What Does 2 Chronicles 19:7 Mean?
Therefore now let the awe of the LORD be upon you. Guard it and do it, for there is no crookedness with the LORD our God, nor lifting up the face of anyone, nor taking of gifts.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Wherefore now let the fear of the LORD be upon you; take heed and do it: for there is no iniquity with the LORD our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of gifts.THE KEY
The verse pictures favoritism as lifting one face and corruption as taking a gift, showing how judgment can be tilted.
THE MEANING
The awe of the LORD rests on your judgment now, joining watchfulness to action. God is without crookedness: no face is raised above another, and no gift is taken to bend the outcome.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie it dissolves is that judgment remains fair when status quietly raises one face above another.
THE ROOT
מַשֹּׂא פָנִים
massōʾ pānîm
GROWS FROM
נשא
n-ś-ʾ
To lift, carry, or bear.
“lifting up the face of anyone” in this verse is massōʾ pānîm. The Hebrew phrase pictures partiality as “lifting faces”: carrying one person’s face upward above another’s. Beside the refusal to take a bribe, it reveals two ways judgment can be tilted, by who is elevated and by what is received.
ALSO GROWS
nāśāʾ: To lift, carry, or bear.
נָשָׂא
This verb supplies the image beneath “respect of persons”: one face is lifted above the rest.
massāʾ: A burden or something carried.
מַשָּׂא
The same root can describe what is carried, sharpening the image of partiality as carrying a favored face.
שִׁמְרוּ
shimrū
GROWS FROM
שמר
š-m-r
To guard, watch, or keep.
“Guard it” in this verse is shimrū. The command translated “take heed” is an imperative to guard, immediately joined to “do it.” Watchfulness here is not passive attention: what is guarded is carried into action.
ALSO GROWS
šōmēr: A guard or keeper.
שֹׁמֵר
This branch shows the active, watchful sense carried by the command.
mišmeret: A watch, charge, or guarded duty.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
The judgment entrusted to you is treated as something to keep faithfully and enact.
עַוְלָה
ʿawlāh
GROWS FROM
עול
ʿ-w-l
To act unjustly or wrongly; crookedness.
The word rendered “iniquity” carries the image of injustice as crookedness, judgment bent away from what is straight. Its place beside a lifted face and an accepted bribe makes that crookedness concrete: partiality and bribery are distortions of judgment.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāwel: Injustice or wrong.
עָוֶל
This related form names the unjust condition the verse says is absent in God.
ʿawlāh: Injustice or an unjust act.
עַוְלָה
The verse places this crookedness beside favoritism and bribery, showing how each bends judgment.
THE PATTERN
Right judgment refuses both a raised face and a received gift.
For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, the great God, the mighty, the awe-inspiring, who does not lift up the face of any and does not take a bribe.Then Peter opened his mouth and said, In truth I have laid hold of this, that God lifts no one's face.But if you receive faces, you miss the mark, and are exposed by the instruction as those who step across.THE THREAD
For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, the great God, the mighty, the awe-inspiring, who does not lift up the face of any and does not take a bribe.Deuteronomy repeats the same structure: the Hebrew phrase for partiality pictures lifting faces, followed by the refusal to take a bribe. That parallel opens the image in Chronicles: divine impartiality means no person is carried above another and no gift bends the verdict.
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