Isaiah 1:23

1:23 Your officials are rebels, ¹ 

they associate with ²  thieves.

All of them love bribery,

and look for ³  payoffs. ⁴ 

They do not take up the cause of the orphan, ⁵ 

or defend the rights of the widow. ⁶ 

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 ⁷  the words of the righteous. ⁸ 

Deuteronomy 16:2

16:2 You must sacrifice the Passover animal ⁹  (from the flock or the herd) to the Lord your God in the place where he ¹⁰  chooses to locate his name.

Deuteronomy 19:7

19:7 Therefore, I am commanding you to set apart for yourselves three cities.

Proverbs 17:23

17:23 A wicked person receives a bribe secretly ¹¹ 

to pervert ¹²  the ways of justice.

Micah 3:11

3:11 Her ¹³  leaders take bribes when they decide legal cases, ¹⁴ 

her priests proclaim rulings for profit,

and her prophets read omens for pay.

Yet they claim to trust ¹⁵  the Lord and say,

“The Lord is among us. ¹⁶ 

Disaster will not overtake ¹⁷  us!”

Micah 7:3

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 

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

[1:23]  ² tn Heb “and companions of” (so KJV, NASB); CEV “friends of crooks.”

[1:23]  ³ tn Heb “pursue”; NIV “chase after gifts.”

[1:23]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ sn See the note at v. 17.

[1:23]  ⁶ 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.

[16:19]  ⁷ tn Heb “twist, overturn”; NRSV “subverts the cause.”

[16:19]  ⁸ tn Or “innocent”; NRSV “those who are in the right”; NLT “the godly.”

[16:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “sacrifice the Passover” (so NASB). The word “animal” has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[16:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in the previous verse.

[17:23]  ¹¹ sn The fact that the “gift” is given secretly (Heb “from the bosom” [מֵחֵיק, mekheq]; so NASB) indicates that it was not proper. Cf. NRSV “a concealed bribe”; TEV, CEV, NLT “secret bribes.”

[17:23]  ¹² tn The form לְהַטּוֹת (lÿhattot) is the Hiphil infinitive construct of נָטָה (natah), meaning “to thrust away,” i.e., to “pervert.” This purpose clause clarifies that the receiving of the “gift” is for evil intent.

[3:11]  ¹³ sn The pronoun Her refers to Jerusalem (note the previous line).

[3:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “judge for a bribe.”

[3:11]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “they lean upon” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV); NAB “rely on.”

[3:11]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Is not the Lord in our midst?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course he is!”

[3:11]  ¹⁷ tn Or “come upon” (so many English versions); NCV “happen to us”; CEV “come to us.”

[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.