📌 The Biblical Meaning of Good and Evil

His Holiness Pope Shenouda III explains that the words good and evil in the Holy Bible carry more than one meaning, and must be understood in their context. Scripture uses them at times in the moral sense, and at times in the experiential or circumstantial sense.

✨ First: Good as Righteousness, Evil as Sin

• This is the clear spiritual meaning: good is righteousness, obedience, and purity.

• Evil is sin, iniquity, and disobedience.

• As in Deuteronomy 30: “I have set before you good and evil, life and death… choose life.”

• In Genesis 3: “The tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” meaning knowing lawful and unlawful, right and wrong, righteousness and iniquity.

• In Ezekiel 18: God accepts the repentant person who turns from evil.

✨ Second: Good and Evil as Conditions and Circumstances

• Sometimes evil refers to distress, trial, or hardship.

• Good refers to God’s gifts, blessings, and kindness.

• As Job said when trials came upon him:

  • “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?”

  • Meaning: we accept God’s blessings—shall we refuse His permitted trials?

• Likewise in 2 Samuel 17:14, the word evil refers to troubles.

🌿 Spiritual Message

The Holy Bible presents a balanced understanding of good and evil:

• Good is not merely favorable circumstances, but a life of righteousness before God.

• Evil is not only sin, but also the trials that God allows for our refinement.
  It calls the believer to choose moral good and to accept with humility the hardships that God permits, trusting that all things work together for good to those who love God.

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