Hebrew: חֹרֵב

Transliteration: Choreb · Gloss: Horeb

References: Deut 5:2

Alternate name for Sinai, meaning ‘desolation/waste’ — the mountain where the conditional, Mosaic covenant (as distinct from the Abrahamic) was formally cut.

Hebrew: מַסָּה

Transliteration: Massah · Gloss: testing, temptation

References: Exod 17:7

From נָסָה (nasah, ‘to test’). Israel tested God by asking ‘is the LORD among us or not?’ — and God still provided water in response.

Hebrew: בְּרָכָה

Transliteration: berakah · Gloss: blessing

References: Gen 12:2–3

From the root ברך (to bless/kneel). Unconditional divine favor spoken over Abraham before any law existed.

Hebrew: בְּרִית

Transliteration: berith · Gloss: covenant

References: Gen 17:7; Exod 19:5; Deut 5:2

The master term of the whole study. Note how its content changes: unconditional in Genesis (17:7 ‘I will establish’), conditional at Sinai (19:5 ‘if you will obey’).

Hebrew: χάρις

Transliteration: charis · Gloss: grace, favor

References: John 1:17

Unmerited favor — paired with alētheia (‘truth’) as what ‘came to be’ (egeneto) through Christ, contrasted with what was merely ‘given’ (edothē) through Moses.

Hebrew: חֲטָאָה גְדֹלָה

Transliteration: chata’ah gedolah · Gloss: a great sin

References: Gen 20:9

Abimelech’s own words to Abraham — not God’s — naming what Abraham’s lie nearly caused. It is the pagan king, not the narrator or God, who calls it ‘sin’; God’s recorded action in the chapter is to protect Sarah and heal Abimelech’s household, not to judge Abraham.

Hebrew: חֶסֶד

Transliteration: chesed · Gloss: lovingkindness, steadfast love

References: Jer 31:3; Exod 34:6

God’s own covenant loyalty and goodness — the basis Jeremiah names for the New Covenant’s power to change hearts: ‘with lovingkindness have I drawn thee,’ not commandment-keeping. The same quality underlies every pre-Sinai ‘I will bless.’

Hebrew: הֶאֱמִן

Transliteration: he’emin · Gloss: he believed / trusted

References: Gen 15:6

Hiphil form of אמן (aman, root of ‘amen’), meaning to consider firm, to trust, to lean one’s full weight on. Abraham ‘amened’ God’s word — the origin of the New Testament’s pistis (faith).

Hebrew: הֵתֶל

Transliteration: hēthel (root: hathal) · Gloss: to mock, deceive

References: Gen 31:7

Jacob’s own word for what Laban did to him — ‘your father hath deceived me… but God suffered him not to hurt me.’ Positions God as protector of the deceived party, without the text ever framing Jacob’s own past deceptions as grounds for God to withhold that protection.

Hebrew: עִדִּים

Transliteration: iddim · Gloss: filthy / menstrual rags

References: Isa 64:6

Isaiah’s own word for human righteousness apart from grace — a garment stained with the ritual impurity of menstruation. Not merely ‘imperfect’ but ritually disqualifying, which is why Paul’s verdict on law-keeping is so absolute and repeated.

Hebrew: אִם

Transliteration: im · Gloss: if

References: Exod 19:5

The Hebrew conditional particle. Its appearance in 19:5 is the precise grammatical turning point where covenant language shifts from unilateral promise to bilateral condition.

Hebrew: כָּרַת בְּרִית

Transliteration: karat berith · Gloss: to cut a covenant

References: Gen 15:18

Idiom from the ritual of cutting animals in half; both parties would normally walk between the pieces as a self-curse oath. In Genesis 15 only the theophany (furnace/lamp) passes through — God alone takes the oath.

Hebrew: מִרְמָה

Transliteration: mirmah · Gloss: deceit, treachery

References: Gen 27:35

Isaac’s own word for what Jacob did to obtain the blessing — direct, unflattering, and undenied by the text. Yet no punishment from God follows; God’s next recorded word to Jacob (Gen 28:15) is an unconditional promise, not a rebuke.

Hebrew: נַעֲשֶׂה וְנִשְׁמָע

Transliteration: na’aseh venishma · Gloss: we will do and we will hear/obey

References: Exod 24:7 (cf. 19:8; 24:3)

Israel’s own self-binding vow — first-person plural imperfects of עשה (asah, ‘to do’) and שמע (shama, ‘to hear’). This is the people’s spoken acceptance that converts Sinai into a performance-conditioned covenant. Contrast: at Sinai the PEOPLE say ‘we will’; at Abraham’s covenant only GOD said ‘I will.’

