What Does Exodus 23:3 Mean?
Nor shall you favor the poor man in his dispute.
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
Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause.THE KEY
The Hebrew calls favoritism an act of conferring honor, exposing how sympathy can quietly become a verdict.
THE MEANING
Poverty is visible, but it does not prove that a claim is right. The verse holds care for a person apart from judgment of their case, so neither hardship nor status decides the truth.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that fairness means tilting judgment toward whoever seems most vulnerable. Compassion can recognize hardship without making that person’s case automatically right.
THE ROOT
תֶהְדַּר
tehadar
GROWS FROM
הדר
H-D-R
To honor or adorn; the root evokes splendor and dignity, while this verb can mean showing favor.
“favor” in this verse is tehadar. The verb belongs to the same root that names splendor and honor: the issue is not merely noticing the poor litigant, but granting their case special standing. Here, compassion cannot become a crown for one side.
ALSO GROWS
hadar: Splendor, majesty, honor
הָדָר
This noun appears in Psalm 8:5 as “honour,” showing the dignity carried by the root behind “countenance.”
tehadar: Show honor or favor
תֶהְדַּר
Leviticus 19:15 uses this same verb when forbidding honor toward the powerful, making clear that neither poverty nor power should tilt judgment.
THE PATTERN
A fair judgment does not let poverty or power buy a favorable ruling.
You shall do no crookedness in judgment; you shall not lift up the face of the bowed down, nor adorn the face of the great; but in alignment shall you judge the one beside you.You shall not recognize faces in judgment; hear and respond to the small as well as the great; do not shrink from the face of man; for the judgment is God's; and the word that is too hard for you, draw it near to me, and I will hear and respond to it.But if you receive faces, you miss the mark, and are exposed by the instruction as those who step across.THE THREAD
You shall do no crookedness in judgment; you shall not lift up the face of the bowed down, nor adorn the face of the great; but in alignment shall you judge the one beside you.Leviticus uses תֶהְדַּר (tehadar, “show honor or favor”) while forbidding partiality toward both the poor and the powerful. The shared root reveals the measure here: status does not decide whose claim is right.
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