TR: ʻâvôn → ἀδικία (Iniquity / Unrighteousness)¶
The Chain¶
Hebrew OT LXX (Greek OT) Greek NT
──────────────── ──────────────── ────────────────
עָוֺן (ʻâvôn) → ἀδικία (adikía) → ἀδικία (adikía)
H5771, 213x in OT 78x as LXX rendering 24x in NT
"iniquity / guilt / PMI score: 24.64 "unrighteousness /
punishment" iniquity"
OT Usage (Hebrew)¶
| Strong's | Word | Occurrences | Primary Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| H5771 | עָוֺן (ʻâvôn) | 213 | iniquity, guilt, or punishment of iniquity |
| H5766 | עֶוֶל (ʻevel) | ~80 | injustice, perverseness (cognate) |
| H5753 | עָוָה (ʻâvâh) | ~17 | verb: to bend, act perversely (root) |
Key OT passages: - Gen 4:13 — "My punishment [is] greater than I can bear" (punishment-sense of עָוֺן) - Isa 53:6 — "the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all" (vicarious bearing of avon) - Dan 9:24 — "to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness"
[Canonical word study: H5771-avon.md]
LXX Bridge¶
| Hebrew | Greek Translation | Strong's | Co-occ | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ʻâvôn (H5771) | ἀδικία (adikía) | G93 | 78x | Primary equivalent |
| ʻâvôn (H5771) | ἀνομία (anomía) | G458 | 70x | Secondary — lawlessness frame |
| ʻâvôn (H5771) | ἁμαρτία (hamartía) | G266 | 93x | Broad Greek sin word; lower PMI |
| ʻâvôn (H5771) | κόλασις (kólasis) | G2851 | 5x | Where punishment-sense is dominant |
| ʻevel (H5766) | ἀδικία (adikía) | G93 | 23x | Cognate Hebrew word also maps here |
| châmâç (H2555) | ἀδικία (adikía) | G93 | 15x | Violence/injustice also maps to adikia |
Semantic shift in translation: The Hebrew עָוֺן carries a triple sense (act, guilt, punishment). Greek ἀδικία captures the injustice/unrighteousness aspect but largely loses the punishment nuance. The LXX falls back on κόλασις where penalty is explicit. The secondary Greek word ἀνομία shifts the frame from "injustice" to "lawlessness" — a distinct theological emphasis.
NT Usage (Greek)¶
| Strong's | Word | Occurrences | Primary Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| G93 | ἀδικία (adikía) | 24 | injustice, unrighteousness |
| G91 | ἀδικέω (adikéō) | ~28 | verb: to do wrong, to injure |
| G94 | ἄδικος (ádikos) | ~12 | unjust, unrighteous |
| G92 | ἀδίκημα (adíkēma) | ~3 | a wrong done, an act of injustice |
Key NT passages: - Rom 1:18 — "wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness (ἀδικία) of men" - 1 Cor 13:6 — "Rejoiceth not in iniquity (ἀδικία), but rejoiceth in the truth" - 2 Tim 2:19 — "Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity (ἀδικία)"
Direct OT→NT Quotations¶
| NT Verse | Quotes OT | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Acts 1:18 | — | "reward of iniquity (ἀδικία)" — echoes the OT consequence-sense of עָוֺן |
| Rom 1:18 | — | Paul's ἀδικία picks up the LXX's dominant pattern for עָוֺן |
No direct verbal quotation of an עָוֺן passage using ἀδικία has been identified; the NT inheritance is conceptual via LXX translation pattern rather than explicit citation.
Continuity and Shifts¶
What stays the same: - The moral wrongdoing sense: both עָוֺן and ἀδικία describe a quality of character and action opposed to God's righteousness - Communal/corporate application: both appear in contexts of national sin (Israel's iniquity; "unrighteousness of men" in Rom 1) - The theological pairing: עָוֺן + חַטָּאָה in OT parallels ἀδικία + ἀσέβεια (unrighteousness + ungodliness) in NT (Rom 1:18)
What shifts: - The punishment-sense of עָוֺן largely disappears in ἀδικία; the Greek word focuses on the character/quality of the wrong, not its consequence - The LXX also uses ἀνομία (lawlessness) for עָוֺן at comparable frequency — NT authors tend to use ἀνομία in eschatological contexts (Matt 24:12; 2 Thess 2:7) where the lawlessness-frame dominates - The Hebrew avon's guilt-accumulation concept (the weight building until judgment) has no direct Greek equivalent; it gets distributed across ἀδικία, ἀνομία, and ἐνοχή (guilt)
Generated from: gather_trace_data.py H5771 Last updated: 2026-04-02