TR: lêb → kardia (Heart / Inner Person)

The Chain

Hebrew OT              LXX (Greek OT)           Greek NT
──────────────────     ──────────────────        ──────────────────
לֵב (lêb)          →   καρδία (kardia)        →  καρδία (kardia)
H3820, 550x in OT       436x as translation        152x in NT
"heart, mind, will"      of lêb (PMI 29.17)        "heart, mind"

OT Usage (Hebrew)

Strong's	Word	Occurrences	Primary Meaning
H3820	לֵב (lêb)	550	heart — the inner center of emotion, will, intellect
H3824	לֵבָב (lebab)	230	heart — emphatic/fuller form; same range as lêb
H3826	לִבָּה (libbah)	7	heart — feminine form, rare

Together the leb-family covers ~790 verses — the dominant Hebrew term for the inner person.

Key OT passages: - Gen 6:5 — "every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" — leb as seat of moral inclination - 1 Kgs 3:9 — "Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart" — leb as seat of wisdom/intellect - Dan 1:8 — "Daniel purposed in his heart" — leb as seat of will/intention

See canonical study: H3820-leb.md

LXX Bridge

Hebrew	Greek Translation	Count	Notes
lêb (H3820)	καρδία (G2588)	436x	Primary equivalent — PMI 29.17 (extremely strong)
lebab (H3824)	καρδία (G2588)	187x	Also strongly mapped — PMI 25.31
lêb (H3820)	διάνοια (G1271)	20x	Intellectual/cognitive sense of lêb
lêb (H3820)	σκληρύνω (G4645)	14x	"Hardening" idiom
lêb (H3820)	σοφία (G4678)	21x	Wisdom contexts (Proverbs/Ecclesiastes)
libbah (H3826)	καρδία (G2588)	6x	Feminine form likewise rendered kardia

Semantic continuity in translation: The LXX renders lêb as kardia with remarkable consistency (~79% of occurrences), essentially importing the full Hebrew semantic range — emotion, will, intellect, moral character — into the Greek kardia. The LXX does not restrict kardia to just the emotional sense.

NT Usage (Greek)

Strong's	Word	Occurrences	Primary Meaning
G2588	καρδία (kardia)	152	heart — inner person, seat of thought/feeling/will
G2589	καρδιογνώστης (kardiognōstēs)	2	"heart-knower" — God who knows hearts (Acts 1:24; 15:8)

Key NT passages: - Matt 5:8 — "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God" — continuing the OT moral/spiritual sense - Rom 1:21 — "their foolish heart was darkened" — continuing the OT moral/intellectual sense of lêb - Heb 4:12 — "dividing asunder of soul and spirit…discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" — kardia as deepest inner seat - Luke 1:17 — (quoting Mal 4:6) "to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children" — explicit LXX chain from Hebrew to NT

Direct OT→NT Quotations

NT Verse	Quotes OT	Chain	Significance
Matt 13:15	Isa 6:10 (LXX)	lêb → kardia	"their heart is waxed gross…lest they should understand with their heart"
Acts 2:26	Ps 16:9 (LXX)	lêb → kardia	"Therefore did my heart rejoice" — direct Psalm quotation
Luke 1:17	Mal 4:6	lêb → kardia	"turn the hearts of the fathers to the children"
John 12:40	Isa 6:10 (LXX)	lêb → kardia	"hardened their heart" — using the same kardia the LXX used for lêb

Continuity and Shifts

What stays the same across testaments: - Kardia in the NT retains the full OT semantic range: emotion (joy, grief), will (purpose, intention), intellect (understanding, reasoning), and moral character (evil heart, pure heart) - The "hardening of the heart" idiom (Pharaoh → Isa 6:10 → NT) carries intact through the lêb → kardia bridge - Covenant devotion language — "with all your heart" — survives in NT as ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ καρδίᾳ (Matt 22:37 quoting Deut 6:5)

What shifts: - The NT introduces the pneuma (spirit) dimension more prominently alongside kardia; the OT lêb alone carried most of the inner-person semantic load - NT kardia gains eschatological dimensions (hardened heart as judgment; renewed heart as new covenant gift) that draw on but develop the OT base - Hebrew lêb was rarely associated with the physical organ; NT kardia similarly is almost entirely figurative

---

Generated from: gather_trace_data.py, search_strongs.py (--lxx-map, --hebrew-source, --lookup) Last updated: 2026-04-02