Hebrew: נִאֵץ

Transliteration: ni’ets (verb na’ats) · Gloss: to spurn, despise, provoke

References: Num 14:11, 23

God’s own word for what the spies’ rebellion did: ‘How long will this people provoke [na’ats] me?’ Used again in 14:23 — the generation that provoked God this way would not see the land.

Hebrew: קֶצֶף

Transliteration: qetzeph · Gloss: wrath, fury

References: Num 16:46

From קָצַף (qatsaph, ‘to be wrathful’). Named explicitly as having ‘gone out from the LORD’ during Korah’s rebellion, triggering the plague that killed 14,700.

Hebrew: רִיב

Transliteration: riv · Gloss: to strive, chide, contend

References: Exod 17:2 (place name Meribah)

A legal/adversarial term — ‘to bring a grievance.’ Source of the place-name Meribah, ‘strife.’ Sharper than lun, yet still answered with water from the rock, not death.

Hebrew: סְגֻלָּה

Transliteration: segullah · Gloss: treasured possession

References: Exod 19:5

A king’s personal, private treasure (attested in Akkadian sikiltu). The reward offered for the conditional obedience of 19:5.

Hebrew: שָׁאַל

Transliteration: sha’al · Gloss: to ask / request

References: Deut 18:16 (‘desiredst’)

Moses recalls that the people themselves requested a mediator rather than hearing God’s voice directly — root of the word for ‘Saul,’ the one ‘asked for.’

Hebrew: שָׁמַע בְּקוֹל

Transliteration: shama beqol · Gloss: to hear/obey a voice

References: Exod 19:5

Literally ‘to hear in the voice of’ — a Hebrew idiom for obedience. The condition God poses: obedience in exchange for treasured-people status.

Hebrew: תַּרְדֵּמָה

Transliteration: tardemah · Gloss: deep sleep

References: Gen 15:12

The same word used for Adam’s sleep in Gen 2:21. Abraham is a passive, unconscious party to this covenant — he contributes no vow, no walking, no oath.

Hebrew: תְּלֻנָּה

Transliteration: telunah (pl. telunot) · Gloss: murmuring, complaint

References: Exod 16:7, 8, 9, 12

The noun form of lun. God says four times in one chapter, ‘I have heard your murmurings’ — and responds with manna and quail, not punishment. Contrast with its near-absence of consequence here versus the plagues that follow the same word-family after Sinai (implied) in Numbers.

Hebrew: תּוֹרָה

Transliteration: torah · Gloss: instruction, teaching, law

References: Deut 4:13; throughout

From ירה (yarah, ‘to point/direct/teach’) — not primarily ‘law’ in the sense of legislation, but directive teaching. Still, Paul’s Greek nomos flattens it toward ‘law’ as a legal system in his argument.

Hebrew: צָעַק

Transliteration: tsa’aq · Gloss: to cry out (in distress)

References: Exod 14:10

A cry of fear/distress at the Red Sea — not yet the technical ‘murmuring’ root (lun). Even so, it is met with total deliverance, not judgment.

Hebrew: צְדָקָה

Transliteration: tsedaqah · Gloss: righteousness

References: Gen 15:6

Credited (chashab — ‘reckoned, imputed like an accounting entry’) to Abraham on the basis of trust alone, 430 years before Sinai (per Gal 3:17).

Hebrew: וַיִּחַר אַף

Transliteration: wayyichar aph · Gloss: his anger burned / was kindled

References: Exod 32:10; Num 11:1, 10, 33; 12:9; 25:3

Literally ‘his nose burned’ — the standard Hebrew idiom for God’s anger (aph, ‘nose/anger,’ from the flaring of nostrils). This exact phrase is essentially absent from the Exodus 14–17 murmuring accounts, but becomes a recurring formula immediately after Sinai.

Hebrew: וַיִּלֹּנוּ

Transliteration: wayyillonu (root: lun / lin) · Gloss: they murmured / grumbled

References: Exod 15:24; 16:2

From לוּן / לִין (lun/lin). The Bible’s standard verb for Israel’s wilderness grumbling. Used repeatedly before Sinai — every occurrence pre-Sinai is answered with provision.

Hebrew: זָכַר

Transliteration: zakar · Gloss: to remember

References: Exod 2:24; 6:5

Covenant-memory in Hebrew is active and relational, not mere recollection — it triggers God’s action to deliver, based on a prior promise, not present obedience.

Greek: ἀπιστία

Transliteration: apistia · Gloss: unbelief, faithlessness

References: Heb 3:19

Hebrews’ diagnosis for why the wilderness generation ‘could not enter in’ — the negative mirror of pistis (faith), the very word used of Abraham’s trust in Genesis 15:6.

