What Does Psalm 72:2 Mean in the King James?
He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment.
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
Righteousness becomes visible as judgment that brings the whole community into alignment, including its poor.
THE MEANING
You stand within a community whose judgments shape whether its people are rightly aligned, and the poor are included in that measure. Here justice is not an abstract status; it is expressed in how people with the least power are judged and heard.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that righteousness is only private moral standing: here it is measured through public judgment, especially toward the poor.
THE ROOT
צֶדֶק
tsedeq
GROWS FROM
צדק
צֶדֶק (tsedeq): rightness and justice, the order of what is rightly aligned.
The Hebrew family keeps rightness connected to both people and action: צַדִּיק (tsaddiq, one who acts rightly) and צְדָקָה (tsedaqah, justice or right action). So righteousness here reaches into the way a community judges, rather than remaining only a person’s private standing.
ALSO GROWS
tsaddiq: righteous; one who acts rightly
צַדִּיק
This branch makes rightness visible in a person, linking the verse’s measure of righteousness to the people affected by judgment.
tsedaqah: justice; right action
צְדָקָה
This branch carries the same root into action, showing how alignment takes shape in the way people are treated.
מִשְׁפָּט
mishpat
GROWS FROM
שפט
שָׁפַט (shaphat): to judge, decide, or administer a case.
English makes “judgment” sound like an abstract verdict, while this word belongs to a family of doing the judging and holding the role of judge. Its pairing with צדק (tsedeq, rightness and justice) presents judgment as the means by which alignment is made real for the poor.
ALSO GROWS
shaphat: to judge or decide
שָׁפַט
The verb names the action from which mishpat, judgment, is formed.
shofet: judge
שֹׁפֵט
This branch names the person who carries out the judgment, making responsibility for the verse’s justice concrete.
THE PATTERN
Right judgment is measured by whether the vulnerable receive their due and the wronged are heard.
He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy.Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.THE THREAD
Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy.Psalm 72:2 uses מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat, judgment), and Proverbs 31:9 uses שָׁפַט (shaphat, judge); both grow from the root שפט. The shared root links judgment to the act of judging, while both verses place the poor within its concern.
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