Glossary

"human" / "ground"

A deliberate wordplay: the human (*adam*) is formed from the ground (*adamah*). We are earthy creatures, made of dust — and yet dust into which God breathes his own life.

self-giving love

The love that defines God and his people — not romance or mere fondness, but a deliberate, sacrificial seeking of another's good, even at cost to oneself. It is the love God showed at the cross and pours into us by the Spirit, and "the greatest of these" (1 Corinthians 13:13).

the First and the Last

The first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, claimed by God and by Christ as a title (1:8; 21:6; 22:13): "the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End." The One who was present "in the beginning" (Act 1) is the One who brings the story to its close — he holds both ends in his hands.

"unveiling, revelation"

The first word of the book (1:1) and the source of its English title. It means not "catastrophe" but the drawing back of a curtain — an unveiling of what is already true but hidden: the risen Christ reigning over history. It reframes the whole book as disclosure, not doom.

"the Lamb"

Revelation’s favorite title for Jesus, used some twenty-eight times. The diminutive form carries tenderness — a little lamb — yet this Lamb is "standing, as though slain" (5:6) and shares the throne. The central paradox of the book: the deepest power in the universe is crucified, self-giving love.

"crafty, shrewd"

The serpent is *arum*, "crafty" (3:1) — and in a haunting pun, the man and woman were just described as *arummim*, "naked" (2:25). The same sound links the cunning of the tempter to the exposed innocence of the tempted. The word can mean "prudent" in a good sense (as in Proverbs); in the serpent it curdles into mere cunning.

"lord," "master," "owner"

The name (and title) of the Canaanite storm-and-fertility god whose worship, pushed by Ahab and Jezebel, becomes Israel's great temptation. Baal promised rain and harvest — which is exactly why Elijah's drought and the fire on Carmel are a direct contest over who truly rules the heavens. To chase Baal was to beg life from a god who could not give it.

"Babel / to confuse"

In Babylon's own tongue, *Bab-ilu* meant "gate of god" — a proud name. But Genesis hears it through the similar-sounding Hebrew *balal*, "to confuse, to mix up": the city that meant to be heaven's gate becomes the place where God "confused" human language (11:9). The monument of human glory is turned into a memorial of human folly.

"to immerse, to baptize"

A word meaning to dip, immerse, or wash. Baptism is the sign by which people entered the new community (Acts 2:38, 41) — marking repentance, cleansing, and union with Christ. Christian traditions differ, charitably, over its mode and its proper recipients, but all see in it the visible doorway into the family of God.

"to create"

The verb of Genesis 1:1, used in the Old Testament only with God as its subject. It names a making only God can do — not rearranging existing material, but origination itself. Hence the doctrine of creation out of nothing.

"kingdom / reign"

The word at the heart of Jesus' preaching — the "kingdom of God." It means less a place than a *reign*: God himself beginning to rule and to put the world right, breaking into the present through the words and works of Jesus.

"house"

The pivot of 2 Samuel 7. David offers to build God a *bayit* (a temple); God answers that he will instead make David a *bayit* (a dynasty, a royal line). The one word holds both a building and a family — and the everlasting house God builds far outlasts any house David could.

"covenant"

A binding, solemn bond — the great architecture of the Bible's relationship with God. The word first appears with Noah (6:18; 9:9–17): God pledges himself to all flesh, never again to flood the earth, and seals the promise with the rainbow. From here the covenants build, all the way to the "new covenant" in the blood of Christ.

"the new covenant"

Jeremiah's phrase for the coming arrangement between God and his people (Jeremiah 31:31) — not written on stone but on the heart, with sins forgiven and forgotten. Jesus claims it at the Last Supper: "This cup is the new covenant in my blood" (Luke 22:20).

"grace"

God's unmerited favor and kindness — the beating heart of the gospel. Salvation is *charis* from first to last: a gift freely given, never a wage earned. The same root lies behind the words for "gift" and for "thanksgiving" (eucharist), because grace received naturally overflows in gratitude.

"be strong," take firm hold

The verb behind the charge that opens Joshua — "be strong (*chazaq*) and courageous." It pictures gripping something tightly, holding fast, taking firm hold. The strength commanded is not bravado but a tenacious grip on God's promise and presence in the face of fear.

