” — is being used as an attribute for abstract nouns to denote that they are of God [see also here]; source: Marion Doble in The Bible Translator 1963, p. 37ff. ).
  • Guhu-Samane: pobi or “right” (also: “right (side),” “(legal) right,” “straightness,” “correction,” “south,” “possession,” “pertinence,” “kingdom,” “fame,” “information,” or “speech” — “According to [Guhu-Samane] thinking there is a common core of meaning among all these glosses. Even from an English point of view the first five can be seen to be closely related, simply because of their similarity in English. However, from that point the nuances of meaning are not so apparent. They relate in some such a fashion as this: As one faces the morning sun, south lies to the right hand (as north lies to the left); then at one’s right hand are his possessions and whatever pertains to him; thus, a rich man’s many possessions and scope of power and influence is his kingdom; so, the rich and other important people encounter fame; and all of this spreads as information and forms most of the framework of the people’s speech.”) (Source: Ernest Richert in Notes on Translation 1964, p. 11ff.)
  • Haroti (Hadauti): “blameless in God’s eyes” (source: Vikram Mukka in Christianity Today )
  • German New Testament translation by Berger / Nord (publ. 1999): Gerechtheit, a neologism to differentiate it from the commonly-used Gerechtigkeit which can mean “righteousness” but is more often used in modern German as “fairness” (Berger / Nord especially use Gerechtheit in Letter to the Romans) or Gerechtestun, also a neologism, meaning “righteous deeds” (especially in Letter to the Ephesians)
  • “did what he should” (Eastern Highland Otomi)
  • “a clear man, good [man]” (Mairasi) (source: Enggavoter 2004)

The English translation of righteousness, especially in the New Testament is questioned by Nicholas Wolterstorff (2008, p. 110ff.) (Click or tap here to see the details)

Those who approach the New Testament solely through English translations face a serious linguistic obstacle to apprehending what these writings say about justice. In most English translations, the word “justice” occurs relatively infrequently. It is no surprise, then, that most English-speaking people think the New Testament does not say much about justice; the Bibles they read do not say much about justice. English translations are in this way different from translations into Latin, French, Spanish, German, Dutch — and for all I know, most languages.

The basic issue is well known among translators and commentators. Plato’s Republic, as we all know, is about justice. The Greek noun in Plato’s text that is standardly translated as “justice” is dikaiosunē (δικαιοσύνη); the adjective standardly translated as “just” is dikaios (δίκαιος). This same dik-stem occurs around three hundred times in the New Testament, in a wide variety of grammatical variants.

To the person who comes to English translations of the New Testament fresh from reading and translating classical Greek, it comes as a surprise to discover that though some of those occurrences are translated with grammatical variants on our word “just,” the great bulk of dik-stem words are translated with grammatical variants on our word “right.” The noun, for example, is usually translated as “righteousness,” not as “justice.” In English we have the word “just” and its grammatical variants coming horn the Latin iustitia, and the word “right” and its grammatical variants coining from the Old English recht. Almost all our translators have decided to translate the great bulk of dik-stem words in the New Testament with grammatical variants on the latter — just the opposite of the decision made by most translators of classical Greek.

I will give just two examples of the point. The fourth of the beatitudes of Jesus, as recorded in the fifth chapter of Matthew, reads, in the New Revised Standard Version, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” The word translated as “righteousness” is dikaiosunē. And the eighth beatitude, in the same translation, reads “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The Greek word translated as “righteousness” is dikaiosunē. Apparently, the translators were not struck by the oddity of someone being persecuted because he is righteous. My own reading of human affairs is that righteous people are either admired or ignored, not persecuted; people who pursue justice are the ones who get in trouble.

It goes almost without saying that the meaning and connotations of “righteousness” are very different in present-day idiomatic English from those of “justice.” “Righteousness” names primarily if not exclusively a certain trait of personal character. (…) The word in present-day idiomatic English carries a negative connotation. In everyday speech one seldom any more describes someone as righteous; if one does, the suggestion is that he is self-righteous. “Justice,” by contrast, refers to an interpersonal situation; justice is present when persons are related to each other in a certain way. There is, indeed, a long tradition of philosophical and theological discussion on the virtue of justice. But that use of the term has almost dropped out of idiomatic English; we do not often speak any more of a person as just. And in any case, the concept of the virtue of justice presupposes the concept of those social relationships that are just.

