Man and God, Chapter 5 the Biblical Meaning of Justice

LAW, JUDGMENT, AND THE PLIGHT OF THE POOR
IN order to understand what is meant in the Bible by justice, we have to examine the various uses to which the noun mishpat and the verb shafat are put. Mishpatim are rules, laws, ordinances, which are often mentioned together with huqqim, statutes, which God gave to the children of Israel that they do them and live by them. They cover a wide area of civil, criminal, and ritual law. Often mishpat is the case before the court, the entire process of administering the law. When the Bible says, “Ye shall not respect persons in mishpat; ye shall hear the small and the great alike; ye shall not be afraid of the face of any man,”¹Deut. 1:17. the term is not used in the narrower sense of judgment. The injunction refers to the entire conduct of the case in court. Mishpat is the suit before the judge. When the daughters of Zelophehad made their claim to the possession which was due to their father, the Bible says: “And Moses brought their mishpat before the Lord.”²Num. 27:5. Moses brought their case before God, as well as the question whether their claim was justified or not. We do not think that King Solomon asked God for an understanding heart to discern judgment or justice.³Cf. I Kings 3:11; the R.V. and the J.P.S. translations. He asked for understanding lishmo’a mishpat, to hear wisely, with the proper insight, the suits brought into his court. Mishpat may also mean the specific verdict delivered in a certain case, the judgment delivered by a judge. Mishpat is, for instance, used in this sense in the case of King Solomon who judged the case of the two women before him.⁴Ibid. 3:28. We believe that, at least, in one place mishpat stands for the place where justice is administered. We translate:

Therefore the wicked shall not stand in the house of justice,

Nor the sinners in the congregation of the righteous. (Pss. 1:5)

Our translation is suggested by the parallelism, which the verse seems to demand. Mishpat may also mean the Law in the abstract sense. This is how it is used, for instance, in the verse:

Ye shall have one manner of mishpat, as well for the stranger, as for the home-born. (Lev. 24:22)

This injunction employs the concept of mishpat as the general idea of a law equally binding on all people. However, mishpat may also mean simply, justice. When Abraham exclaims before God: “shall not the Judge of all the earth do mishpat?” what he means is: shall not God Himself act justly, shall He not enact justice?

Obviously, all these various meanings derive from the basic idea of what is meant by mishpat or shafat. It is normally understood that basically these words mean law and justice or judging in accordance with the law and administering justice. What is the meaning that the Bible itself expresses by these terms?

Often, the meaning seems indeed to be, justice, judgment in accordance with strict principles of justice, the full application of the law in all its consequence. So that the psalmist has reason to say:

My flesh shuddereth for fear of Thee;

And I am afraid of Thy judgments. (Pss. 119:120)

There is reason to fear the mishpat of God, even though in the same context the psalmist has occasion to affirm that:

Righteous art Thou, O Lord,

And upright are Thy judgments. (vs. 137)

To judge may even mean to execute judgment, so that mishpat—or its verbal form—becomes the equivalent of punishment. The psalmist speaks of this kind of mishpat done, when he prays:

I know, O Lord, that Thy judgments are righteous,

And that in faithfulness Thou hast afflicted me. (vs. 75)

God’s mishpatim in this case were judgments actually executed which were the psalmist’s affliction. Quite often is this the significance of mishpat. It is the punishment following the judgment and in accordance with it. We shall quote a few important examples of this usage. Isaiah once expresses God’s indignation over the nations in the words:

For My sword hath drunk its full in heaven;

Behold, it shall come down upon Edom,

And upon the people of My ban,

To mishpat. (Isa. 34:5)

Needless to say that the sword does not come down in order to judge Edom, but in order to execute the judgment already passed over Edom, i.e., to punish. In the same sense Ezekiel speaks of the doing of mishpat by God.⁵Ezek. 39:21; 5:8–10. When Jeremiah announces the downfall of Moab, he introduces the terrible description of its collapse with the words: “And mishpat is come upon the country of the Plain.” He repeats the same phrase at the close of his prophecy of doom saying: “Thus far is the mishpat of Moab.”⁶Jer. 48:21–47. Of the fallen Babylon it is said:

We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed;

Forsake her, and let us go everyone into his own country;

For her mishpat reacheth unto heaven,

And is lifted up even to the skies. (Jer. 51:9)