"wisdom"

*Chokmah* is less "knowledge" than *skill* — the same word describes a craftsman’s expertise. Biblical wisdom is the art of living well in God’s world, in the grain of how he made things. In Proverbs 8 it is personified as a woman who was beside God at creation; the New Testament will see her fulfilled in Christ, "in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden" (Colossians 2:3).

"anointed one" — Messiah

The Greek translation of the Hebrew *Mashiach*, "Messiah." Not a surname but a title: the long-awaited anointed King, the descendant of David. To confess "Jesus is the Christ" is to say the centuries of waiting are over.

"the day of God's decisive coming"

A recurring prophetic image for the day when God breaks in to judge evil and to save his people. It is both *near* (looming historical judgments, like the fall of Jerusalem) and *far* (the final reckoning). Amos warns the complacent that it will be "darkness, and not light" — God's coming is good news only to those who long for him.

"righteousness / justification"

A word at home in the courtroom. To be "justified" (*dikaioo*) is to be declared righteous before God. Paul's great theme is that God credits Christ's own righteousness to those who trust him, so that the guilty are reckoned right — pardoned, accepted, and set in a new standing with God.

"I AM" / "I will be"

The word behind "I AM WHO I AM" (3:14). Its range — "I am," "I will be" — fuses being and faithfulness: God is utterly self-existent, and he will surely be present with his people. The name is both a declaration of who God is and a promise of what he will do.

"assembly, called-out ones"

From *ek* ("out") + *kaleo* ("to call"). In ordinary Greek it named a civic assembly of citizens summoned together; the New Testament adopts it as the word for "church." It points not to a building but to a people — those called out of the world and gathered around the risen Christ. Jesus first uses it in Matthew 16:18.

"God Almighty"

The name by which God reveals himself to Abraham in Genesis 17. Its precise root is debated — perhaps "God of the mountain" or "God all-sufficient" — but its force is clear: the One mighty enough to bring life from a barren womb and keep an impossible promise.

the majestic name for God

The name for God in Genesis 1 — grammatically plural in form yet taking singular verbs, conveying fullness and majesty. The transcendent Maker who speaks the cosmos into being.

"good news / gospel"

Originally the royal announcement of a victory or a king's birth. The four Gospels borrow the word to make a claim before they tell a story: this is the good news that the King has come and his kingdom has begun.

"to redeem" / "redeemer"

God's own word for the exodus: "I will redeem you with an outstretched arm" (6:6). To *redeem* (*ga'al*) is to buy back, to reclaim what is bound by a price; the *go'el* is the kinsman-redeemer who pays it. The thread runs through Ruth and Job ("I know that my Redeemer lives") to Christ, who redeems not with silver but his blood.

"exile," "captivity"

*Galut* is the word for being carried away from the land — the covenant curse made concrete, first for the north (722 BC), then for the south (586 BC). To lose the land, the city, and the temple was to lose the very signs of God's presence and promise. Yet exile would become, unexpectedly, a place of purifying and of longing — the soil in which hope for return took root.

"kinsman-redeemer"

In Israel's law the *go'el* was the nearest relative responsible for rescuing a family member in trouble — buying back lost land, redeeming a relative sold into slavery, or, as for Ruth, marrying a childless widow to carry on the family line. The redeemer had to be a kinsman (one of the family), able (with the means to pay), and willing. Boaz embodies it — and the New Testament sees in it a portrait of Christ, who became our kinsman to redeem us.

"the exile / the returned community"

A term for the captivity and for the community that came back from it — the "children of the exile" (bene haggolah). It names a people defined by having been carried away and then brought home: a chastened, surviving remnant kept alive by the faithfulness of God.

"providence"

The theological term for God's unseen governing of all things — caring, guiding, and weaving even free human choices and apparent chance toward his purposes. The book of Esther is its supreme illustration: God's name is absent precisely so his providence can be felt everywhere.

"devotion to destruction"; the "ban"

A loaded term from the conquest narratives: persons or things "devoted" wholly to God, placed irrevocably beyond ordinary use — sometimes by destruction. Applied to certain Canaanite cities, it marked them as under God's judgment, not as plunder for Israel's enrichment. It is best understood as an exceptional, bounded act of divine judgment in a specific time and place, never a standing license for violence — and it is one of the hardest features of these books to read (see the questions below). It must be handled with care and historical context.

