εὐθύτης

From the study of Hebrews 1:8

Range of meaning

Straightness, evenness; in a moral and legal sense, uprightness, fairness, equity. In the Septuagint it often translates Hebrew words from the root yashar, “straight, level”: here mishor, which means level ground and, figuratively, equity in judgment (Ps 67:5 MT; Isa 11:4, “he will judge with equity the poor of the earth”).

Against the English

KJV and YLT have “righteousness,” WEB and ESV “uprightness,” NIV, NLT and BSB “justice,” NASB “righteous scepter.” “Justice” and “uprightness” are closest. “Righteousness” is not wrong, but modern readers tend to hear personal holiness or a theological status, not fair rule.

How it drifted

Since the Reformation, English “righteousness” has been heavily shaped by debates over justification and has narrowed toward individual moral purity before God. In the 1600s “a sceptre of righteousness” would still have suggested just government; today that public, judicial sense is mostly lost.

Used elsewhere in the period

Used of fair and level judgment in the Septuagint (e.g. Ps 9:9 LXX, “he will judge the peoples with uprightness”; Ps 98:9). In ancient Near Eastern royal ideology, the king's duty to establish “straightness” and justice is standard: Mesopotamian kittum u mīšarum, “truth and equity,” as in the prologue to Hammurabi's laws. The Hebrew mishor comes from the same root as Akkadian mīšaru.