אֱמוּנָה
fidelity
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Construct-state word in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
6 verses where H530 appears in the Absolute state in the Book of Psalms. Filtered view — show all forms. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
Psalms
- Psalms 33:4 בֶּ/אֱמוּנָֽה prep + n c fs For the word of Yahweh is right. All his work is done in faithfulness.
- Psalms 37:3 אֱמוּנָֽה n c fs Trust in Yahweh, and do good. Dwell in the land, and enjoy safe pasture.
- Psalms 119:30 אֱמוּנָ֥ה n c fs I have chosen the way of truth. I have set my heart on your law.
- Psalms 119:75 וֶ֝/אֱמוּנָ֗ה conj + n c fs Yahweh, I know that your judgments are righteous, That in faithfulness you have afflicted me.
- Psalms 119:86 אֱמוּנָ֑ה n c fs All of your commandments are faithful. They persecute me wrongfully. Help me!
- Psalms 119:138 וֶֽ/אֱמוּנָ֥ה conj + n c fs You have commanded your statutes in righteousness. They are fully trustworthy.
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
“fidelity” is the headline sense of the Hebrew noun אמונה (ʼĕmûwnâh). Scripture first uses it in Exodus 17:12. With 49 verses in 13 books, it is a moderately common word in the Hebrew Bible. It concentrates in Psalms, which alone accounts for 45% of its uses. See the sense tree, 49-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H530 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 49
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 49 distinct verses.
- 13 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 13 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #752
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 752 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 49 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Psalms 22 verses 45%
- 2 Chronicles 5 verses 10%
- Isaiah 4 verses 8%
By section of the Old Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 49 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 34 verses · 69%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 13 verses · 27%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 2 verses · 4%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
- King James Version: Truth 12×, Faithfulness 11×, Faithfully 4×
- American Standard Version: Faithfulness 20×, Truth 6×, Faithfully 4×
- Berean Standard Bible: Faithfulness 21×, Truth 6×, Faithfully 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Faithfulness 31×, Trustworthiness 3×, And 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H530 across 49 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 17 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H530 across 49 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 17 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H530 across 47 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 11 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 2 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H530 across 53 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 11 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in the full BDB
What do BDB’s symbols mean?
BDB uses these scholarly abbreviations:
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 𝔊 | the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation, LXX) |
| 𝔙 | the Vulgate (the Latin translation) |
| 𝔖 | the Syriac version (the Peshitta) |
| 𝔗 | the Targum (the Aramaic translation) |
| ψ | the Psalms |
| √ | root (the underlying root or stem) |
| ‖ | parallel passage (a synonymous or contrasted parallel) |
| † | the dagger: every passage where the word occurs is cited |
The 5 senses and sub-senses the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency), with BDB’s own verbatim wording and sub-sense lettering. Shown in Hebrew script with BDB’s own scholarly abbreviations. The condensed entry is in the Lexicon Entry tab. See also the Forms in the corpus table below.
- 1. lit. firmness, steadiness: Ex 17:12 וַיְהִי יָדָיו א׳ his hands were steadiness (i.e. steady). e.g. Exodus 17:12
- 2. steadfastness, אֱמוּנַת עִתֶּיךָ steadfastness of thy times Is 33:6. e.g. Isaiah 33:6
- 3. faithfulness, trust:
- a. of human conduct ψ 37:3 Pr 12:22 Je 5:3; 7:28; 9:2; in office 2 K 12:16; 22:7 2 Ch 19:9; 31:12; 34:12; (על) בֶּאֱמוּנָה in trust (over) 1 Ch 9:22, 26, 31 2 Ch 31:15, 18; דֶּרֶךְ א׳ ψ 119:30; אִישׁ אֱמוּנוֹת man of great faithfulness Pr 28:20; associated with צֶדֶק in human character יָפִיחַ א׳ יַגִּיד צֶדֶק who breatheth out faithfulness sheweth forth righteousness Pr 12:17; cf. 1 S 26:23 Is 59:4 Je 5:1; צַדִּיק בֶּאֱמוּנָתוֹ יִחְיֶה a righteous man by his faithfulness liveth Hb 2:4 (> faith Luth AV RV). e.g. Psalms 37:3
- b. as a divine attribute ψ 88:12; 89:2, 3, 6, 9 Is 25:1 Ho 2:22 La 3:23; אֵל אֱמוּנָה Dt 32:4; his faithfulness is shewn in his works ψ 33:4; commands ψ 119:86; in affliction ψ 119:75; in his oath to David ψ 89:50; it reacheth unto the skies ψ 36:6; unto all generations ψ 100:5; 119:90; he will not belie it ψ 89:34. It is אֱמוּנָה אֹמֶן Is 25:1; cf. אֱמוּנָה מְאֹד ψ 119:138. It is closely associated with the divine חֶסֶד mercy ψ 89:25; 92:3; 98:3 Ho 2:22; with the divine צֶדֶק, צְדָקָה ψ 96:13; 143:1 Is 11:5; & salvation ψ 40:11. e.g. Psalms 88:12
Senses from the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon (Brown, Driver, Briggs; Oxford 1906 — public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). Full attribution on Sources.
Word origin
n.f. firmness, steadfastness, fidelity Ex 17:12 + 46 times; אֱמוּנוֹת Pr 28:20.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from אמון (ʼêmûwn) (H529) — faithfulness.
Jastrow Dictionary
A second Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon for comparison, covering Aramaic and post-biblical (Talmudic, Targumic, Midrashic) usage that the biblical-Hebrew BDB does not. Matched by lemma rather than by Strong’s number, so a lemma may carry more than one Jastrow headword (shown separately below), and the entries cover usage well beyond the Bible.
אֱמוּנָה
- firmness, faith, honesty, surety. B. Bath. X, 8, a. e. לא על אֱמוּנָתוֹ הלוהו at the time he extended the loan, he did so not because he was relying on his (the friend’s) surety. Ib. שכן על א׳ וכ׳ for in this case he did &c. Ab. Zar. 55ᵃ אנו נאבד את אֱמוּנָתֵנוּ shall we abandon our honesty? Ḥull. 133ᵇ אין א׳ בכותים Samaritans are (usually) not trusted. Tam. 28ᵃ א׳ יתירה scrupulous honesty. V. אֲמָנָה.
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Marcus Jastrow; London, Luzac, 1903) — Public Domain. Digitized via Sefaria. Digitized via Sefaria. Full attribution on Sources.
Forms in the corpus
The 40 distinct written forms H530 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that state’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 39 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 49 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
- Exodus 17:12
- Deuteronomy 32:4
- 1 Samuel 26:23
- 2 Kings 12:15
- 1 Chronicles 9:22
- 2 Chronicles 19:9
- Psalms 33:4
- Proverbs 12:17
- Isaiah 11:5
- Jeremiah 5:1
- Hosea 2:20
- Habakkuk 2:4
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
