Emet

In the Bible

Emet appears throughout the Old Testament. The New Korean Revised Version (Gaeyeok Gaejeong) renders it as "truthfulness," "truth," or "faithfulness," depending on the context. A key text revealing God's character is Exodus 34:6. There, as God passes before Moses on Mount Sinai, He proclaims Himself "abundant in goodness and truth." In this verse, "goodness" translates hesed and "truth" translates emet.

The two words are often paired. In Genesis 24, Abraham's servant praises God for His hesed and emet toward his master. Psalm 85:10 declares, "Mercy and truth are met together." Emet is also used to express the trustworthiness of God's law and word (Psalm 119:142, 160) and in the exhortation to speak truthfully to one another (Zechariah 8:16).

Meaning and Background of the Word

Emet derives from the Hebrew root aman (א־מ־ן), meaning "to stand firm, to be reliable." Emunah, meaning "faithfulness," and amen come from the same root. Its basic sense is a state of being unshakable and dependable. Emet therefore encompasses not only "truth" in the sense of words corresponding to facts but also "faithfulness" in keeping one's promises to the end. The same word is used in Jeremiah 10:10, where God is called "the true God."

Significance Across the Whole Bible

The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) usually rendered emet as aletheia ("truth"), and the New Testament's language of "truth" inherits this usage. The Gospel of John in particular speaks often of truth. Many scholars read John 1:14, "full of grace and truth," and John 1:17, "grace and truth came by Jesus Christ," as echoing the "hesed and emet" of Exodus 34:6. Jesus' statement "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:1–9) is also often interpreted in this light.

Interpretations and Debates

• "Hebrew truth" versus "Greek truth": In the mid-twentieth century, some biblical theologians contrasted Hebrew truth as "faithfulness" with Greek truth as "correspondence to fact." The linguist James Barr criticized such contrasts for loading an entire people's way of thinking onto a single word. Today it is widely accepted that the word's meaning must be determined in each context.
• The truthfulness of Scripture: Proponents of biblical inerrancy cite texts declaring God's word to be emet as grounds for holding that Scripture is true and without error. Others hold that biblical "truth" refers above all to God's faithfulness and reliability.
• Extrabiblical traditions: Jewish tradition observes that the three letters of emet (aleph, mem, tav) are the first, middle, and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The Talmud is reported to contain the saying "The seal of God is truth (emet)." There is also a folk legend of the golem, a clay figure with "emet" inscribed on its forehead. These are later traditions and do not appear in the biblical text.

In the Korean Church

In Korean church preaching and Bible study, the fact that emet shares a root with "amen" is frequently pointed out. The pairing "goodness and truth" (hesed and emet) is also used to explain God's love and faithfulness.