Greek: χειρόγραφον

Transliteration: cheirographon · Gloss: handwritten note / certificate of debt

References: Col 2:14

Standard Hellenistic legal term for a signed IOU. Paul pictures the Law’s charges against us as a debt-document — bearing, in effect, humanity’s own signature (echoing Israel’s na’aseh, ‘we will do,’ at Sinai) — cancelled and nailed to the cross.

Greek: χρηστότης

Transliteration: chrēstotēs · Gloss: goodness, kindness

References: Rom 2:4

Paul’s word for the divine quality that ‘leadeth thee to repentance’ — goodness as the cause of a right response, not its reward. This is the same goodness-first logic that governed Abraham’s justification by promise, before the Law arrived.

Greek: δόγμα

Transliteration: dogma · Gloss: decree, ordinance

References: Col 2:14

Plural dogmasin — the itemized legal requirements/ordinances that made up the ‘debt’ nailed to the cross.

Greek: ἐπαγγελία

Transliteration: epangelia · Gloss: promise

References: Gal 3:17–18; Heb 6:13

A pledge or announcement made unilaterally. Paul contrasts epangelia directly with nomos (law) as two distinct bases for inheritance in Galatians 3.

Greek: γογγύζετε

Transliteration: gongyzete (root: gongyzō) · Gloss: to murmur / grumble

References: 1 Cor 10:10

The Greek verb Paul uses (an onomatopoeic word imitating a low grumbling sound) when he warns the church: ‘neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.’ The LXX uses the same root to translate Hebrew lun in the wilderness narratives.

Greek: ὅρκος

Transliteration: horkos · Gloss: oath

References: Heb 6:13, 16–17

God swears the oath Himself, ‘because he could swear by no greater’ — the guarantee rests entirely on God’s own character.

Greek: ὑπακοή

Transliteration: hypakoē · Gloss: obedience

References: Rom 5:19

‘By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.’ Paul locates the obedience that makes people righteous in Christ, not in the many — the same structure as Genesis 15, where God alone (not Abraham) walked through the pieces and bore the obligation.

Greek: νόμος

Transliteration: nomos · Gloss: law

References: John 1:17; Rom 5:20; Gal 3

Greek legal/customary term the LXX and NT use to render Hebrew torah — but nomos leans more heavily toward codified legal statute than torah’s broader ‘instruction.’

Greek: ὀλοθρευτής

Transliteration: olothreutēs · Gloss: the destroyer

References: 1 Cor 10:10

Named agent of death in Paul’s commentary on the wilderness judgments — echoing the destroying angel of Exodus 12 and the plagues of Numbers.

Greek: παιδαγωγός

Transliteration: paidagōgos · Gloss: child-guardian / custodian-slave

References: Gal 3:24–25

A household slave (not the father, not the teacher) assigned to walk a freeborn boy to school and enforce discipline until he came of age. A vivid, deliberately temporary and subordinate role — never the source of the child’s inheritance.

Greek: παράβασις

Transliteration: parabasis · Gloss: transgression, overstepping

References: Gal 3:19

Literally ‘a stepping across’ (para + bainō). The Law’s stated purpose (charin — ‘for the sake of’) is to make transgression visible/countable, not to generate righteousness.

Greek: παραιτέομαι

Transliteration: paraiteomai · Gloss: to beg off, entreat to be excused

References: Heb 12:19

The NT’s verb for Israel’s plea at Sinai — ‘they intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more.’ A verb of active refusal/request, not passive reception.

Greek: παρεισῆλθεν

Transliteration: pareisēlthen · Gloss: came in alongside / slipped in

References: Rom 5:20

Aorist of pareiserchomai (para ‘alongside’ + eis ‘into’ + erchomai ‘to come’). Paul’s verb of choice for the Law’s entrance — the same word-family used in Galatians 2:4 for false brothers who ‘came in privily’ to spy out liberty. It marks secondary, additive entry, not foundational origin.

Greek: πίστις

Transliteration: pistis · Gloss: faith / trust

References: Gal 3:6–9

The Greek term Paul consistently uses to translate the dynamic of Genesis 15:6 — trust that is credited as righteousness apart from law-keeping.

Greek: προσετέθη

Transliteration: prosetethē · Gloss: was added

References: Gal 3:19

Aorist passive of prostithēmi (‘to add to, place additionally’). Grammatically requires something pre-existing to be added TO — here, the prior promise/covenant with Abraham.

Greek: σπέρμα

Transliteration: sperma · Gloss: seed, offspring

References: Gal 3:16, 19

Paul insists the promise’s ‘seed’ is singular — Christ — making the Law a parenthesis between the promise given and the promise fulfilled.

Greek: τέλος

Transliteration: telos · Gloss: end, goal, completion

References: Rom 10:4

Carries both ‘termination’ and ‘intended destination/fulfillment’ — Christ is where the Law’s custodial arc was always heading, and where its jurisdiction over believers ends.