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Protestant Apologetics

Luke 22:29

NT Gospels
Luke 22:29
29And I bestow on you a kingdom, just as My Father has bestowed one on Me,
Read in NWT ↗
JW Usage

The Watchtower reads 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 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." 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 with 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.