What Does Exodus 18:16 Mean?
When they have a word, they come to me, and I judge between one person and another, and I make them know the statutes of God and his instructions.
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
When they have a matter, they come unto me; and I judge between one and another, and I do make them know the statutes of God, and his laws.THE KEY
The dispute begins as something spoken, because the Hebrew word for “matter” also means “word,” and it ends with God’s instruction made knowable.
THE MEANING
When a matter stands between people, it can be brought into the open and discerned. Judgment distinguishes the claims, while making God’s statutes and instruction known gives the dispute a frame larger than either person’s say-so. Here, resolving a case also makes the shared way visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a dispute is resolved only when one person wins and the other loses is unsettled here: judgment also makes the governing instruction knowable to both.
THE ROOT
דָּבָר
dāḇār
GROWS FROM
ד־ב־ר
d-b-r
To speak; as a noun, a word, utterance, matter, or affair.
The word translated “matter” can also mean “word” or “utterance.” English makes the dispute sound like an abstract issue; Hebrew lets it be heard as something brought forward in speech and then judged between people.
ALSO GROWS
dāḇār: Word; matter or affair.
דָּבָר
The same noun can name both what is said and what is at issue, so the case arrives as something articulated.
dibbēr: To speak.
דִּבֵּר
This verb from the same root links the matter being judged with speech that brings it into the open.
תּוֹרֹתָיו
torotav
GROWS FROM
י־ר־ה
y-r-h
To throw or point; in its teaching form, to direct or instruct.
The word rendered “laws” is torot, instructions. Its root carries the sense of pointing or directing: the instruction makes a way visible beyond the immediate dispute. The same root appears in the verb “teach,” joining instruction with the act of showing a way.
ALSO GROWS
tôrāh: Instruction or teaching.
תּוֹרָה
This singular form shares the root of the “laws” in the verse and shows their instructional sense.
môrēh: Teacher or instructor.
מוֹרֶה
The teacher is one who directs or instructs, echoing the way the laws make a path knowable.
חֻקֵּי
ḥuqqê
GROWS FROM
ח־ק־ק
ḥ-q-q
To inscribe, prescribe, or decree.
The word for “statutes” belongs to a root that carries the sense of something inscribed or prescribed. Alongside instruction that points a way, these statutes mark what is set in place; the verse holds both direction and defined order together.
ALSO GROWS
ḥōq: Statute, decree, or appointed portion.
חֹק
This noun from the same root names what is prescribed or set in place.
məḥōqēq: Lawgiver or one who decrees.
מְחֹקֵק
The related word names the one who establishes what is prescribed, connecting statute with the act of setting it down.
THE PATTERN
Judgment and instruction work together: a case is distinguished while the shared way of life is made knowable.
And you shall shine the statutes and instructions into them, and show them the way they must walk, and the deed they must do.Good and straight is the LORD. Therefore he aims those who miss the mark down the way.So speak, and so do, as those who will be judged by the instruction of freedom.THE THREAD
Good and straight is the LORD. Therefore he aims those who miss the mark down the way.The verb translated “teach,” יוֹרֶה (yōreh, “he will instruct”), shares the root י־ר־ה (y-r-h, “point or instruct”) with תּוֹרֹתָיו (torotav, “his instructions”) in this verse. Psalm 25 shows that instruction at work: it points a way.
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