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a. In English versions of the Bible, applied in the Old Testament to the collective body of the Israelites in the wilderness, and to a public solemn assembly of the people or nation: so congregation of the Lord, etc.Here it is put for two distinct Hebrew words ʿēdāh and qāhāl, the original difference between which was apparently that ʿēdāh meant the collective body or community, and qāhāl an actual assembly that had met and would disperse again; but in application the two were necessarily often identical; the assembly consisted of or represented the community. By the Septuagint ʿēdāh is, with rare exceptions, rendered συναγωγή; qāhāl is rendered 70 times ἐκκλησία, 37 times συναγωγή, 10 times by ὄχλος or other word. The Vulgate has for both words a great variety of renderings, e.g. multitudo, cœtus, populus, turba, congregatio for both; also plebs, vulgus, globus, caterva, synagoga for ʿēdāh; concio, ecclesia, exercitus for qāhāl. Wyclif has congregacioun only in the few places in which congregatio appears in the Vulgate; but in the 16th cent. versions, congregation became the predominant rendering of both words; in the 1611 version it occurs 124 times for ʿēdāh, 86 times for qāhāl. In a relatively small number of cases, both words are rendered company, and assembly.) The Revised Version of 1885 has distinguished ʿēdāh and qāhāl in the Heptateuch as congregation and assembly, but elsewhere has usually continued the indiscriminate use of ‘congregation’ found in the earlier version.

a. Scottish History. The designation given to the party of Protestant Reformers during the reign of Mary. (Also Congregation of Christ, Congregation of the Lord.) The term appears to have originated in the language of the National Covenant, subscribed 3 December 1557, in which the word occurs 8 times (in the sense ‘church’, as in 6a).