If Babylon cannot be healed, she must already be afflicted. The mishpat that reacheth unto heaven is the measure of her punishment. Because of the vastness of the punishment, Babylon cannot be healed. In the prophecy concerning the future of the house of Eli, which was intimated to the young Samuel, God did not say—as the translations would have it—that He would judge his house for ever. A judgment is pronounced once; there is no such thing as a continuous judging for a crime once committed. What God said was that the punishment would not depart from Eli’s house. As it is also stated explicitly “that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated … for ever.”⁷I Sam. 3:13–14. The prophet Zephaniah calls upon the daughter of Zion to sing and to be glad and rejoice for

The Lord hath taken away thy mishpatim,

He hath cast out thine enemy;

The King of Israel, even the Lord is in the midst of thee;

Thou shalt not fear evil any more. (3:15)

Again, quite clearly, mishpatim are not only judgments, but judgments already executed which afflict the daughter of Zion. This comes to expression more dramatically in the Hebrew original which should better be rendered: the Lord hath removed thy mishpatim. Something to which they have already been subject is taken from them. The enemy already entered Zion. But now that the mishpat, that this punishment has been removed from them and, instead of the enemy, God dwells in their midst, there is nothing to be feared.

In all the cases which we have quoted, and in numerous others, mishpat stands for the strictness of the law and its implementation. And God is the Judge who executes such justice and law. It is in view of this aspect of divine activity that it is said of God in Deuteronomy that:

the Lord your God, He is God of gods, and Lord of lords, the great God, the mighty, and the awful, who regardeth no persons, nor taketh reward. (10:17)

It is the description of the mighty and powerful Judge who is impartial and who cannot be deflected from his course of executing judgment. It is, however, important to note that immediately after these words the text continues:

He doth execute justice for the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. (vs. 18)

This very stern judge, who “regardeth no persons,” does regard the fatherless and widow. He exacts justice for their sake. His insistence on justice is motivated by his concern for the weak and the oppressed. He executes justice just as he loves the stranger. Because of his love for the oppressed, he judges the oppressor. He may be “awful” as he judges, but he judges because he is “a father of the fatherless and a judge of the widows.”⁸Pss. 68:6. As terrifying as he may appear to those whom he judges, as comforting is he to those for whose sake he executes judgment. God’s insistence on justice is dictated by his concern for those to whom justice is denied. It is for this reason that the biblical command to do justice is so often connected with the injunction to protect the right of the weak and helpless. Typical of this attitude is the commandment in Exodus:

Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor in his cause. Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and the righteous slay thou not; for I will not justify the wicked. (23:6–7)

Any justification of the wicked is not only an offense against an abstract ideal of justice, but the actual betrayal of the poor and the innocent. Every perversion of justice is also the imposition of suffering on someone who is unable to defend himself against it. It is with the one, who is so imposed upon, that the biblical demand for justice is concerned. As it is also written:

Thou shalt not pervert the justice due to the stranger, or to the fatherless; nor take the widow’s raiment to pledge. But thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee thence; therefore I command thee to do this thing. (Deut. 24:17)

It is the continually recurring accusation of the prophets that they do not espouse the cause of the poor and the oppressed, that their denial of justice to the fatherless and needy is what brings on the anger of God. Jeremiah, for instance, expressed it in indelible words, saying:

They are waxen fat, they are become sleek;

Yea, they overpass in deeds of wickedness;

They plead not the cause, the cause of the fatherless,

That they might make it to prosper;

And the right of the needy do they not judge.

Shall I not punish for these things?

Saith the Lord;

Shall not My soul be avenged

On such a nation as this? (5:28–29)

It is the denial of justice that causes God to exact justice. His anger has its source in the compassion for those, who by the denial of the justice which is due to them, are made to carry the yoke of human wickedness. When God calls upon the people to repent and to purify themselves, he says to them through the mouth of his prophet Isaiah:

Wash you, make you clean,

Put away the evil of your doings

From before Mine eyes,

Cease to do evil;

Learn to do well;

Seek justice, relieve the oppressed,

Judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. (1:16–17)

To seek justice is to relieve the oppressed. But how else is the oppressed to be relieved if not by judging the oppressor and the crushing of his ability to oppress. History is not a Sunday school where the question is to forgive or not to forgive. The toleration of injustice is the toleration of human suffering. Since the proud and the mighty, who inflict the suffering, do not as a rule yield to moral persuasion, responsibility for the sufferer demands that justice be done so that oppression be ended. When the psalmist calls on God, “to whom vengeance belongeth,” to render to the proud their recompense, his concern is not with the principle of justice that has been violated, nor with the letter of the law that must be fulfilled. What does concern him, he states clearly when he follows up his call to “the Judge of the earth” with the words:

Lord, how long shall the wicked,

How long shall the wicked exult?

