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done in the end: “Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor in his cause. Keep thee
far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify
the wicked” (Exod. 23:6-7). The righteous person followed God’s example. The psalmist
exhorts his people to change their judicial system: “Defend the poor and fatherless: do
justice to the afflicted and needy” (Ps. 82:3).
Job’s ultimate hope was in God’s declaration of justification. The Old Testament is in
agreement with this hope. When injustice prevails, God is the One who “justifies.”
The Septuagint translates the verb by
(“to do justice, justly, to vindicate”). In
the English versions a frequent translation is “to justify” (
KJV
,
RSV
,
NASB
,
NIV
); modern
versions also give the additional translations “to be vindicated (
RSV
,
NASB
,
NIV
) and “to
acquit” (
RSV
,
NIV
).
B. Nouns.
%
(
$
, 6664);
%
(
$
, 6666), “righteousness.” These nouns come
from a Semitic root which occurs in Hebrew, Phoenician and Aramaic with a juristic
sense. In Phoenician and Old Aramaic it carries the sense of “loyalty” demonstrated by a
king or priest as a servant of his own god. In these languages a form of the root is
combined with other words or names, particularly with the name of a deity in royal
names. In the Old Testament we meet the name Melchizedek (“king of righteousness”).
A more limited meaning of the root is found in Arabic (a South Semitic language):
“truthfulness” (of propositions). In rabbinic Hebrew the noun
%
signifies “alms”
or “demonstrations of mercy.”
The word
%
, which occurs 157 times, is found throughout the Old Testament
(except for Exodus, Leviticus, 2 Kings, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Habbakuk, and
Zephaniah).
%
, which occurs 119 times, is found mainly in poetic literature. The
first usage of
%
is: “Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not
respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty: but in righteousness
shalt thou judge thy neighbor” (Lev. 19:15); and of
%
is: "[Abram] believed in the
Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness” (Gen. 15:6).
Translators have found it difficult to translate these two words. The older translations
base their understanding on the Septuagint with the translation
$
(“righteousness”) and on the Vulgate
$
(“justice”). In these translations the legal
relationship of humans is transferred to God in an absolute sense as the Lawgiver and
with the perfections of justice and “righteousness.”
Exegetes have spilled much ink in an attempt to understand contextually the words
%
and
%
!
The conclusions of the researchers indicate a twofold significance.
On the one hand, the relationships among people and of a man to his God can be
described as
%
, supposing the parties are faithful to each other’s expectations. It is a
relational word. In Jacob’s proposal to Laban, Jacob used the word
%
to indicate
the relationship. The
KJV
gives the following translation of
%
&
“So shall my
righteousness answer for me in time to come, when it shall come for my hire before thy
face …” (Gen. 30:33). The
NASB
gives the word “righteousness” in a marginal note, but