H530 — אֱמוּנָה (emunah)¶

Core Data¶

Strong's: H530
Original: אֱמוּנָה
Transliteration: ʼĕmûwnâh
Pronunciation: em-oo-naw'
Part of Speech: Feminine noun
Root: אָמַן (ʼâman, H539) — to be firm, support, be faithful
Occurrences: 49 unique verses (51 tokens) across 13 books
First Occurrence: Exo 17:12 — "But Moses' hands were heavy... and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands... and his hands were steady (emunah) until the going down of the sun"
Hapax Legomenon: No

Lexicon Definition¶

Feminine of H529 (ʼêmûwn); literally firmness; figuratively security; morally fidelity: faith(-ful, -ly, -ness, -man), set office, stability, steady, truly, truth, verily.

Translation Distribution (KJV)¶

Translation	Verses	%
faithfulness (thy/my/his/and/in/or to)	18	36.7%
faithfully	5	10.2%
truth (of/for/in/upon/his/the/and)	10	20.4%
faithful	3	6.1%
set office (in their/had the)	3	6.1%
faith (by his)	1	2.0%
steady	1	2.0%
stability (the)	1	2.0%
truly	1	2.0%
verily	1	2.0%
Other	5	10.2%

Distribution by Book¶

Book	Count	Per 100 Verses
Psalms	22	0.9
2 Chronicles	5	0.6
Isaiah	4	0.3
Jeremiah	4	0.3
1 Chronicles	3	0.3
Proverbs	3	0.3
2 Kings	2	0.3
Habakkuk	1	1.8
Lamentations	1	0.6
Hosea	1	0.5
Exodus	1	0.1
Deuteronomy	1	0.1
1 Samuel	1	0.1

The Psalms account for 45% of all uses. Psalm 89 alone has 8 occurrences — more than any other book except the rest of Psalms combined. The word is entirely absent from the Torah's cultic legislation (Leviticus, Numbers) and the wisdom books of Job and Ecclesiastes.

Semantic Categories¶

1. God's Faithfulness as an Attribute¶

The largest category: emunah as a divine quality, usually in praise or appeal. - Psa 36:5 — "Thy mercy, O LORD, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds" - Psa 89:1 — "I will sing of the mercies of the LORD for ever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations" - Psa 89:2 — "Mercy shall be built up for ever: thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens" - Lam 3:23 — "They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness"

2. Faithfulness Paired with Chesed (Covenant Loyalty)¶

Emunah and chesed form a word-pair expressing God's covenant character. - Psa 89:24 — "But my faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him" - Psa 89:33 — "My lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail" - Psa 92:2 — "To shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night" - Psa 98:3 — "He hath remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel"

3. Faithfulness Paired with Righteousness/Justice¶

Emunah linked to tsedeq or mishpat in moral or judicial contexts. - Psa 96:13 — "He shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with his truth" - Psa 119:75 — "I know, O LORD, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me" - Psa 143:1 — "In thy faithfulness answer me, and in thy righteousness" - Isa 11:5 — "Righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins"

4. Human Faithfulness / Fidelity¶

The quality of being reliable or trustworthy in human conduct. - 1Sa 26:23 — "The LORD render to every man his righteousness and his faithfulness" - Pro 12:17 — "He that speaketh truth sheweth forth righteousness" - Pro 28:20 — "A faithful man shall abound with blessings" - Hab 2:4 — "The just shall live by his faith"

5. Faithfulness in Office / Trustworthy Service¶

The administrative sense: performing a charge with integrity. - 2Ki 12:15 — "They reckoned not with the men... because they dealt faithfully" - 2Ki 22:7 — "No reckoning made with them... because they dealt faithfully" - 2Ch 31:12 — "Brought in the offerings and the tithes... faithfully" - 2Ch 34:12 — "The men did the work faithfully"

6. Physical Steadiness (Concrete Root Meaning)¶

The earliest occurrence preserves the concrete, physical sense of the root. - Exo 17:12 — "His hands were steady until the going down of the sun" - Isa 33:6 — "Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times"