They gush out, they speak arrogancy;

All the workers of iniquity bear themselves loftily.

They crush Thy people, O Lord,

And afflict Thy heritage.

They slay the widow and the stranger,

And murder the fatherless.

And they say: The Lord will not see,

Neither will the God of Jacob give heed. (Pss. 94:3–7)

The psalmist’s concern is with the reality of an intolerable human situation. God’s people are being afflicted and crushed. Who are the people of God? They are represented by the widow, the stranger, and the fatherless. They are the weak, the helpless, the oppressed, and the persecuted. Compassion for them, love for them, demands that an end be put to the arrogance and power of the proud and the wicked. God must see and give heed. Love for man is at the root of the demand for justice. All injustice is human suffering. Once more we shall quote the words of the psalmist to illustrate the intrinsic connection which exists between the two in the biblical interpretation of the reality of human existence. Of God, who made heaven and earth and “who keeps the truth for ever,” the psalmist also says:

Who executeth justice for the oppressed;

Who giveth bread to the hungry.

The Lord looseth the prisoners;

The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind;

The Lord raiseth up them that are bowed down;

The Lord loveth the righteous;

The Lord preserveth the strangers;

He upholdeth the fatherless and the widow;

But the way of the wicked He maketh crooked. (Pss. 146:7–9)

Justice alone will not feed the hungry nor raise up those who are bowed down, but without justice neither of these acts of kindness and compassion can be performed. The love for the righteous and the concern for the stranger will be mere sentimentalism if injustice is permitted to be rampant. One cannot uphold the fatherless and the widow without at the same time protecting them against the overbearing arrogance of the mighty. One must make the way of the wicked “crooked.” One must not let it lead to its goal, if the way of the innocent is to be straight before them. There is no other alternative in history.

TO JUDGE AND TO SAVE

The purpose of judgment is to save the innocent from injustice. The idea is so deeply anchored in biblical thought that to judge becomes the equivalent of, to save. Of the terrible anger of God the psalmist says:

Thou didst cause sentence to be heard from heaven;

The earth feared, and was still,

When God arose to judgment,

To save all the humble of the earth [italics added]. (Pss. 76:9–10)

God judges in order to save. Ezekiel expressed the same idea in the following manner:

Because ye thrust with side and with shoulder, and push all the weak with your horns, till ye have scattered them abroad; therefore will I save my flock, and they shall be no more a prey; and I will judge between cattle and cattle [italics added]. (34:21–22)

He who wants to save the flock must judge between cattle and cattle. Isaiah says it in his own majestic style:

My favor is near,

My salvation is gone forth,

And Mine arms shall judge the peoples;

The isles shall wait for Me,

And on Mine arm shall they trust. (51:5)

If salvation is to go forth, judgment is to be instituted.

And indeed from numerous passages in the Bible emerges the idea that the function of the judge is to save. In the case of unintentional homicide, the Bible decrees:

Then the congregation shall judge between the smiter and the avenger of blood according to these ordinances; and the congregation shall deliver the manslayer out of the hand of the avenger of blood, and the congregation shall restore him to his city of refuge [italics added]. (Num. 35:24–25)

The commandment to judge is the responsibility to deliver. According to Jeremiah God speaks to the house of David, saying:

Execute justice in the morning,

And deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor,

Lest My fury go forth like fire,

And burn that none can quench it,

Because of the evil of your doings [italics added]. (21:12; see also 22:3)

The association between judgment and deliverance is so intimate that they are, at times, interchangeable. Isaiah, for instance, could say:

We look for mishpat, but there is none;

For salvation [y’shu’ah], but it is far off from us. (59:11)

The justice or judgment they were looking for would have been their salvation. In two places in Samuel, the verb shafat (to judge) actually means to save. David, fleeing and hiding from Saul, on one occasion confronts his enemy with the words:

The Lord therefore be judge, and give sentence between me and thee, and see and plead my cause, and deliver me out of thy hand. (I Sam. 24:16)

The English translation, as so often, hides what is the most characteristic feature of the Hebrew original. In our case it is the phrase which is here rendered as: “and deliver me out of thy hand.” The Hebrew says: v’yishp’tenee miyadekha which, translated literally, gives: “and judge me out of thy hand.” Of course, one cannot say it this way in English, because in English to judge does not mean to deliver. But it is essential for the understanding of the biblical concept of justice to know that the Bible does say it so. Needless to say that to judge one out of the hand of someone else does mean to deliver him. The Hebrew phraseology underlines the connection between judging and saving; the English translation hides it. How dangerous such inattention to the implied meaning of the Hebrew idiom is, one may realize by examining carefully two passages in II Samuel. The tragic story of Absalom’s rebellion against his father ended with Absalom’s death. The question arose, who should bring the news to the king. At first, Ahimaaz volunteered. He said:

