Righteousness: Right with God and Others
The relational justice of tsedaqah and dikaiosynē
Righteousness is one of Scripture's central categories, yet its relational and forensic dimensions are often collapsed into one. The Hebrew tsedaqah evokes covenant loyalty and social justice; the Greek dikaiosynē adds legal vindication. Together they describe a life rightly ordered in every direction.
צְדָקָה — Righteousness as Covenant Fidelity
rightness (abstractly), subjectively (rectitude), objectively (justice), morally (virtue) or figuratively (prosperity)
Also rendered: justice, moderately, right .
The Hebrew tsedaqah is usually translated 'righteousness' but its background is relational, not abstract. It describes the behaviour expected of a person within a covenant relationship—the faithful discharge of obligations to God, to community, to the poor, and to the vulnerable. When Abraham 'believed God, and it was counted to him for tsedaqah,' the point is not that Abraham performed moral perfection but that he trusted the covenant partner who had promised him descendants.