What Does Exodus 22:28 Mean?
You shall not curse the gods, nor curse the lifted one of your people.
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
Thou shalt not revile the gods, nor curse the ruler of thy people.THE KEY
The verse distinguishes making authority seem weightless from calling a curse upon it, while naming the ruler as one lifted up among the people.
THE MEANING
Your speech toward what is sacred and toward the person set over your people is not weightless: this verse names both belittling and cursing as real forms of harm. The ruler is called one lifted up among the people, placing that authority within the shared life of the community.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that contemptuous words are harmless because they only make someone smaller in speech.
THE ROOT
תְּקַלֵּל
teqallel
GROWS FROM
קלל
q-l-l
Be light; make light of, treat as insignificant.
“curse” in this verse is teqallel. The command against reviling uses a root of lightness: contempt makes someone count for little. English “revile” can hide that image of stripping weight from another.
ALSO GROWS
qal: Light, slight.
קַל
This branch carries the root’s image of lightness beneath the act of making someone seem insignificant.
niqleh: Despised, contemptible.
נִקְלֶה
This form shows the result of being made light of: a person is treated as having little worth.
תָּאֹר
ta'or
GROWS FROM
ארר
ʾ-r-r
Curse; call a curse upon someone.
The second prohibition uses a different root from “revile.” The verse pairs belittling someone with pronouncing a curse upon them, naming two distinct ways speech can cause harm.
ALSO GROWS
arur: Cursed.
אָרוּר
This form names the state called down by the act of cursing.
me'erah: Curse, malediction.
מְאֵרָה
This noun makes the curse itself a thing the root can name.
נָשִׂיא
nāśîʾ
GROWS FROM
נשא
Lift, carry, bear.
“lifted one” in this verse is nāśîʾ. The word for ruler is tied to lifting or bearing: the nāśîʾ is one raised up among the people, with the root also carrying the sense of bearing a load. The title holds elevation and responsibility together.
ALSO GROWS
nāśāʾ: Lift, carry, bear.
נָשָׂא
This is the root verb behind the ruler’s title, linking being raised up with carrying.
massāʾ: Load, burden; also an oracle.
מַשָּׂא
This branch keeps the sense of bearing visible alongside the ruler’s elevated position.
THE PATTERN
Words that curse or diminish those who hold authority are treated as consequential acts within a community.
Do not curse the king, even in your knowledge, and do not curse the rich in the inner chambers of your bed, for the bird of the heavens carries the voice, and the winged one tells the word.Then Paul said, "I did not see, brothers, that he was the chief of the set-apart ones; for it stands written, You shall not speak badly of the first of your people."Death and life are in the hand of the tongue, and those who love it eat its fruit.THE THREAD
Then Paul said, "I did not see, brothers, that he was the chief of the set-apart ones; for it stands written, You shall not speak badly of the first of your people."Acts 23:5 repeats the command against speaking evil of “the ruler of thy people.” The shared wording carries this boundary over speech into another moment and community.
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