Let me now run, and bear the king tidings, how that the Lord hath avenged him of his enemies. (II Sam. 18:19)

Joab, however, did not allow Ahimaaz to go. Instead, the Cushite was sent. When the Cushite stood before the king, he communicated the news of the death of Absalom in terms very similar to those proposed by Ahimaaz. He said to David:

Tidings for my lord the king; for the Lord hath avenged thee this day of all of them that rose up against thee. (vs. 31)

Nothing could be more misleading than such a translation.⁹The R.V. and the J.P.S. edition here are identical. There is nothing in the Bible about God having avenged David of his enemies. The Hebrew idiom in both these passages is identical with the one used by David himself, when he confronted Saul and asked that God be judge between them. It is shafat … miyad. For some mysterious reason both the R.V. and the J.P.S. editions translate the phrase when spoken by David as to deliver from the hand of, but when spoken to David as to avenge someone of. When one writes English there may be justification for such literary freedom. But when one translates, the disregard for the Hebrew idiom is a form of re-writing the biblical text in a manner that is actually a misrepresentation of biblical thought. As in the case of David, so also in that of Ahimaaz and the Cushite, shafat … miyad, means the same thing: to deliver one from the hand of someone else. Only in Hebrew, because to judge in Hebrew is also to save, we say: to judge someone out of the hand of someone else. What Ahimaaz and the Cushite actually said was rather different from what the translations maintain that they said. They did not speak of vengeance, but of deliverance. Ahimaaz’ words were:

Let me now run, and bear the king tidings, how that the Lord hath delivered [judged] him out of the hand of his enemies.

The Cushite, too, expressed himself similarly, using the same idiomatic phrase and saying:

Tidings to my lord the king; for the Lord hath delivered [judged] thee this day out of the hand of all those that rose up against thee.

We are now in a position to understand a rather unusual title that the leaders of the Jewish people had at a certain time in history. After Joshua, and up to the election of Saul to kingship, the leaders of Israel were called Judges. But why Judges? They were of course judges, too, but that was not their chief function. They were the heads of the people, fulfilling the function that later on was that of the kings. It is rather strange that they should have been called Judges. However, it is strange only if for us the meaning of the word is its meaning in the English language. The title, however, is quite proper if we attempt to think in biblical terms. What does the Bible say about the Judges?

And the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those that spoiled them.… And when the Lord raised them up judges, then the Lord was with the judge, and saved them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge [italics added]. (Judg. 2:16, 18)

This makes, of course, very poor sense in English. Since when is it the task of judges to save their people out of the hand of their enemies? This sounds altogether different in Hebrew, especially as one recalls that instead of, “who saved them out of the hand of those that spoiled them,” one could almost say, who judged them out of their hands; or as one remembers that, as we saw, Isaiah uses mishpat (judgment) and y’shu’ah (salvation, deliverance) as parallels. Since to judge in Hebrew may well mean to save, the judge may well be the savior or the one through whom God sends deliverance to His people. How inseparable is the function of the judge from that of the savior comes to magnificent expression in the words of Isaiah:

For the Lord is our Judge,

The Lord is our Lawgiver,

The Lord is our King;

He will save us. (33:22)

