What Does Lamentations 3:35 Mean?
To bend aside the judgment of a man before the face of the Most High,
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,THE KEY
To deny someone justice is to bend their right in full view of the Most High.
THE MEANING
This verse names a wrong that remains present: someone’s due is bent out of its proper course while the Most High’s face is before it. No human authority stands above that witness, and a person’s right is not erased by being overruled.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that power can bend another person’s claim without witness.
THE ROOT
לְהַטּוֹת
lehatot
GROWS FROM
נטה
To stretch, incline, or turn aside.
“bend aside” in this verse is lehatot. The verb’s wider sense is to stretch or incline, so “turn aside” pictures justice being bent from its proper course. A related noun, מַטֶּה (matteh), means staff or rod; the root gives the verse a concrete image of something being diverted.
ALSO GROWS
natah: Stretch out, incline, or turn aside.
נָטָה
This verb carries both the physical image of bending and the action of diverting someone’s due.
matteh: Staff or rod; also tribe.
מַטֶּה
This related word preserves the root’s image of something extended or leaning.
מִשְׁפָּט
mishpat
GROWS FROM
שפט
To judge or render a decision.
English “right” can sound like a private possession; mishpat also names judgment and the just decision itself. The verse describes that judgment being bent, distorting what is due to a person.
ALSO GROWS
shaphat: Judge or govern.
שָׁפַט
The verb names the act of judging that gives mishpat its judicial force.
shofet: Judge.
שֹׁפֵט
The person who judges is linked to mishpat, the decision or justice being turned aside.
THE PATTERN
When a person’s due is bent through partiality, the distortion stands exposed under God’s judgment.
You shall not bend judgment. You shall not recognize faces, nor take a bribe, for the bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the aligned.He who aligns the wicked, and he who convicts the aligned one, both are loathed by the LORD.My brothers, do not hold the trust of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, the Lord of weight, by receiving faces.THE THREAD
You shall not bend judgment. You shall not recognize faces, nor take a bribe, for the bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the aligned.“Turn aside” here and “wrest” in Deuteronomy render the same Hebrew verb, נטה (natah), paired with מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat), judgment. Deuteronomy makes the bend visible: partiality and gifts warp what is due.
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