---
title: Luke 22:29
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/luke-22-29/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/luke-22-29.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Luke 22:29
testament: NT
section: Gospels
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Luke 22:29

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> And I bestow on you a kingdom, just as My Father has bestowed one on Me,

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "and I make a covenant with you, just as my Father has made a covenant with me, for a kingdom,"

## JW Usage

The Watchtower reads Luke 22:29 as describing a separate covenant — distinct from the new covenant of v. 20 — that Jehovah made with Jesus, and that Jesus in turn made with the 144,000 anointed. This "covenant for a kingdom" is the organisational mechanism for the heavenly hope of the anointed class. The reading depends on the NWT's rendering of the verse ("I make a covenant with you… for a kingdom"), which most English translations do not produce.

## Protestant Usage

Compare Luke 22:29 in any standard English translation: "I bestow on you a kingdom, just as my Father bestowed one on me" (BSB), "I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom" (ESV). The Greek verb diatithemai is cognate with the noun diatheke ("covenant"), but the verb in classical Greek means simply "to dispose, appoint, assign, bequeath" — it does not require translation as "make a covenant." Hebrews 10:16 uses both verb and noun in the same passage with clearly different meanings. The NWT's "make a covenant with you for a kingdom" creates a second covenant the Greek text does not mention. The two-covenant framework is built on a translator's choice, not on the text. Pair Luke 22:29 with Luke 22:20 to show the Watchtower's reading collapses the natural reading of v. 29 (Jesus assigns the kingdom to his disciples) into a manufactured second covenant.

## NWT Issue

The NWT renders diatithemai as "I make a covenant with you" and inserts "for a kingdom" at the end, yielding "I make a covenant with you, just as my Father has made a covenant with me, for a kingdom." Standard translations render "I bestow on you a kingdom" or "I assign to you a kingdom" — diatithemai here functions as a verb of bestowal/appointment, not of covenantal cutting. The covenant-rendering is lexically defensible (the verb is the cognate of diatheke) but it is the load-bearing translation choice that supports the JW two- covenant doctrine of new covenant for the anointed and a separate "covenant for a kingdom" between Jesus and the 144,000. Most English translations refuse the choice precisely because the natural reading is bestowal, and "covenant for a kingdom" is otherwise unattested in scripture.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The New Covenant Includes All Believers](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/new-covenant-anointed-only.md) — Jeremiah 31:34 / Hebrews 8:11 — 'From the Least to the Greatest' [Salvation]