THE SYNDROME OF MISHPAT, HESED, RAHAMIM, AND S’DAQAH

We have not yet achieved an adequate insight into the positive meaning of the biblical concept of justice. We have learned that to judge means the passionate rejection and combatting of injustice, the protection of the innocent and the poor and weak. In this way, the term seems to achieve its significance as an act of saving deliverance. But as yet, we have not discovered the contents of the idea of mishpat itself. What is the biblical concept of justice? Of what does biblical justice consist? It is probably the most surprising aspect of the idea of mishpat that it is able to keep comfortable company in the Bible with such other biblical ideas as, hesed (love or lovingkindness), rahamim (compassion or mercy), and s’daqah (any good deed not obligatory upon the doer or, simply, charity).¹⁰For this interpretation of s’daqah see our discussion in Chapter 7. In Jeremiah, for instance, God is called, “the Lord who exercises lovingkindness (hesed), justice (mishpat), and charity¹¹This quotation takes, of course, our subject much further than we are at this point prepared to go. Its significance will emerge more clearly when we reach the definition of the biblical concept of justice. (s’daqah).”¹²Jer. 9:23. Even a single passage like this one ought to suffice to show that the biblical mishpat is not to be confused with the idea of justice as it is understood in the context of Western civilization. It is extremely doubtful that in the vast realm of Western thought a single text might be found to parallel this one in Jeremiah, in which justice is placed between lovingkindness and charity. Within the sphere of Western culture and religion the three concepts cannot be co-ordinated. Justice there is opposed to lovingkindness as well as to charity. For the Western mind, he who exercises lovingkindness and practices charity foregoes the implementation of justice. Hesed and mishpat, s’daqah and mishpat are opposites within the frame of reference of practically all cultures and their religions. A judge is either just or merciful. One exercises either hesed or mishpat. But no judge may exercise lovingkindness, justice, and charity, and certainly not in that order. One either loves or judges. And God, too, is either a God of love or a God of justice. Not so in the Bible. The meaning of mishpat must be different in its essence from that of justice, as the word is understood in most languages, if it is possible to say of God that he exercises lovingkindness, justice, and charity in the earth, for “in these things he delights.” Most surprising of all is the placing of mishpat between hesed and s’daqah, as if it were the required order, whereas in all Western literature the very sequence would be utterly illogical. The logic of the Western mind may be able to move on from justice to love and charity or to charity and love, but never from love to justice and from justice to charity.

That we are confronted here with a uniquely biblical—and because of the inevitably misleading translations hardly ever understood—concept is proven by the fact that the close association between mishpat and hesed, rahamim, and s’daqah is a continually recurring theme of the Bible. What is it that God requires of man according to Micah? To do what, according to Jeremiah, God himself does: to do mishpat and to love hesed, to exercise justice and to love practicing lovingkindness. No European knows how one may be called upon to practice both to do justice and to exercise lovingkindness. Like Micah, Hosea, too, associates mishpat and hesed, when he says:

Therefore turn thou to thy God;

Keep hesed and mishpat,

And wait for thy God continually. (12:7)

Even more impressive are the words in Zechariah:

“Execute true mishpat [judgment, justice], and exercise hesed [lovingkindness] and rahamim [compassion] every man to his brother. (7:9)

Whereas Hosea called upon Israel to keep hesed and mishpat, Isaiah’s admonition is to keep mishpat and to do s’daqah.¹³Isa. 56:1. Mishpat, justice, seems to be a member of the same group of values to which hesed, love, rahamim, compassion, and s’daqah, charity, too, belong. The association between mishpat and the other members of the group seems to be even closer than the passages quoted thus far suggest. Isaiah speaks mysteriously about God when he says of Him:

And therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you,

And therefore will He be exalted, That He may have compassion upon you:

For the Lord is a God of justice [mishpat],

Happy are all they that wait for Him. (30:18)

The difficulty of interpretation cannot be overlooked. It is a moving thought that God himself waits impatiently for the right moment to be gracious to Israel and to exercise compassion (rahamim) toward them. And as God waits for that moment, so let Israel too wait for God. However, the reason given for God’s anxious desire to show grace and compassion for Israel requires explanation. How can one say that God is waiting to be gracious and compassionate because he is a God of justice? Is God rahamim and hanun, merciful and gracious, because he is just?

The usual translation of mishpat as justice, law, judgment, breaks completely down when we hear the psalmist pray:

Hear my voice according unto Thy lovingkindness [hesed];

Quicken me, O Lord, according to Thy mishpat.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Great are Thy compassions [rahamim], O Lord;

Quicken me according to Thy mishpatim. (Pss. 119:149, 156)

The words of the psalmist belong to the same world of discourse as those of Isaiah. There is some intrinsic, almost causative, connection between hesed and rahamim on the one hand and mishpat on the other. All this compels us to conclude that the biblical concept of mishpat has little in common with what the idea of justice connotes in Western thought. What, then, is meant by mishpat? What is justice in the Bible?

