rightness: conformity to what is truly right, the standard or order things ought to match.
This word names what is right itself, the true measure that conduct, rulings, kingship, and even a market scale are supposed to match. It can point to God's own just and faithful character as that standard, and to the upright living he calls his people to.
Its most natural home is the law court. There it means a fair verdict and the just cause that wins it, so that for someone wronged it can shade into being cleared and put back in the right. From the same root grows the language of kingship: a throne is said to rest on rightness, and a good king rules by it, protecting the weak rather than the powerful.
In the second half of Isaiah the word leans hard toward rescue. God's rightness is set in the same breath as his salvation, because his being faithful to set the world right is exactly what brings deliverance to his people. And at its plainest the word still means simple honesty: a just weight, a just measure, an honest scale.
These are not separate words but one idea seen from different angles. Whether it is a verdict, a reign, a rescue, or a fair scale, the constant is conformity to what is truly right.
Nuances
Disputed
What is the basic sense of צֶדֶק, especially when it is God's righteousness? The question is whether the word is at root relational (faithfulness to a bond, and therefore inherently saving) or forensic (rightness measured against a standard, decided in a court, and able to include judgment).
- contestedצֶדֶק is a relational concept: rightness is faithfulness to the demands of a relationship, so God's righteousness is by nature his saving fidelity and is never punitive.; Hermann Cremer, Die paulinische Rechtfertigungslehre (1899; 2nd ed. 1900); Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, vol. 1 (ET 1962), 370-383; Klaus Koch, 'צדק ṣdq,' THAT II (1976), cols. 507-530 (ET TLOT 3)
- contestedצֶדֶק is forensic and standard-based: its home is the law court, "covenant faithfulness" cannot be sustained as its lexical meaning, and God's righteousness can include judgment on Israel itself.; Mark A. Seifrid, 'Righteousness Language in the Hebrew Scriptures and Early Judaism,' in Justification and Variegated Nomism 1 (2001), 415-442; Charles Lee Irons, The Righteousness of God, WUNT II/386 (2015); Stephen Westerholm, Perspectives Old and New on Paul (2004)
- minorityצֶדֶק names a comprehensive cosmic and social right order (a Weltordnung) established by the creator, comparable to Egyptian maat and the Akkadian pair truth-and-equity.; Hans Heinrich Schmid, Gerechtigkeit als Weltordnung, BHTh 40 (1968)