"steadfast, covenant love"

One of the great words of the Old Testament and the most characteristic word of the Psalms — God’s loyal, covenant-keeping love. It resists easy translation: "lovingkindness," "steadfast love," "mercy," and "faithful love" all reach for it. It is the love that keeps its promises when we cannot, the love that "endures forever."

"vapor, breath" — often "vanity / meaningless"

The keyword of Ecclesiastes, repeated dozens of times. *Hevel* literally means vapor, breath, or mist. The KJV renders it "vanity," others "meaningless," but the image is gentler and truer: life is not worthless, it is *fleeting and hard to grasp* — smoke you cannot hold. Naming this is the beginning of wisdom about our limits.

"image of God"

The theological term for humanity's defining dignity (1:26–27): made to represent God, to relate to him and one another, and to reflect his character. The ground of every person's inherent worth.

"God with us"

The name from Isaiah 7:14 that Matthew applies to Jesus (Matthew 1:23). It names the whole miracle of the incarnation in a single word: not a distant deity, but God himself, come to dwell among us.

"he struggles with God" / "God strives"

The new name given to Jacob after he wrestles at Peniel (Genesis 32:28): "for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed." It becomes the name of the whole nation — a people defined by their clinging, wrestling relationship with God.

"glory / weight"

The "glory of Yahweh" that fills the tabernacle (40:34). Rooted in the idea of *weight* or heaviness, kavod is the visible, weighty manifestation of God's presence — often pictured as cloud and fire. It is the splendor John says we have seen in Christ, "the glory as of the one and only Son" (John 1:14).

"atonement / covering"

From the root *kaphar*, "to cover" or "make atonement." The Day of Atonement is *Yom Kippur*. Atonement covers the breach sin makes between God and his people — the offended holiness covered, the relationship restored — ultimately and finally accomplished at the cross.

"fellowship, sharing, communion"

One of the four marks of the early church (Acts 2:42). Far deeper than friendliness, it means a shared life — common participation in the Spirit, in the apostles' teaching, in the breaking of bread, and in one another's needs, including possessions. To belong to the church is to share a life, not merely attend a gathering.

"go!" / "go for yourself"

The emphatic command of Genesis 12:1. The doubled form intensifies the call and, in a beloved reading, hints at "go to/for yourself" — go toward the person and future God is calling you to become. Faith that obeys before the destination is in view.

"the Word"

John's name for the eternal Son: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God… and the Word became flesh" (John 1:1, 14). The reason and self-expression of God, present at creation, now walking among us in person.

"Our Lord, come!" (an Aramaic prayer)

An Aramaic phrase so early and so treasured that the first Christians kept it untranslated (1 Corinthians 16:22). It breathes through Revelation’s closing prayer — "Amen! Yes, come, Lord Jesus" (22:20) — the longing of the suffering church for its King, and the word with which the whole Bible leans toward the dawn.

"witness"

In Acts 1:8 the disciples are to be Jesus' *martyres* — witnesses who testify to what they have seen. Stephen showed how costly such witness could be, and so the word came into English as "martyr": one whose testimony to Christ is sealed in death. To witness and to suffer are, in Acts, often the same word.

"anointed one"

To anoint with oil was to set a person apart for God's service, and kings like Saul and David were "Yahweh's anointed" — *mashiach*. The word grows into a title of hope: *the* Anointed One, the coming King of David's line. Translated into Greek it becomes *Christos* — Christ.

"wilderness / desert"

The wilderness is more than a setting; it is the crucible of Israel's formation. The *midbar* is the place of testing and dependence, where a freed people must learn to trust the God who provides each day's bread — and where, throughout Scripture, God meets and remakes his people.

"tabernacle / dwelling"

The portable sanctuary God commands Israel to build, from a root meaning "to dwell" (*shakan*). Its very name announces its purpose: a place where the holy God will dwell in the midst of his people. The same root lies behind the later Jewish term *Shekhinah* for God's dwelling presence.

"justice and righteousness"

A word-pair at the heart of prophetic preaching. *Mishpat* is justice — setting things right, especially for the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the stranger. *Tzedakah* is righteousness — right relationship lived out in faithfulness. Together they are what God "requires" (Micah 6:8), and worship without them rings hollow.

"serpent"

The word for the serpent of Genesis 3 — a literal creature in the narrative, the craftiest of the animals. Later Scripture identifies this "old serpent" with Satan (Revelation 12:9; 20:2). The serpent's power is never force; it is the whispered question that makes us doubt God's goodness.

