Word study

Faith

3 Hebrew and 2 Greek words behind this English word

In brief

Nearly every "faith" in the New Testament is the Greek noun pistis. It is a relationship word. In the first century it described the trust and loyalty that bind two parties together, so its range runs from belief and trust to faithfulness, fidelity and allegiance. Hebrews 11:1 uses it for confidence in what God has promised, Galatians 5:22 for faithfulness as fruit of the Spirit, and Jude 3 for "the faith," the body of teaching handed down.

Its verb, pisteuō, is usually translated "believe," so in Greek "faith" and "believe" are one family of words. Biblical faith includes believing what Jesus says, trusting him to save, and giving him allegiance as king. The Old Testament has no single matching noun; it speaks more often of trusting, or of faithfulness (emunah), from the root behind "amen."

Further reading: What Is Faith in the Bible? (RENEW.org); Matthew W. Bates, Gospel Allegiance (Brazos Press, 2019) and Salvation by Allegiance Alone (Baker Academic, 2017).

Written and reviewed by our editorial team.

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “faith”. 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 “faith” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side Compare the Greek words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • בָּגַד bâgadact or deal treacherouslytranslated this way 7 times of its 46 uses · Strong’s H898Verb  ·  Translated: faithless 11, betrayed 6, unfaithful 5, broken faith 3

    Exodus 21:8 If she is displeasing in the eyes of her master who had designated her for himself, he must allow her to be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, since he has broken faith with her.

    1 Samuel 14:33 Then someone reported to Saul: “Look, the troops are sinning against the LORD by eating meat with the blood still in it.” “You have broken faith,” said Saul. “Roll a large stone over here at once.”

    Full study and all 38 verses →
  • מָעַל mâalact unfaithfully, treacherouslytranslated this way 2 times of its 33 uses · Strong’s H4603Verb  ·  Translated: unfaithful 13, acts 3, acted unfaithfully 2, acting unfaithfully 2

    Deuteronomy 32:51 For at the waters of Meribah-kadesh in the Wilderness of Zin, both of you broke faith with Me among the Israelites by failing to treat Me as holy in their presence.

    Joshua 22:16 “This is what the whole congregation of the LORD says: ‘What is this breach of faith you have committed today against the God of Israel by turning away from the LORD and building for yourselves an altar, that you might rebel against the LORD this day?

    Full study and all 33 verses →
  • מַעַל maalunfaithful, treacherous acttranslated this way 2 times of its 22 uses · Strong’s H4604Noun  ·  Translated: unfaithfulness 10, unfaithfully 5, committed 3, breach of faith 2

    Joshua 22:22 “The LORD, the Mighty One, is God! The LORD, the Mighty One, is God! He knows, and may Israel also know. If this was in rebellion or breach of faith against the LORD, do not spare us today.

    Joshua 22:31 Phinehas son of Eleazar the priest said to the descendants of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh, “Today we know that the LORD is among us, because you have not committed this breach of faith against Him. Consequently, you have delivered the Israelites from the hand of the LORD.”

    Full study and all 22 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • πίστις pístisfaith, belief, trusttranslated this way 233 times of its 242 uses · Strong’s G4102Noun  ·  Translated: faith 231, faithfulness 3

    Matthew 8:10 When Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those following Him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.

    Mark 2:5 When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

    Full study and all 227 verses →
  • ὀλιγόπιστος oligópistosof little faithtranslated this way 4 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s G3640Adjective  ·  Translated: little faith 4, o 2

    Matthew 8:26 “You of little faith,” Jesus replied, “why are you so afraid?” Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it was perfectly calm.

    Matthew 14:31 Immediately Jesus reached out His hand and took hold of Peter. “You of little faith,” He said, “why did you doubt?”

    Full study and all 6 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 faith: 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.