Exodus 23:7-8

23:7 Keep your distance ¹  from a false charge ²  – do not kill the innocent and the righteous, ³  for I will not justify the wicked. ⁴ 

23:8 “You must not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see ⁵  and subverts the words of the righteous.

Deuteronomy 16:19

16:19 You must not pervert justice or show favor. Do not take a bribe, for bribes blind the eyes of the wise and distort ⁶  the words of the righteous. ⁷ 

Deuteronomy 27:25

27:25 ‘Cursed is the one who takes a bribe to kill an innocent person.’ Then all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

Isaiah 1:23

1:23 Your officials are rebels, ⁸ 

they associate with ⁹  thieves.

All of them love bribery,

and look for ¹⁰  payoffs. ¹¹ 

They do not take up the cause of the orphan, ¹² 

or defend the rights of the widow. ¹³ 

Micah 7:2-3

7:2 Faithful men have disappeared ¹⁴  from the land;

there are no godly men left. ¹⁵ 

They all wait in ambush so they can shed blood; ¹⁶ 

they hunt their own brother with a net. ¹⁷ 

7:3 They are determined to be experts at doing evil; ¹⁸ 

government officials and judges take bribes, ¹⁹ 

prominent men make demands,

and they all do what is necessary to satisfy them. ²⁰ 

Zephaniah 3:3-4

3:3 Her princes ²¹  are as fierce as roaring lions; ²² 

her rulers ²³  are as hungry as wolves in the desert, ²⁴ 

who completely devour their prey by morning. ²⁵ 

3:4 Her prophets are proud; ²⁶ 

they are deceitful men.

Her priests defile what is holy; ²⁷ 

they break God’s laws. ²⁸ 

[23:7]  ¹ tn Or “stay away from,” or “have nothing to do with.”

[23:7]  ² tn Heb “a false matter,” this expression in this context would have to be a case in law that was false or that could only be won by falsehood.

[23:7]  ³ tn The two clauses probably should be related: the getting involved in the false charge could lead to the death of an innocent person (so, e.g., Naboth in 1 Kgs 21:10-13).

[23:7]  ⁴ sn God will not declare right the one who is in the wrong. Society should also be consistent, but it cannot see the intents and motives, as God can.

[23:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “blinds the open-eyed.”

[16:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “twist, overturn”; NRSV “subverts the cause.”

[16:19]  ⁷ tn Or “innocent”; NRSV “those who are in the right”; NLT “the godly.”

[1:23]  ⁸ tn Or “stubborn”; CEV “have rejected me.”

[1:23]  ⁹ tn Heb “and companions of” (so KJV, NASB); CEV “friends of crooks.”

[1:23]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “pursue”; NIV “chase after gifts.”

[1:23]  ¹¹ sn Isaiah may have chosen the word for gifts (שַׁלְמוֹנִים, shalmonim; a hapax legomena here), as a sarcastic pun on what these rulers should have been doing. Instead of attending to peace and wholeness (שָׁלוֹם, shalom), they sought after payoffs (שַׁלְמוֹנִים).

[1:23]  ¹² sn See the note at v. 17.

[1:23]  ¹³ sn The rich oppressors referred to in Isaiah and the other eighth century prophets were not rich capitalists in the modern sense of the word. They were members of the royal military and judicial bureaucracies in Israel and Judah. As these bureaucracies grew, they acquired more and more land and gradually commandeered the economy and legal system. At various administrative levels bribery and graft become commonplace. The common people outside the urban administrative centers were vulnerable to exploitation in such a system, especially those, like widows and orphans, who had lost their family provider through death. Through confiscatory taxation, conscription, excessive interest rates, and other oppressive governmental measures and policies, they were gradually disenfranchised and lost their landed property, and with it, their rights as citizens. The socio-economic equilibrium envisioned in the law of Moses was radically disturbed.

[7:2]  ¹⁴ tn Or “have perished”; “have been destroyed.”

[7:2]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and an upright one among men there is not.”

[7:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “for bloodshed” (so NASB); TEV “for a chance to commit murder.”

[7:2]  ¹⁷ sn Micah compares these ungodly people to hunters trying to capture their prey with a net.

[7:3]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “upon evil [are their] hands to do [it] well.”

[7:3]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “the official asks – and the judge – for a bribe.”

[7:3]  ²⁰ tn More literally, “the great one announces what his appetite desires and they weave it together.” Apparently this means that subordinates plot and maneuver to make sure the prominent man’s desires materialize.

[3:3]  ²¹ tn Or “officials.”

[3:3]  ²² tn Heb “her princes in her midst are roaring lions.” The metaphor has been translated as a simile (“as fierce as”) for clarity.

[3:3]  ²³ tn Traditionally “judges.”

[3:3]  ²⁴ tn Heb “her judges [are] wolves of the evening,” that is, wolves that prowl at night. The translation assumes an emendation to עֲרָבָה (’aravah, “desert”). For a discussion of this and other options, see Adele Berlin, Zephaniah (AB 25A), 128. The metaphor has been translated as a simile (“as hungry as”) for clarity.

[3:3]  ²⁵ tn Heb “they do not gnaw [a bone] at morning.” The precise meaning of the line is unclear. The statement may mean these wolves devour their prey so completely that not even a bone is left to gnaw by the time morning arrives. For a discussion of this and other options, see Adele Berlin, Zephaniah (AB 25A), 129.

[3:4]  ²⁶ sn Applied to prophets, the word פֹּחֲזִים (pokhazim, “proud”) probably refers to their audacity in passing off their own words as genuine prophecies from the Lord (see Jer 23:32).

[3:4]  ²⁷ tn Or “defile the temple.”

[3:4]  ²⁸ tn Heb “they treat violently [the] law.”