So when the New Testament writers speak of dikaiosunē, are they speaking of righteousness or of justice? Is Jesus blessing those who hunger and thirst for righteousness or those who hunger and thirst for justice?

A thought that comes to mind is that the word changed meaning between Plato and the New Testament. Had Jesus’ words been uttered in Plato’s time and place, they would have been understood as blessing those who hunger and thirst for the social condition of justice. In Jesus’ time and place, they would have been understood as blessing (hose who hunger and thirst for righteousness — that is, for personal moral rectitude.

Between the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament there came the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek. (…) One of the challenges facing the Septuagint translators was how to catch, in the Greek of their day, the combination of mishpat (מִשְׁפָּט) with tsedeq (צֶ֫דֶק). Tsedeq that we find so often in the Old Testament, standardly translated into English as justice and righteousness. The solution they settled on was to translate tsedeq as dikaiosunē, and to use a term whose home use was in legal situations, namely, krisis (κρίσις), to translate mishpat. Mishpat and tsedeq became krisis and dikaiosunē. For the most part, this is also how they translated the Hebrew words even when they were not explicitly paired with each other: mishpat (justice) becomes krisis, tsedeq (righteousness) becomes dikaiosunē. The pattern is not entirely consistent, however; every now and then, when mishpat is not paired off with tsedeq, it is translated with dikaiosunē or some other dik-stem word (e.g., 1 Kings 3:28, Proverbs 17:23, Isaiah 61:8).

I think the conclusion that those of us who are not specialists in Hellenistic Greek should draw from this somewhat bewildering array of data is that, in the linguistic circles of the New Testament writers, dikaiosunē did not refer definitively either to the character trait of righteousness (shorn of its negative connotations) or to the social condition of justice, but was ambiguous as between those two. If dikaiosunē had referred decisively in Hellenistic Greek to righteousness rather than to justice, why would the Septuagint translators sometimes use it to translate mishpat, why would Catholic translators [into the 1980s] usually translate it as “justice,” and why would all English translators sometimes translate it as “justice”? (All earlier Latin-based Catholic translations, the New American Bible and the Jerusalem Bible, both of which appeared in the early 1970s have most occurrences of dik-stem words translated with variants on “just.” In subsequent revisions of the New American Bible, and in the New Jerusalem Bible, these translations have been altered to translations along the lines of righteousness. Other translations that use a form of justice or “doing right / rightness” include the British New English Bible [1970] and Revised English Bible [1989] and some newer translations such as by Hart [2017], Ruden [2021] or McKnight [2023]).

Conversely, if it referred decisively to justice, why would the Septuagint translators usually not use it to translate mishpat, and why would almost all translators sometimes translate it as “righteousness”? Context will have to determine whether, in a given case, it is best translated as “justice” or as “righteousness” — or as something else instead; and if context does not determine, then it would be best, if possible, to preserve the ambiguity and use some such ambiguous expression as “what is right” or “the right thing.”

Let me make one final observation about translation. When one takes in hand a list of all the occurrences of dik-stem words in the Greek New Testament, and then opens up almost any English translation of the New Testament and reads in one sitting all the translations of these words, a certain pattern emerges: unless the notion of legal judgment is so prominent in the context as virtually to force a translation in terms of justice, the translators will prefer to speak of righteousness.

See also respectable, righteous, righteous (person), devout, and She is more in the right(eous) than I.

complete verse (Ezekiel 18:5)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Ezekiel 18:5:

  • Kupsabiny: “Let us say that there is a completely good person and kind.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “For-example, there is a righteous man and he does what is right.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “So, suppose there is a righteous person
    whoalways does what is fair and right.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Ezekiel 18:5-9

If a man is righteous and does what is lawful and right: The first example of individual responsibility is a man who is righteous, that is, someone who is “truly good” (Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version), someone who respects God and obeys the rules of the covenant (see 3.20). Lawful renders the Hebrew term for the laws and legal judgments that regulate people’s lives (see the comments on 5.6, where it is translated “ordinances”). New Jerusalem Bible renders lawful as “law-abiding,” and Good News Translation has “honest.” Right renders the same Hebrew root as the word for righteous. Verse 5 may be translated “If a man does what the law requires and is a good man.”

