Deed - International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

DEED

ded:

Used in its ordinary modern sense in EV. In the Old Testament it is used to translates five Hebrew words: gemylah, literally, "recompense" (Isaiah 59:18); dabhar, literally, "word," "thing" (2 Chronicles 35:27 the King James Version, the Revised Version (British and American) "acts"; Esther 1:17,18; Jeremiah 5:28); ma`aseh (Genesis 20:9; 44:15; Ezra 9:13); `alilah (1 Chronicles 16:8 the King James Version, the Revised Version (British and American) "doings"; Psalms 105:1 the King James Version, the Revised Version (British and American) "doings"); po`al (Psalms 28:4 the King James Version, the Revised Version (British and American) "work"; Jeremiah 25:14).

In the New Testament "deed" very frequently translates ergon (same root as English "work"; compare "energy"), which is still more frequently (espescially in the Revised Version (British and American)) rendered "work." In Luke 23:51; Acts 19:18; Romans 8:13; Colossians 3:9 the King James Version, the Revised Version (British and American) "doings," it stands for Greek praxis (literally, "a doing," "transaction"), each time in a bad sense, equivalent to wicked deed, crime, a meaning which is frequently associated with the plural of praxis (compare English "practices" in the sense of trickery; so often in Polybius; Deissmann maintains that praxis was a technical term in magic), although in Matthew 16:27 (the King James Version "works") and Romans 12:4 the same Greek word has a neutral meaning. In James 1:25 the King James Version "deed" is the translation of Greek poiesis, more correctly rendered "doing" in the Revised Version (British and American).

D. Miall Edwards

Bibliography Information
Orr, James, M.A., D.D. General Editor. "Entry for 'DEED'". "International Standard Bible Encyclopedia". 1915.