Testimony

Testimony (Hebrew edah, eduth; Greek martyria) in Scripture denotes the divine law as a witness to God's will, as well as human witness to God's acts. The stone tablets of the Decalogue are called "the testimony" (Ex. 25:16, 21) because they testify to the terms of the covenant, and the ark is "the ark of the testimony" (Ex. 25:22) and the tabernacle "the tabernacle of testimony" (Ex. 38:21; Acts 7:44). The psalmist celebrates the testimony of the LORD as "sure, making wise the simple" (Ps. 19:7). In the NT, testimony refers to the apostolic proclamation based on eyewitness experience of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection (Luke 24:48; Acts 1:8; 1 John 1:1–3), and the faithful confession of Christ even unto death — the original sense underlying the later term "martyr" (Rev. 1:9; 12:11; 20:4).