TESTAMENT (διαθήκη, G1347). “Testament” came into Eng. as the tr. of the Gr. term, through the Lat. testamentum, which meant a will. Diathēkē was the ordinary word in Gr. for a will, but not the ordinary word for a covenant. The ordinary Gr. word for covenant was suntheke, which described an agreement, a bargain entered into between contracting parties. Diathēkē, meaning will, suggested the bequest of one individual that was received by another individual. Sometimes it appears that diathēkē had the double meaning of “will,” or “covenant.” Aristophanes used the word to mean “covenant”; also the author of Hebrews seemed to make a play on the double meaning of the term (Heb 9:15-17). It may be that the Biblical basis for “testament” as a designation of the two major divisions of the Bible came out of the use of diathēkē in Hebrews.

The word was relatively unimportant in the NT (Matt 26:28; Mark 14:24; 1 Cor 11:25; 2 Cor 3:6, 14) but of frequent occurrence in Hebrews (7:22; 8:6; 9:15, 17; 10:29). It has been questioned whether the Heb. language had a term that was equivalent to “testament.” The term came to be associated with the OT no doubt because the LXX rendered covenant (בְּרִית, H1382) by the Gr. diathēkē. Diathēkē was prob. the Biblical word because it stressed that the initiative in God’s relations with men lay with Him and not with them. Men could not argue or bargain with God; they could only accept or reject. Also the significance of the death of Christ as the inauguration of the new covenant may reach back to the concept of diathēkē as “will.” The will became effective only upon the death of its maker. Christ’s death, after the manner of sacrificial animals that inaugurated the old covenant, established the new (Gal 3:15-18).