"prophet," "spokesman"

A *navi* is not mainly a fortune-teller but a mouthpiece — one called to stand in God's presence and then speak God's word to the people. In the divided kingdom the prophets become God's persistent counter-voice to the throne. The word reminds us that prophecy is less about predicting the future than about confronting the present with the will of God.

"soul / life / self"

The whole living self — breath, life, longing, the inner person. Jonathan loved David "as his own *nephesh*" (1 Samuel 18:1), and David pours out his *nephesh* before God in the Psalms. Not a ghost trapped inside a body, but the living, desiring person as a whole.

"the fiftieth day"

The Greek name for the Jewish Feast of Weeks (*Shavuot*), kept fifty days after Passover — a harvest festival, and in later tradition a remembrance of the giving of the Law at Sinai. On this day the Spirit was poured out and the church's great harvest began (Acts 2), gathering the nations who had come to Jerusalem for the feast.

"Passover" / to pass over, spare

The name of the feast and the verb behind it: when God sees the blood on the doorframe, he will "pass over" that house and spare it from judgment (12:13). Pesach becomes Israel's defining festival of deliverance — and the lens through which the New Testament reads the cross.

"faith / trust"

Not mere intellectual agreement but trust — a leaning of the whole self on God and his promise in Christ. It is the empty hand that receives grace. For Paul it stands opposed to self-reliance; for James, true *pistis* is living and active, always shown in works of love.

"spirit, wind, breath"

The Greek counterpart to the Hebrew *ruach* of Genesis 1:2 — one word for spirit, wind, and breath. At Pentecost the *pneuma* of God comes with the sound of wind and tongues of fire, the very breath of God animating the church. The Spirit who hovered over the first creation now fills the new.

"the first gospel"

A Latin term — "first gospel" — for Genesis 3:15, the promise spoken over the serpent that the woman's seed will crush his head. Christians from the early church onward have heard in it the first announcement of the good news: a Rescuer is coming, born of woman, who will defeat the evil one — though at the cost of being wounded himself.

"lots"

The name of the joyful feast established in Esther, the plural of *pur*, "lot" — the dice Haman cast to choose the day to destroy the Jews (Esther 3:7; 9:24–26). The lots of his hatred became the calendar of their rescue. The word likely entered Hebrew as a loanword, which the book itself pauses to explain.

"holy / set apart"

The governing word of Leviticus. To be *qadosh* is to be set apart for God, utterly other and pure — and, as Leviticus 19 shows, made whole and turned outward in love. The call "be holy, for I am holy" is echoed straight into the New Testament (1 Peter 1:16).

"Cain / Abel"

Their names tell the story. *Qayin* (Cain) sounds like the Hebrew for "gotten" or "acquired" — Eve says, "I have gotten a man" (4:1). *Hevel* (Abel) means "breath, vapor, fleeting" — the very word translated "vanity" throughout Ecclesiastes. The brother whose name means "a breath" is the one whose life is cut short.

"spirit / wind / breath"

The same word that hovered over the waters in Genesis 1 returns here with power. In Ezekiel's valley, *ruach* is breath, wind, and Spirit all at once, raising dead bones to life (Ezekiel 37). In Joel, God promises to pour out his *ruach* on all flesh (Joel 2:28) — a promise fulfilled at Pentecost.

"flesh / Spirit"

Paul's great contrast: life ruled by the "flesh" (*sarx* — fallen human nature, curved in on itself) versus life led by the "Spirit" (*pneuma* — God's own life within us). The Christian walk is the steady, Spirit-empowered triumph of the new self over the old, bearing the Spirit's fruit.

a musical pause in the Psalms

Scattered seventy-one times through the Psalms, *selah* is most likely a musical or liturgical direction — a pause, a lifting up, a rest that lets the words settle and resound. Its precise meaning is uncertain, but its invitation is clear; it gives this very app its name. Stop. Breathe. Let the truth sink all the way in.

"remnant"

The *sheerit* is what is "left over" — the faithful few God always preserves through judgment. The seven thousand who never bowed to Baal are its picture here. The remnant is one of Scripture's quiet engines of hope: however complete the collapse appears, God keeps a thread of his people, and through them keeps his word.

"hear / listen / obey"

The first word of Deuteronomy 6:4 and the name of Israel's central prayer: "Hear, Israel." In Hebrew, to truly *hear* is already to heed — listening and obeying are one. The Shema calls for love that is whole-hearted and undivided.

