What Does 2 Chronicles 19:7 Mean in the King James?
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 analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
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.
“respect of persons” 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.
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, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward:Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors.THE THREAD
For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward: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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