7. Truth Contrasted with Falsehood¶

Emunah as "truth" set against deception. - Jer 5:1 — "Seek... if there be any that... seeketh the truth" - Jer 5:3 — "O LORD, are not thine eyes upon the truth?" - Jer 7:28 — "This is a nation... nor receiveth correction: truth is perished" - Jer 9:3 — "They are not valiant for the truth upon the earth"

Common Collocations¶

Word	Strong's	Co-occurrences	Typical Pattern
יְהֹוָה (YHWH)	H3068	19x	"thy faithfulness, O LORD" — emunah as divine attribute
חֶסֶד (chesed)	H2617	11x	"mercy and faithfulness" — covenant word-pair
צֶדֶק (tsedeq)	H6664	6x	"righteousness and faithfulness" — paired moral attributes
אִישׁ (ish)	H376	5x	"faithful man" — human reliability
אֱלֹהִים (elohim)	H430	5x	"God of truth/faithfulness" — divine epithet
מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat)	H4941	4x	"judgment and faithfulness" — judicial integrity
שֶׁקֶר (sheqer)	H8267	4x	"truth vs. falsehood" — antithetical pair
לֵוִיִּי (Levite)	H3881	4x	Levitical "set office" — trustworthy charge

Word Family / Cognates (ʼ-m-n Root)¶

H539 אָמַן (ʼâman) — root verb: to be firm, support, be faithful; Niphal "be established," Hiphil "believe"
H529 אֵמוּן (ʼêmûwn) — masculine form: established, trustworthy (3v)
H543 אָמֵן (ʼâmên) — sure, faithfulness; liturgical "Amen" (30v)
H544 אֹמֶן (ʼômen) — verity, truth (1v)
H571 אֶמֶת (ʼemeth) — truth, stability, faithfulness (125v) — the most common ʼ-m-n noun

Easily Confused Words¶

Word	Strong's	Shared Translation	Key Difference
אֶמֶת (emeth)	H571	"truth," "faithfully"	emeth = objective truth/reliability; emunah = subjective faithfulness/fidelity (though overlap is significant)
אָמַן (aman)	H539	"faithful"	aman = the root verb "to believe/be firm"; emunah = the derived abstract noun
אֵמוּן (emun)	H529	"faithful"	emun = the masculine adj/noun form (rare, 3v); emunah = the common feminine noun

Synonyms (from SDBH)¶

H2617 חֶסֶד (chesed) — lovingkindness, covenant loyalty
H6664 צֶדֶק (tsedeq) — righteousness, justice
H6666 צְדָקָה (tsedaqah) — righteousness
H4941 מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat) — judgment, justice
H571 אֶמֶת (emeth) — truth, stability

Antonyms (from SDBH)¶

H5766 עָוֶל (avel) — injustice, unrighteousness
H7451 רָעָה (ra'ah) — evil, wickedness
H8267 שֶׁקֶר (sheqer) — falsehood, deception

LXX Mapping¶

Greek Equivalent	Strong's	Co-occ	PMI Score	Notes
πίστις (pistis)	G4102	18x	24.22	Primary equivalent — "faith/faithfulness"; basis for Hab 2:4 → NT quotations
ἀλήθεια (aletheia)	G225	22x	20.06	"Truth" — when emunah carries the "truth" sense; highest raw co-occurrence
ἔλεος (eleos)	G1656	11x	11.32	"Mercy" — in chesed-emunah pairs, LXX sometimes renders emunah as eleos
δικαιοσύνη (dikaiosyne)	G1343	8x	8.68	"Righteousness" — when emunah parallels tsedeq
ἀληθινός (alethinos)	G228	3x	7.39	"True, genuine" — adjectival rendering

The split between pistis and aletheia in the LXX reflects emunah's dual semantic range: when it means "faithfulness/fidelity," the LXX uses pistis; when it means "truth/reliability," the LXX uses aletheia. The Hab 2:4 rendering is pivotal: the LXX has ek pisteōs mou ("by my faithfulness"), which Paul reads as ek pisteōs ("by faith") in Rom 1:17, Gal 3:11.