Lexicon

H0571 - emet

Strong's: H0571 · BLB lookup Pronunciation: eh-meth' Part of speech: feminine noun (from the verbal root H0539 - aman aman, "to confirm / believe / be reliable") Frequency: ~127 occurrences in the Hebrew Bible, distributed across Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, the historical books, Psalms (esp. 25-145), Proverbs, Isaiah-Malachi, Daniel. LXX equivalent: ἀλήθεια (alētheia), direct correspondent. See G0225 - aletheia. Cognate forms: aman (verb, "confirm / believe / trust"); amen (אָמֵן, the liturgical affirmation, etymologically the same root); emunah (אֱמוּנָה, feminine cognate, "faithfulness"); ne'eman (נֶאֱמָן, adjective, "faithful / reliable").

Semantic range (Brown-Driver-Briggs)

Truth / reality, the primary lexical sense; what is the case, the way things actually are. Distinct from falsehood.
Faithfulness / reliability, the relational-personal extension: a person who is true, does what they say, keeps covenant, can be trusted. Emet is not merely propositional truth-telling but the integrity of being.
Steadfastness / firmness, the metaphysical stability sense: what stands firm, what endures, what will not collapse. Cognate with aman meaning "to be firm / supported."
Right / justice, by extension, emet sometimes paralleled with mishpat / tzedeq, the right-and-true shape of covenantal action.
Covenant fidelity, emet often appears as the divine attribute paired with ḥesed, God's covenant-loyalty / steadfast-love + truth/faithfulness combination.

Theological force, truth as covenant-personal-being

The biblical Hebrew concept of truth differs significantly from the post-Hellenistic Western philosophical concept. Where Greek alētheia leans toward what-is-not-hidden / the unveiling of being (its etymology), Hebrew emet leans toward what-stands-firm / what-can-be-relied-upon-because-it-is-faithful. The two are complementary but emphasize different ranges. Emet is fundamentally relational-covenantal-personal: God is true in the sense of being what He says and doing what He commits to do.

Stream 1, God's truth as covenant attribute

Exodus 34:6, the LORD's self-revelation: "the LORD, the LORD God, raḥum and ḥannun, slow to anger, abounding in ḥesed va-emet" (steadfast love and truth). The pairing ḥesed va-emet is the central divine-attribute combination of the OT, repeated at:

Genesis 24:27, 49, Abraham's servant invokes the LORD's ḥesed va-emet
Genesis 32:10, Jacob: "I am unworthy of all the ḥesed va-emet"
Joshua 2:14, Rahab's negotiation
Psalm 25:10, "all the paths of the LORD are ḥesed va-emet"
Psalm 26:3, "I have walked in Your emet"
Psalm 40:10-11; 57:3, 10; 61:7; 69:13; 86:11, 15; 89:14, 24, 49; 100:5; 108:4; 115:1; 117:2; 138:2; 138:2, "for You have magnified Your imrah (word) above all Your shem (name)"
Psalm 145:18, those who call on Him be-emet (in truth)
Proverbs 3:3; 14:22; 16:6; 20:28
Hosea 4:1, "no emet, no ḥesed, no daʿat-elohim in the land"
Micah 7:20, "You will give emet to Jacob and ḥesed to Abraham"

The divine emet is the reliability-of-God's-covenant-self: God is who He says He is; His promises stand; His character does not shift.

Stream 2, Truth as covenantal-relational requirement

The OT consistently demands emet in human covenantal action:

Exodus 18:21, Jethro's counsel: "men of emet who hate dishonest gain"
Joshua 24:14, "fear the LORD and serve Him be-emet"
1 Samuel 12:24, "fear the LORD and serve Him be-emet"
2 Kings 20:3 / Isaiah 38:3, Hezekiah's prayer: "I have walked before You be-emet"
Zechariah 8:16, 19, eschatological commitment to emet
Proverbs 12:17, 19, 22, "truthful lips will be established forever"
Malachi 2:6, the priestly "law of emet was in his mouth"

To act be-emet is to act consistently with one's covenantal-personal-being. Truth-telling is not a free-floating moral rule but a covenantal practice, to lie is to break covenant with reality and with the covenant-Lord.

Stream 3, Christ as truth (NT activation)

The NT activates emet / alētheia with Christological intensity. John 1:14, "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of charitos kai alētheias", the Greek directly reflects the Hebrew ḥesed va-emet covenantal-attribute pair. Christ is the divine emet in flesh: God's faithfulness-to-covenant become incarnate.

John 14:6, "I am the way, and the truth (hē alētheia), and the life." Christ as the embodiment of emet. John 8:32, "you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Truth in Johannine usage is more than propositional; it is a Person-and-Way-of-Being in whom one walks.

