What Does Genesis 18:25 Mean in the King James?
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 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 Hebrew gives “Judge” and “do right” the same root, joining the Judge’s nature to the justice he enacts.
THE MEANING
The verse asks whether judgment can be just if it makes the righteous indistinguishable from the wicked. Its question speaks now: the Judge of all the earth is accountable to a justice that recognizes the difference between them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that justice means flattening the righteous and the wicked into the same outcome.
THE ROOT
הַשֹּׁפֵט
hashofet
GROWS FROM
שפט
sh-p-t
To judge, decide, and establish what is right.
“Judge / do right” in this verse is hashofet. The title “Judge” and the action “do right” grow from the same Hebrew root: הַשֹּׁפֵט (hashofet), “the Judge,” and מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat), “justice” or “judgment.” English separates the office from the action, while Hebrew binds them together.
ALSO GROWS
shaphat: To judge or decide a case.
שָׁפַט
The act of judging is the root beneath both the title and the justice Abraham invokes.
mishpat: A judgment or the justice expressed through it.
מִשְׁפָּט
This is the word translated “right”; it names the justice the Judge is expected to enact.
shofet: One who judges.
שֹׁפֵט
The verse presents the Judge and justice as expressions of one shared root.
צַדִּיק
tsaddiq
GROWS FROM
צדק
ts-d-q
Justice, rightness, alignment.
The righteous person is described through alignment with what is right, not simply as a label. The verse insists that this distinction cannot be erased by treating the righteous as though they were wicked.
ALSO GROWS
tzedek: Justice or what is right.
צֶדֶק
It shares the seed of “righteous,” linking the person’s character with the quality of justice at issue.
tzedakah: Righteousness or justice expressed in action.
צְדָקָה
This branch shows the root reaching from a person described as righteous to justice lived out.
THE PATTERN
Just judgment recognizes what is distinct in each person and does not collapse unlike cases into one.
Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God’s: and the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it.Before the LORD; for he cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity.Who will render to every man according to his deeds:THE THREAD
He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.Genesis asks whether the Judge will do מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat), “justice”; Deuteronomy says all his ways are מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat), “judgment.” The shared root makes justice the character of the Judge’s ways, not an isolated act.
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