Verses 5-9 form one long conditional sentence, which basically says “If a man does not do such-and-such bad things, and if he does such-and-such good things, then he is a good man.” For most languages it will be easier to change the structure as follows: “Think of a really good man. He does not do such-and-such bad things, and he does such-and-such good things. Therefore he is a truly good man.” This restructuring is quite acceptable. Bible en français courant does it by rendering verse 5 as “Consider the case of a man who does good by acting justly and honestly,” and so does Good News Translation with “Suppose there is a truly good man, righteous and honest.”

Verses 6-9a (the part between the long dashes) show why he is a good man, mainly listing the wicked things that he does not do, even though he could do them if he chose to. The list contains fourteen actions, eight of which are bad things that he does not do, and six are good things that he does. Much of the list is based on the laws in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. The actions are:

(1) He does not eat upon the mountains refers to the feasts that accompanied the worship of false gods in the shrines on the mountains. Contemporary English Version makes this explicit by saying “He refuses to eat meat sacrificed to foreign gods at local shrines,” but New Century Version is perhaps better with “He does not eat at the mountain places of worship.”
(2) [He does not] lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel means he does not worship the idols of the Israelites. Idols are statues of false gods (see 6.4). The house of Israel is not a building but the nation or people of Israel. New Century Version renders this clause as “He does not look to the idols of Israel for help,” but a better model is “He does not worship the idols [or, statues of other gods] of the people of Israel.”
(3) [He] does not defile his neighbor’s wife means he does not have sex with a woman who is the wife of another man in the community. According to Lev 18.20, a man who does this defiles himself, that is, makes himself ritually unclean. God says that this action makes the woman unclean. Bible en français courant renders this clause as “He does not dishonor someone else’s wife,” but if this is not clear, then translators may say “He does not dishonor a neighbor’s wife by having sex with her.”
(4) [He does not] approach a woman in her time of impurity means he does not have sex with a woman during her menstrual period. Lev 18.19 forbids people having sex at that time. Most languages will have a euphemistic way of referring to this. New Century Version says “He does not have sexual relations … with a woman during her time of monthly bleeding.”
(5) [He] does not oppress any one refers to any way in which rich people might take advantage of people who are weak (for example, by taking their property without paying a fair price for it). Good News Translation says “He doesn’t cheat … anyone” (similarly Contemporary English Version), New Century Version has “He does not mistreat anyone,” and Bible en français courant translates “He does not exploit … anyone” (similarly Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch).
(6) but [he] restores to the debtor his pledge: It was common for people who received a loan to give the lender something as security, as a promise to repay the loan. When they repaid the loan, the lender gave that item back to them. If they did not repay the loan, the lender was allowed to keep the item, but sometimes wicked lenders would keep it even if they were repaid. The item that was exchanged as security is called a pledge. Revised Standard Version changes the Hebrew text slightly here (so also King James Version, New American Standard Bible, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). Revised English Bible follows the Hebrew by saying “he returns the debtor’s pledge,” that is, the good man gives back the pledge when the borrower repays the loan. The readings in Revised Standard Version and Revised English Bible have almost the same meaning. A good model for this clause is “He gives back at the right time what the borrower gave to him as security.”
(7) [He] commits no robbery refers to robbery with violence, taking something by force (compare Lev 19.13). This clause may be rendered “He doesn’t rob anyone.”
(8) [He] gives his bread to the hungry: The good man cares for the poor in the community. The Hebrew word for bread is a general word for “food” (Contemporary English Version, New International Version, New Living Translation, Revised English Bible, New Jerusalem Bible), so this clause may be rendered “He gives food to people who are hungry” or simply “he feeds the hungry” (Good News Translation).
(9) [He] covers the naked with a garment is also a positive action of caring for the poor. This clause may be translated “He gives clothes to those who have none” (similarly New Century Version, Revised English Bible).