John 17:17, "Your logos is alētheia", God's word is truth. The Hebrew emet / davar (word) coupling is here directly activated.

Notable verses

Ḥesed va-emet, the divine-attribute pair

Exodus 34:6, "abounding in steadfast love and truth"
Psalms 25:10, "all the paths of the LORD are ḥesed va-emet"
Psalms 86:15, "compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in ḥesed va-emet"
Psalms 100:5, "His emet endures to all generations"
Psalms 138:2, "I will give thanks to Your name for Your ḥesed va-emet"
Micah 7:20, "You will give emet to Jacob and ḥesed to Abraham"
John 1.14, "full of grace (charitos) and truth (alētheias)", direct NT activation

Emet as covenantal commitment

Joshua 24:14, "fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and emet"
2 Kings 20:3, Hezekiah: "I have walked before You in emet"
Psalms 25:5, "lead me in Your emet and teach me"
Psalms 26:3, "I have walked in Your emet"
Psalms 86:11, "teach me Your way, O LORD; I will walk in Your emet"
Psalms 119:30, 142, 151, 160, "Your law is emet"
Proverbs 23:23, "buy emet, and do not sell it"

Truth-telling as covenantal practice

Exodus 20:16; Deuteronomy 5:20, the ninth commandment (against false witness; the emet-norm)
Exodus 23:1, 7, false reports
Leviticus 19:11, "you shall not lie to one another"
Proverbs 12:17, 19, 22, emet in speech
Zechariah 8:16-17, 19, eschatological emet-community
Malachi 2:6, priestly emet

NT, Christ as truth

John 1.14, "full of grace and truth"
John 1:17, "grace and truth came through Jesus Christ"
John 8.31-32, "you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free"
John 14.6, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life"
John 17.17, "Your word is truth"
Ephesians 4:21, "the truth is in Jesus"
1 John 5.20, "we are in Him who is true"
Revelation 19.11, "He who sat on the white horse is called Faithful and True"

Liturgical amen

Deuteronomy 27:15-26, twelve curses each ending in "the people shall say, Amen"
1 Chronicles 16:36; Nehemiah 5:13; 8:6, congregational amen
Psalms 41:13; 72:19; 89:52; 106:48, book-closing amens
2 Corinthians 1:20, "all the promises of God find their Yes in Him; therefore through Him is also our Amen to the glory of God"
Revelation 3:14, "the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the beginning of the creation of God", Christ as the embodied Amen

Patristic / scholarly note

The Hebrew emet / Greek alētheia relationship has been the subject of major theological-philosophical reflection. Tertullian (Adversus Praxean; Adversus Hermogenem), develops the truth-as-covenantal-personal sense. Augustine (De Vera Religione; Confessions; De Trinitate), Christ as Truth in the Johannine sense, which Augustine integrates with Platonic eternal Form of the Good / of Truth tradition. The Christian theology of truth is both the OT-Hebrew covenantal-personal sense and the metaphysical-ontological sense, a both-and rather than either-or.

In modern scholarship, Thorleif Boman (Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek, 1960), argues for the relational-personal Hebrew sense as significantly different from the propositional-philosophical Greek sense; this argument has been substantially refined since (James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language, 1961, gives the major critique against over-drawing the Hebrew/Greek distinction). The current consensus: there is a real difference of emphasis between emet and alētheia, but it is not a categorical distinction; both lexemes carry both relational and propositional senses, with different center-of-gravity.

The John 1:14 charitos kai alētheias = ḥesed va-emet identification is now widely accepted in Johannine scholarship (D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, 1991; Andreas Köstenberger, John BECNT, 2004; Craig Keener, The Gospel of John 2-vol, 2003): John deliberately Echoes Exodus 34:6, identifying Jesus as the divine glory full of the same ḥesed va-emet that Moses saw on Sinai. This is one of the strongest high-Christology readings of the Johannine prologue.

The Christ-as-Amen in Rev 3:14 (the only NT use of Amen as a proper title) draws on the aman-root and identifies Christ as the embodied Yes-and-Amen of all God's promises (cf. 2 Cor 1:20). This is not "Christ is the first creature created" (the JW reading; cf. Christ Was Made (Misread Proof-Texts)) but "Christ is the origin / source of God's creation, the Amen in whom all promises find their reality."

Verses in this codex

See Obsidian's backlinks pane for every verse page linking here. Anchors: Exodus 34:6 (the ḥesed va-emet divine-attribute pair), Psalms 117:2 / Psalms 100:5 (His emet endures), John 1.14 (the NT activation), John 14.6 (Christ as truth), John 17.17 (Your word is truth), Revelation 3:14 (Christ as the Amen).