MISHPAT, GOD’S WAY AND LAW—THE COSMIC PRINCIPLE OF PRESERVATION

It would seem that the original meaning of mishpat is to be sought on a more primary level of human interest than that of justice or law. When Joseph interpreted the dream of Pharaoh’s butler and told him that he would be restored to his office, he said to him: “and thou shalt give Pharaoh’s cup into his hand, after the former manner when thou wast his butler.”¹⁴Gen. 40:13. Now, the Hebrew version for “after the former manner” is: according to the former mishpat. Obviously, mishpat here is neither justice nor law. It is more habit, the way a thing was customarily done. There are many examples in the Bible which show this, or a related, usage of the word mishpat. For six days the children of Israel went around the walls of Jericho in a certain order. On the seventh day, says the Bible, they rose early at dawn “and compassed the city after the same manner seven times.”¹⁵Josh. 6:15. On the seventh day they surrounded the city following the same order which they had adopted on the previous days. Again, the Hebrew for “after the same manner” reads: according to the same mishpat. On the seventh day they were really following a routine which they had devised on the previous six days. Mishpat might well be rendered here as routine. Of the spies from the tribe of Dan the Bible tells us that they came to the city of Laish “and saw the people that were therein, how they dwelt in security, after the manner of the Zidonians, quiet and secure.”¹⁶Judg. 18:7. For “after the manner of the Zidonians” we have in the Hebrew, according to the mishpat of the Zidonians. Mishpat here would be a certain manner of living, a certain style or conduct. Mishpat may even mean the character, the appearance, the nature of someone and something. Ahaziah, king of Israel, sent messengers to Ekron to inquire of the god whether he would recover from his sickness. The prophet Elijah met the messengers on the way and sent them back to the king with the message that he would die. When they came before the king, he asked them: “What manner of man was he that came up to meet you, and told you these words?” Their answer was: “He was a hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins.”¹⁷II Kings 1:7–8. For “what manner of man” we have in the original: what was the mishpat of the man? meaning: what were his characteristic marks? what was typical of him? Of the heathen population which was transplanted from Babylon to Samaria, the Bible tells: “They feared the Lord, and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away.”¹⁸Ibid. 17:33. Here, too, “after the manner” corresponds to “according to the mishpat,” the meaning being, according to the customs.

The word mishpat is used in a most interesting context in I Samuel. The people asked for a king. God tells Samuel to listen to their request and says: “howbeit thou shalt earnestly forewarn them, and shalt declare unto them the manner of the king that shall reign over them.”¹⁹I Sam. 8:9; cf. also ibid., vs. 11. “The manner of the king” is mishpat ha–melekh, which is described as the way he would rule over them, making the people his servants, exacting tribute for his personal aggrandizement, taking from them the fruit of their labor. Mishpat is here the custom of the king, the manner in which he usually exercises his authority, the way he acts toward his people. One can, of course, easily see how customs of a king, and of a people as well, may one day be regarded as laws, yet we have to bear in mind that the original meaning of mishpat ha–melekh is the manner in which the king customarily exercises his authority, it is the characteristic mark or nature of kingship, the way in which kings behave. What can be said of kings may also be said of God. When the king of Assyria first settled people from the provinces of his empire in Samaria, they were plagued by wild animals as a punishment from God, Whom they refused to acknowledge. The explanation given to the king was that this visitation came over the new settlers because they “know not the manner of the God of the land.”²⁰II Kings 17:26. Here, too, the manner is the mishpat of God. According to the understanding of the Syrians, the God of the land, like the gods of other lands, had his customary way of behavior; he ruled over the land in a certain manner and was wont to make certain demands on the inhabitants of the land. To know his ways was to know his mishpat. And he who wished to live securely in the land of God had to adjust himself to the mishpat of God. Such was the understanding of the Assyrians of the matter. Yet, it was not too far from the truth. None other than the prophet Jeremiah spoke in similar language of the mishpat of God. Desperate over the stubbornness of his people who refused to return to God, the prophet said:

Surely these are poor,

They are foolish, for they know not the way of the Lord,

The mishpat of their God;

I will get me unto the great men,

And will speak to them;

For they know the way of the Lord,

The mishpat of their God?

But these had altogether broken the yoke,

And burst the bands.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Their transgressions are many,

Their backslidings are increased. (5:4–6)

We maintain that careful attention to the Hebrew syntax shows that mishpat in our text is synonymous with derekh, way.²¹The R.V. translates: “For they know not the way of the Lord, nor the judgment of their God.” The J.P.S. edition has: “For they know not the way of the Lord, nor the ordinance of their God.” Since according to them mishpat is different from derekh (way) in meaning, they have to introduce into the text the conjunction, nor, which is not found in the Hebrew original and which, in fact, is not in keeping with the Hebrew sentence structure. Both renderings are misrepresentations. The mishpat of their God is not another object of their ignorance, but an explanatory parallelism to “the way of the Lord.” This causes no difficulty of interpretation if we recall that mishpat means manner of action or customary behavior. As the Assyrians spoke of “the mishpat of the land,” so did Jeremiah, too, use the phrase of “the mishpat of their God.” Taken in this sense, the mishpat of God is indeed synonymous with the way of the Lord. It is in this sense that the psalmist uses the term mishpat in the surprising passage which we quoted at the close of the previous section:

Hear my voice according unto thy lovingkindness [hesed];

Quicken me, O Lord, according to thy mishpat.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Great are Thy compassions [rahamim], O Lord;

Quicken me, O Lord, according to thy mishpat.

