What Does Zechariah 8:16 Mean in the King James?
These are the things that ye shall do; Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates:
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
Truth is spoken between neighbors and takes public shape in judgment, joined to peace as wholeness.
THE MEANING
Truth has a place in your speech with a neighbor and in the decisions that shape shared life. The verse joins judgment to truth and wholeness, making justice a public practice as well as a personal conviction.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that truth is only private honesty, unrelated to how a community judges.
THE ROOT
אֱמֶת
emet
GROWS FROM
א־מ־ן
ʾ-m-n
to be firm, steady, or reliable
Emet appears twice here: in what neighbors say and in what is judged at the gates. Its connection to firmness and reliability gives truth the sense of something people can depend on, not merely a statement that sounds correct.
ALSO GROWS
emunah: trust; steadiness one can lean on
אֱמוּנָה
This branch shows how firmness becomes a relationship of trust between people.
ne'eman: reliable, trustworthy
נֶאֱמָן
It carries the same idea of truth as something steady enough to depend on.
amen: truly; so be it
אָמֵן
The response affirms that what has been said is firm and trustworthy.
שָׁלוֹם
shalom
GROWS FROM
ש־ל־ם
sh-l-m
to be complete or whole; to make whole
Shalom names wholeness, and its root also gives words for being complete and making good what is owed. In this verse, peace belongs alongside truth and judgment: the public result concerns the wholeness of shared life.
ALSO GROWS
shalem: whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
This branch makes clear that shalom is more than the absence of conflict; it carries completeness.
shillem: to make good, repay, or recompense
שִׁלֵּם
The root links wholeness with making good what is owed, a connection that brings repair into the idea of peace.
מִשְׁפָּט
mishpat
GROWS FROM
ש־פ־ט
sh-p-t
to judge or decide a case
The Hebrew repeats this root in mishpat, “judgment,” and shif’tu, “judge”; the KJV renders the verb as “execute,” hiding the echo. Judgment here is not only an abstract standard: it is an action carried out in the gates, where shared decisions take shape.
ALSO GROWS
shaphat: to judge or decide a case
שָׁפַט
This verb is the action repeated in the verse’s command to judge.
shofet: a judge, one who decides a case
שֹׁפֵט
This branch names the person who carries out the kind of public judgment described here.
THE PATTERN
Truth becomes communal practice when it shapes both what neighbors say and how shared life is judged toward wholeness.
Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.THE THREAD
Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.Psalm 85:10 joins the same Hebrew words for truth (emet) and peace (shalom) found in Zechariah 8:16. There, their meeting appears in neighbor speech and public judgment; here, the image makes their union vivid.
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