(10) [He] does not lend at interest or take any increase is based on Lev 25.36-37. There may be no difference in meaning between the Hebrew words for interest and increase, so translators may render these two clauses as “He doesn’t charge interest when lending money” (similarly Contemporary English Version). Some translations try to distinguish the two terms by introducing the idea of “excessive interest” (New International Version) or “usury” (King James Version / New King James Version, New American Bible) for one of the terms, but this is not warranted. Other translations distinguish them in a different way. They understand one of the terms to refer to interest deducted in advance, and the other to interest added at the time of repayment (so New Revised Standard Version, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). The difference between these two is as follows: Someone agrees to lend another person $100 at 10% interest. He may give the borrower only $90, although the borrower will have to pay back the full $100. The other $10 is interest deducted in advance. Alternatively, the lender may give the borrower the full $100, but demands that the borrower repay $110. This extra $10 is interest added at the time of repayment. Although we cannot be sure, this is probably the best interpretation. Therefore these two clauses may be rendered “He does not deduct interest when he loans money to someone, nor does he increase the amount that person owes him.”
(11) [He] withholds his hand from iniquity refers to “doing wrong” (New International Version, New Century Version), especially in legal matters (compare Lev 19.15, 35). It is the opposite of true justice. Withholds his hand from is an idiom for not doing something, so some translations say “refuses” (Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version), “abstains” (New Jerusalem Bible, Moffatt), or “stays away from” (New Living Translation). Since this list is primarily concerned with the powerful people in society, this clause is best translated “He avoids giving wrong and unfair decisions [in legal matters],” but it may also be expressed as “He refuses to get involved in doing wrong.”
(12) [He] executes true justice between man and man: The good man makes good, fair and honest legal decisions. He uses his power to promote true justice (opposite of iniquity) when he arbitrates in a dispute between two people. In Old Testament society only men were recognized at court, but in modern societies where the gender balance is more equal, between man and man is more appropriately rendered “between one person and another” (Revised English Bible, New Jerusalem Bible). New Century Version renders this whole clause well, saying “He judges fairly between one person and another.”
(13) [He] walks in my statutes means he lives in obedience to God’s “laws” (Contemporary English Version, New Jerusalem Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh) or “rules” (New Century Version). The Hebrew word for statutes refers to the fixed laws made by a ruler or government (see the comments on 5.6). This action along with the next one summarize the previous twelve actions—they are a summary of what the good man does and does not do. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has made this clear by beginning verse 9 with “In a word,” which means “In summary.”
(14) [He] is careful to observe my ordinances: The good man “keeps” (Good News Translation, New International Version) or “obeys” (New Century Version) God’s laws. The Hebrew word for ordinances refers to the decisions made by rulers and judges in the law courts; they are the laws that regulate people’s everyday life (see the comments on 5.6). In its footnote on verse 9, Revised Standard Version admits to changing the Hebrew text to follow an alternate reading that is based on verse 19. Hebrew Old Testament Text Project tentatively supports this reading, a model for which is “He keeps my laws by doing them.” Instead of “by doing them,” the Hebrew text has “to do truth.” Some translations use an adverb to render this Hebrew expression; for example, “faithfully” (Contemporary English Version, New International Version, New Living Translation, New Century Version, New King James Version ), “loyally” (Revised English Bible), or “sincerely” (New Jerusalem Bible). Others express it as a separate clause; for example, “acting faithfully” (New Revised Standard Version; similarly Bible en français courant), “and acted honestly” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh), or “to deal truly” (King James Version). By doing so, these translations in effect add a fifteenth item to the list. A model for this interpretation of the two clauses here is “He keeps my laws and is honest in everything he does.” This interpretation is preferable.

He is righteous, he shall surely live, says the Lord GOD: At the end of the list of vices and virtues, God repeats the topic he is righteous. He shall surely live is an emphatic expression that renders two different forms of the Hebrew verb meaning “live.” This clause means the good man will certainly escape the divine judgment that rests on the unfaithful Israelites. It refers only to the present situation of the exiles, and in translation there should not be any reference to eternal life. For says the Lord GOD, see Ezek 18.3. Bible en français courant (1982) restructures this last half of verse 9 to make it more natural, saying “Therefore, I, the Lord God, I declare that such a man is truly righteous and that he will live.” However, it is equally possible to follow the Hebrew pattern of putting God’s formal declaration at the end, as in “A person like this is truly good, and he will certainly live. I, the Lord Yahweh, declare this.”

Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .