Word study

Covenant

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

In brief

Covenant is the Hebrew berit, a binding agreement that creates a relationship, used of God's covenants with Noah, Abraham, Israel and David, and of treaties between people. The Hebrew idiom is to "cut" a covenant. The Greek diathēkē translates berit in the New Testament; in everyday Greek it also meant a will, a sense Hebrews 9 draws on.

Written and reviewed by our editorial team.

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: covenant, covenants, covenanted. English often uses one word where Hebrew or Greek has several, each with its own shade of meaning. Under each word are verses where it is translated this way; choose the word itself for its full study: every verse, how else it is translated, the forms it takes and what the dictionaries say.

At a glance

How often each original word is translated “covenant” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • בְּרִית berîthcovenanttranslated this way 263 times of its 283 uses · Strong’s H1285Noun  ·  Translated: covenant 261, treaty 17, alliance 1, like the covenant 1

    Genesis 6:18 But I will establish My covenant with you, and you will enter the ark — you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.

    Exodus 2:24 So God heard their groaning, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

    Full study and all 264 verses →
  • כָּרַת kârathcut off, cut downtranslated this way 5 times of its 284 uses · Strong’s H3772Verb  ·  Translated: cut 144, made 47, make 28, fail 7

    1 Samuel 20:16 So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, “May the LORD hold David’s enemies accountable.”

    1 Kings 8:9 There was nothing in the ark except the two stone tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb, where the LORD had made a covenant with the Israelites after they had come out of the land of Egypt.

    Full study and all 276 verses →
  • עֵדוּת êdûthtestimonytranslated this way 2 times of its 61 uses · Strong’s H5715Noun  ·  Translated: Testimony 42, testimonies 9, decrees 4, presented him with the testimony 2

    Psalm 60:1 For the choirmaster. To the tune of “The Lily of the Covenant.” A Miktam of David for instruction. When he fought Aram-naharaim and Aram-zobah, and Joab returned and struck down 12,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt. You have rejected us, O God; You have broken us; You have been angry; restore us!

    Psalm 80:1 For the choirmaster. To the tune of “The Lilies of the Covenant.” A Psalm of Asaph. Hear us, O Shepherd of Israel, who leads Joseph like a flock; You who sit enthroned between the cherubim, shine forth

    Full study and all 59 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • διαθήκη diathḗkēa covenant, will, testamenttranslated this way 31 times of its 33 uses · Strong’s G1242Noun  ·  Translated: covenant 27, covenants 3, human covenant 1, will 1

    Matthew 26:28 This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

    Mark 14:24 He said to them, “This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.

    Full study and all 30 verses →
How to study a word well
  1. Start from the verse, not the dictionary. Find which Hebrew or Greek word stands in the verse you are studying. One English word often translates several different original words.
  2. Read every place the word is used. A word means what its writers used it to mean. The list of verses and the count by book show its range, and who uses it most.
  3. Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
  4. Notice the form. A command is not a statement, and a passive verb is something done to the subject. The form in your verse is part of the meaning.
  5. See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
  6. Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
  7. Come back to the verse. Context decides. A word does not carry every one of its meanings into every verse, and where a word came from does not settle what it means in a sentence written centuries later.

What the Bible says about covenant: passages by topic →

Scripture text and translation counts: Berean Standard Bible. Full entry: Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906, public domain), in the digital edition Brown-Driver-Briggs Enhanced by unfoldingWord (Joel Ruark, J. de Joode), based on data by Eliran Wong and Stephen Ku; its additions are used under CC BY 4.0. Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary: Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project, CC BY 4.0. Hebrew-to-English verse numbering: original work of the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible available at https://github.com/openscriptures/morphhb, CC BY 4.0. We reformatted the data, linked the references to this site’s Bible text and left out words in other scripts that the source holds only as images. These are historical reference works; an entry gives its authors’ view, and a word’s meaning in any verse depends on how it is used there.