The Hebrew words expressing the idea of Righteousness are the follo%ving derivatives of the root pl)i : —
1. The adj. p")s ; LXX iimtuM, etc; EV 'righteous,' mor* rarely ' just,' etc.
2. The abstract nouns .ii3'is and pnx, which appear to be prac- tically interchangeable ; LXX iijuciorvvfi, etc ; EV ' rigbteout- nes?,' more rarely 'justice,' etc.
[The Aram, .nij"!^ appears in Dn 4'*].
The verbal forms are much less freqtiently used, viz.: —
8. The Qal piy (22 times in MT) ; LXX S.i^nt ij.oe/, liiuuni (pass.), etc.; EV 'be righteous,' 'be Justified,' ' be just,' etc
4. The Hiphil p'^^n (12 times, always in a declarative sens* except Is 63", Dn 123) ; LXX J,««i.D., etc.; EV 'justify,' etc.
6. The Piel p^s (5 times, with the sense ' make out to be in the right,' or 'make to appear in the right'); LXX Iim^*!; etc.; EV 'justify.'
8. The Hithpael (refl.) P'V^^fn (On 44l«); LXX tiMoimt (pass.); EV 'clear ourselves.'
7. The Niphal pisi (Dn S", of the Temple); LXX MtiStLfilur (pass.) ; EV ' be cleansed.'
The C.rvek and English torm.s given above represent only the prevalent usage ot LXX and EV respectively. With regard to the latter, it may be said that the words 'righteous' and 'righteousness' cover approximately the uses of pns in the OT. Out of some 620 instances where the Heb. root appears, about 400 are rendered in AV by 'righteous,' 'righteousness,' or 'righteously.' In over 100 cases 'just,' 'justice,' 'justify' are employed, sometimes appropriately enough, but at other times quite arbitrarily (cf. e.g. On «» with "', or Am 2' with 513). There are, besides, a few miscellaneous renderings, which it would serve no useful purpose to tabulate. On the other side, ' righteous ' stands for If'; (' upright ') in Nu 2310, job 4^ 23', Ps 107«, Ft 2' 333 149 1619 2S1» (similarly the adv. Ps 67* 99"'). KV has rectified some of those anomalies : for instance, exoep* in Nu 2311', ' righteous,' etc., never are used except for some form of pnx. The usage of the LXX is marked by somewliat greater diversity, as was to be expected from the variety oJ
righteous>:ess m ox
RIGHTEOUSXKSS IN OT
273
circ-uautances in which the different book8 were translated. In the j;reat majority of cases, however, the Ileb. terms are rt'prest-nttd by )i*xi«< and the coioiate wonls, although other rendering's are frequent, as ectuf^wrti^ Ka.tia.pttt ^trtti, tigiir.t, Mfirtt, Uut, itar.tiAgiint (the last two are instructive). And, conversely, 3ts«u«(, etc., are used for such words as ly';, 'p; (' innocent '), ijn (' kindneaa 'X njK (' truth," ' fidelity '), tsff p ('judicial decision,' 'judf^ent'), etc. A certain freedom of tlans!;i(ion is, no doubt, permissible in view of the e.xtreme VDniatiiity of the Heb. notion, and its association with numer- otls parulielij>ms ; and these Heb. synonyms have naturally to be ttJien into account in forming conclusions regarding the OT idea of righteousness. Cf. liatch, Essayt in Bw. Gr. 49.
i. Righteousness in Common Life.— In the earliest liistoriual literature — the documents J and E of the Hex., and the oldest sources of the 15ks. of Samuel and Kings — the words for ' righteous- ness 'occur, not very frequently, but in connexions which convey a pretty complete idea of what they meant in everyday life. Here the most prominent aspect of the notion la the forensic, although this by no means excludes an ethical and religious reference. In early Israel, law, morality, and religion were closely identitied, all three restin" larjjely on traditional custom or being embodied in it. Morality consisted in confoniiity to the conventional usages of the society to wliicli a man belonged (Gn 26», 2 S 13" etc.) ; the administration of ju.-.tice was the enforcement in individual cases of the acknowledged rules of social order ; and, again, these rules were invested with religious sanctions as expressing the will of J". Thus a man's legal rights were a measure of the morality of his conduct, and at the same time all rights existing between men were also rights before .1''. When it is sjiid that the forensic clement pre- jionderates, what is meant is that questions of right and wTong were habitually regarded from a legal point of view as matters to be settled by a judge, and that this point of view is empliasized m the wonls derived from pia. This, indeed, is characteristic of the Heb. conception of rig^hteous- nets in all its developments : whether it be a moral quality or a religious status, it is a])t to be looked on as in itself controvertible and incom- plete until it has been confirmed by what is e'luivalent to a judicial sentence. Now, within the forensic sphere we can distinguish three aspects of righteousness which are of fundamental importance for the subsequent history of the idea ; and these may be illustrated from almost any period of the language.
(I) Kighteousness means, in the first instance, being in the right in a particular ca.se. Of the two parties in a controversy, the one who has the right on his side is designated as p'li.i, and the one in the wrong as vyi.n : Dt 2.5' ' If there be a guarrel between men, and they bring it to the ]nd''nieiit-seat, and (the judges) judge them, they shall justify the p-'s ana condemn the IVl' ; cf. ie'». Ex 23'- », Is S^ 29=', Pr 17"> IS"- " 24-< etc. Siruilai ly, a person accused or suspected of wrong- doing is PIS if he is innocent and IVT if guilty (Gn 20*, 2 S 4", 2 K 10», I'r 17=»). It makes, of course, no difl'erence whether the case is actuall}- submitted to a judge or not ; all (lui^stions of right and wrong are conceived as capable ideally of being so settled, and the intrinsic merits of the dispute are described by the same terms ; see Ex Vi" (' J" is in the riqht, and I and my jieoplo are in the wrornt ') ; 1 S 24", 1 K 8*^ (cf. Kx 2"). Thus "i'll' (.^7* in this sense appears to be later) denotes the light or innocence ol an incriminateil person, his claim to justification, the validity of his iilea (2 S 19^ •26-=', Neh 2»).* In these cases righteous- ne.s.s is an inherent quality, not depending on the decision of the judge, but at the most demaniLing