What Does Isaiah 10:2 Mean?
To bend aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the bowed ones of my people, that widows be their spoil, and that they strip the fatherless!
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
To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless!THE KEY
When judgment is bent away from the vulnerable, the law itself becomes a means of plunder.
THE MEANING
This verse names what happens when authority bends judgment: people with the least power lose the protection it should provide. Widows become targets, and fatherless children are treated as goods to seize. Its accusation remains alive wherever a rule or verdict strips the vulnerable of protection.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a verdict is fair simply because it comes through a court: judgment can be turned aside and made to serve predation.
THE ROOT
לִגְזֹל
ligzol
GROWS FROM
גזל
g-z-l
To seize or rob, taking something by force.
“take away” in this verse is ligzol. The Hebrew verb means to rob or seize, making the phrase more concrete: the poor’s מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat, judgment or justice) is treated as something to plunder. The verse names a theft of justice itself, not merely the withholding of a benefit.
ALSO GROWS
gazal: To rob, seize, or take by force.
גָּזַל
This verb names the action done to the poor’s judgment.
gazel: Robbery or stolen property.
גָּזֵל
The related noun makes the plunder image explicit: what should be justice becomes something taken as spoils.
מִשְׁפָּט
mishpat
GROWS FROM
שפט
sh-p-t
To judge or decide.
“Right” can sound like an entitlement detached from any process, while מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat) carries the sense of judgment and justice. The verse says this very work of judging is taken from the poor, exposing how a system can keep its procedures while turning their purpose against the vulnerable.
ALSO GROWS
shaphat: To judge or decide.
שָׁפַט
The verb names the act from which mishpat, judgment, takes its form.
shophet: A judge.
שֹׁפֵט
The person who judges and the justice being administered share the same root.
לְהַטּוֹת
lehatot
GROWS FROM
נטה
n-t-h
To stretch out, incline, or turn aside.
“bend aside” in this verse is lehatot. The verse’s opening verb carries the image of bending or inclining a course. Judgment is not simply absent: it is redirected away from the needy, preparing the way for their rights to be seized.
ALSO GROWS
natah: To stretch out, incline, or turn aside.
נָטָה
This verb’s range holds both extension and diversion, revealing the movement in “turn aside.”
matteh: A staff or rod; also a tribe.
מַטֶּה
This related noun carries a concrete sense of an extended staff or branch, while the verse uses the root for bending the course of judgment.
THE PATTERN
When judgment is bent away from the vulnerable, public authority turns them into prey.
You do not bend the judgment of the sojourner, or of the fatherless; nor do you bind a widow's garment as a pledge.Do not tear away from the emptied, for he is emptied; and do not crush the bowed one in the gate.who devour widows' houses, and for show make long prayers. These will receive greater judgment.THE THREAD
Learn to do good. Seek justice, straighten the crushed, judge the fatherless, contend for the widow.Isaiah 1:17 uses the same שפט (sh-p-t) root family in “seek judgment” and “judge the fatherless.” Here that work is turned inside out: judgment is taken from the poor, showing how its direction determines whether the vulnerable are defended or plundered.
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