What Does Genesis 18:23 Mean in the King James?
And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?
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
Justice begins when the righteous are not allowed to disappear inside the fate of the wicked.
THE MEANING
The verse places you before a question that refuses to let a crowd erase moral difference: are the righteous swept into the fate of the wicked? Justice here has to reckon with the difference between them, even when destruction is directed at a whole community.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that a collective verdict makes every person morally interchangeable; the righteous cannot simply vanish inside the wicked.
THE ROOT
צַדִּיק
tsaddiq
GROWS FROM
צדק
ṣ-d-q
Alignment; what is right or just.
English can make “righteous” sound like a private moral badge. This root connects the person to alignment and to justice enacted, making Abraham’s question precise: can the aligned be treated as indistinguishable from the wicked?
ALSO GROWS
tsedeq: Justice; rightness.
צֶדֶק
The related noun names the standard the righteous person embodies: right relation, not merely a label.
tzedakah: Righteousness; justice expressed in action, including just giving.
צְדָקָה
The same root carries rightness into action, showing righteousness as something enacted between people.
וַיִּגַּשׁ
vayyigash
GROWS FROM
נגש
n-g-sh
To approach; to come close.
“drew near” in this verse is vayyigash. The Hebrew verb holds approach and speech together: Abraham comes close and then lays the moral question before God. The nearness is more than movement; it brings the question into direct relation.
ALSO GROWS
nigash: Approached; came near.
נִגַּשׁ
This form of the root describes stepping toward another, making Abraham’s approach deliberate and relational.
higgish: To bring near; to present.
הִגִּישׁ
In its causative form, the root can mean bringing something forward; Abraham’s approach becomes the presentation of an uncomfortable question.
THE PATTERN
Justice distinguishes people rather than letting one person’s guilt erase another’s innocence.
Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked.The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:THE THREAD
That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?The next verse repeats “the righteous with the wicked” and brings the question into sharper focus: should the righteous be treated as the wicked? It turns the concern here into a direct claim about the justice of the Judge of all the earth.
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