Congregation

The congregation of Israel designated the Hebrew people in its collective capacity as God's covenant assembly. The primary Hebrew terms are qāhāl (the summoned assembly) and ʿēdâ (the community or community of witnesses), both translated variously as congregation, assembly, or community in English versions. The congregation was the body to which the law was addressed, with which the covenant was made, and from which certain persons could be excluded for specific offenses (Deuteronomy 23:1–8).

The congregation gathered for worship, law-reading, war, and deliberation. The silver trumpets were blown to summon it (Numbers 10:3). Specific regulations governed who was included — the sojourner who kept the covenant could participate in Passover (Numbers 9:14), while certain excluded groups awaited readmission after set periods. The Greek equivalent ekklēsia — used in the Septuagint to translate qāhāl — became the primary word for the New Testament church, establishing a direct conceptual continuity: the church is the eschatological form of the covenant congregation, now constituted not by ethnic descent but by faith in Christ and sealed by baptism.