It is God’s mishpat, his way, his manner of acting toward his creation, to grant life and strength to those whose strength is failing. He does this according to his lovingkindness (hesed) and his compassion (rahamim). In this sense, both hesed and rahamim might be considered God’s mishpat, God’s customary way of exercising providence.²²The J.P.S. translation renders it correctly as: Hear my voice according unto Thy lovingkindness; quicken me, O Lord, as Thou art wont. And so also in vs. 156 of the same psalm. Whereas the R.V. has: quicken me according to Thy judgment, which is meaningless.

Needless to say that Jeremiah’s understanding of “the manner of their God” was rather different from what the Assyrians meant by “the manner of the God of the land.” For them the mishpat of God was probably quite similar to the mishpat of the king, as it was presented to the people by Samuel. All lands had their gods and all gods had their own ways. For Jeremiah the mishpat of God, the way He acted, the manner in which he ruled the universe, the way he treated man and was concerned about his creation, was the right way; the way one ought to act. God’s way with his creation is God’s law for his creation. God’s law for man emanates from God’s way with man. All law is God’s way, appropriately reflected onto the realm of human existence. All biblical law, in a sense, is imitatio dei. To practice hesed and rahamim, which is way for God, thus itself is God’s law for man. This is in keeping with the numerous passages in the Bible to which we have referred earlier in our presentation and which require of man that he keep or do lovingkindness, compassion, and charity. But of course, mishpat is also used in a specific sense, in which—as we saw—it is co-ordinated to hesed, rahamim, and s’daqah. It must be one specific aspect of God’s way with the world which may become, in its application to human conduct, mishpat in the specific sense of justice and right. What is the material contents of such mishpat? Can we define it?

There are a few passages in the Bible which may help us in our effort to define it. At first we shall examine a well-known passage in Isaiah. In chapter 40 we read:

Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,

And meted out heaven with the span,

And comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure,

And weighed the mountains in scales,

And the hills in a balance?

Who hath meted out the spirit of the Lord?

Or who was His counsellor that he might instruct Him,

With whom took He counsel, and who instructed Him,

And taught Him in the path of mishpat,

And taught Him knowledge,

And made Him to know the way of discernment? (vss. 12–14)

What could be the meaning of mishpat in this context? It does not seem to be an ethical or legal concept. The text emphasizes God’s omnipotent mastery over the universe and not his dealings with men and nations. In our text mishpat is co-ordinated to counsel, knowledge, and discernment. It must be something upon which understanding and wisdom have some bearing. Now, we may well see how counsel, knowledge, and understanding relate to the first verse in our quotation. The measuring of the waters and of the dust of the earth, the meting out of the boundaries of the heavens, the weighing of the mountains and the hills is not just a poetic description of the Almighty’s play with his toy, the universe. This measuring and weighing is the establishment of the principle of balance between the various parts of the universe, it is the introduction of the right proportion between the contending forces without which God’s creation could not last but would tumble back into Tohu vaBohu again. To have meted out to each its share and to have placed them into a balanced-proportion to each other that they may stand together was the establishment of God’s creation as a universe. Such a deed, among men, normally requires counsel, knowledge, understanding. But who was there to be God’s counsellor and teacher, and who taught him in the path of mishpat, exclaims the prophet. There is only one thing left in the text with which we may identify mishpat: it is the measuring and the weighing, the establishing of the balance by which alone the universe is able to stand, the bringing together of the various universal forces in harmony so that in mutuality they may constitute the cosmos. This is the way God made the universe, and his way of doing it is the law of the universe. We would then say that mishpat here is the cosmic principle of balance and harmony that is required for the preservation of God’s creation.

This mishpat, because it is the sustaining law of the universe, embraces the whole of existence, all created reality. Whatever exists is due to its functioning and man encounters it continually. If man desires to live, he must take cognizance of the ramifications of cosmic mishpat in his own sphere of existence and co-operate with them. In a rather surprising passage the prophet Isaiah describes the implications of mishpat in the labors of the plowman.