"judge," deliverer, leader

The "judges" of the book were not mainly courtroom officials but charismatic military and civic deliverers, raised up and empowered by God's Spirit to rescue Israel from its oppressors and lead in the aftermath. The word spans both "to govern" and "to set right." Their authority was personal and temporary, leaving a vacuum each time they died — part of why the book keeps sighing that "there was no king in Israel."

"to turn," "return," "repent"

One of the great words of the prophets, *shuv* simply means to turn around and come back. To repent, in the Old Testament, is to *turn* — away from idols, back toward the God of the covenant. The whole tragedy of Kings is a people who would not turn (2 Kings 17:13–14); the whole hope held out to the exiles is that they still can. The way home is always a turning.

"savior"

A title the Roman world lavished on its emperors and gods; the letters boldly reserve it for Jesus alone. He is *Soter*, the one who rescues us from sin and death — and we await "our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:13), whose salvation is full and free.

"praises" — the Hebrew title of the Psalms

The Hebrew name for the book of Psalms is *Tehillim*, "praises," from the same root as "hallelujah" (praise Yah). It is striking that a book containing so many laments is titled "Praises" — as if Israel knew that even our complaints, once brought to God, are on their way to becoming praise. (Our word "Psalms" comes from the Greek *psalmoi*, "songs sung to a stringed instrument.")

"repentance, return"

From the verb *shuv*, "to turn back." Biblical repentance is less an emotion than a *turning* — a change of direction, away from sin and back toward God. The prophets' constant plea is not merely "feel sorry" but "return to me."

"the intertestamental period"

The roughly four centuries between Malachi and Matthew, when no canonical prophet spoke. Through them God reshaped the world — Greek language, Roman roads, scattered synagogues, the Septuagint, and a deepening hunger for the Messiah — preparing the stage for "the fullness of the time."

"throne"

A defining word of Revelation, appearing more than forty times. At the center of reality is not chaos or Caesar but a throne — and on it, the marks of a slain Lamb. The river of life flows "out of the throne of God and of the Lamb" (22:1). The book is, finally, about who truly reigns.

"formless and empty"

The unordered, uninhabited starting state of the earth in 1:2. The whole chapter is the answer to it: God *forms* the formless (days 1–3) and *fills* the empty (days 4–6).

"instruction / teaching"

Usually rendered "law," but its deeper sense is teaching or guidance — the wise instruction a loving parent gives. Reading *torah* as gift rather than mere rules transforms the entire act: these are the terms of a covenant, not a ladder to climb.

"the LORD of Armies / Hosts"

A title that rings through 1–2 Samuel — "Yahweh of Armies," the commander of all the hosts of heaven. It is the name David hurls at Goliath (1 Samuel 17:45): not trusting in sword or spear, but in the God who commands every army, seen and unseen.

"Jerusalem" — foundation of peace

The earthly city’s name (rooted in *shalom*, peace) is taken up and remade in the "New Jerusalem" (21:2) — no longer a place on a map but a people, the bride of the Lamb, the city that comes down from God where he dwells with us forever. The ancient hope of peace finally and fully kept.

"Yahweh saves"

The Hebrew name behind "Jesus" (via Greek *Iesous*). The angel commands it with a reason: "you shall call his name Jesus, for it is he who shall save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21). His mission is hidden in his name.

the divine name ("the LORD")

The personal name of God revealed at the bush, formed from the verb "to be" — the tetragrammaton, four Hebrew letters traditionally too holy to pronounce, read aloud as "Adonai" (Lord) and rendered "Yahweh" or "the LORD." It names a God who is self-existent and eternally faithful: the One who simply is.

"fear, awe, reverence"

The "fear" in "the fear of the LORD." It can stretch toward dread, but its heart is reverent awe — the fitting response of a creature before the Creator. Not the terror that drives us away, but the wonder that draws us to our knees. The beginning, Proverbs says, of all real knowledge.

"day"

The word translated "day" in the creation week. Its range of meanings — a 24-hour day, the daylight hours, an unspecified period ("in the day that…") — sits at the center of the faithful debate over how to read the seven days.

"seed / offspring"

The promised "seed" or "offspring" of Abraham, as countless as the stars. The word can be collective (a whole people) yet grammatically singular, which Paul seizes upon in Galatians 3:16: the promise points finally to one offspring — Christ.