Give ye ear, and hear my voice;

Attend, and hear my speech.

Is the plowman never done with plowing to sow,

With the opening and harrowing of his ground?

When he hath made plain the face thereof,

Doth he not cast abroad the black cummin, and scatter the cummin,

And put in the wheat in rows and the barley in the appointed place

And the spelt in the border thereof?

For He doth instruct him to mishpat;

His God doth teach him.

For the black cummin is not threshed with a threshing-sledge,

Neither is a cart-wheel turned about upon the cummin;

But the black cummin is beaten out with a staff,

And the cummin with a rod.

Is bread corn crushed?

Nay, he will not ever be threshing it;

And though the roller of his wagon and its sharp edges move noisily,

He doth not crush it.

This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts:

Wonderful is His counsel, and great His wisdom. (28:23–29)

The mishpat, which God teaches the plowman is not essentially different from the one by which, measuring and weighing the various parts of his creation, he establishes their relationship to each other and makes the universe an enduring and functioning entity. It is the same mishpat of relatedness and balance, applied to the corner of the world in which the plowman performs his task. How the earth is to be plowed, how the various seeds are to be sown in relationship to each other, how each of the seeds is to be treated after having yielded the hoped-for harvest, all has to be done according to a mishpat which is from God and which, like the original comprehensive, universal mishpat, reveals God’s wonderful counsel and wisdom. But why was it so important for the prophet to draw the attention of the people to the mishpat that the plowman has to obey? Surely, he was not lecturing to them on the art of agriculture. The point he was making was that mishpat is a universal principle. It prevails everywhere, in the realm of the spirit no less than in the realm of nature. As there is an orderliness, an appropriateness, and a balanced relatedness of all things in nature without which life is not possible, so is there also the same kind of mishpat in all matters of the spirit. Not to take cognizance of them leads to disaster. The idea is expressed with somewhat greater clarity by Jeremiah. Complaining about the backslidings of Israel, God, speaking through the mouth of the prophet, says:

Yea, the stork in the heaven

Knoweth her appointed times;

And the turtle and the swallow and the crane

Observe the time of their coming;

But My people know not

The mishpat of the Lord. (8:7)

If we understand mishpat to mean ordinance, law, commandment, the comparison between Israel and the seasonal birds who follow their instincts, is difficult to interpret. If, however, the mishpat of the Lord is a cosmic principle of measured, balanced relatedness which applies to the whole of life, to the realm of the spirit no less than to the realm of nature, then the meaning of these words of Jeremiah becomes clear. These seasonal birds know their appointed times, they sense the orderliness and interrelatedness in nature, thus they know when to come and when to go, but Israel does not acknowledge the same mishpat as it prevails in the spiritual life of the world. How shall we formulate this cosmic principle of mishpat, when projected onto the scene in which human beings find themselves in contact with each other? Is it not also a weighing and a measuring of claims, drives, and desires, of balancing and harmonizing of the whole with a view to its preservation and its God-intended functioning? Justice and law are like God’s mishpat in the act of creation; an appropriateness, determined not by abstract consideration, but by the reality of man’s condition and subserving the meaningful preservation of human life. Because it is not mere adherence to an abstract principle or ideal, but a principle of order that has its place within the cosmic balance of the coordinated interrelatedness of all life, it is a justice that is exacting. Its implementation may be frightening, especially when it is done by God himself, who intervenes in the course of history in order to restore the disturbed balance which threatens life itself. Justice is done not that justice prevail, but that life prevails; it is done out of concern with a concrete situation, in which life is endangered and calls for its salvation. Thus, while mishpat may be grim, it is always also an act of saving and deliverance. Hesed, loving concern for life itself, may well be the source of such mishpat.

That mishpat means such a principle of measure and appropriateness, whose very purpose is to sustain life, comes to beautiful expression in two passages in Jeremiah. In one place the prophet lets Israel pray:

O Lord, correct me, but in mishpat;

Not in Thine anger, lest Thou diminish me. (10:24)

The meaning of mishpat here, far from being an exception, reveals its true meaning. It is a principle of preservation; the restoration of a disturbed balance which is needed because life has become disbalanced. As if in answer to this prayer of Israel, Jeremiah also lets God speak to Israel and say:

For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee;

For I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have scattered thee,

But I will not make a full end of thee;

For I will correct thee in mishpat.

And will not utterly destroy thee. (30:11)

God is with Israel to save it, yet God is also judging Israel to correct it. To save and to judge are not exclusive of each other. The mishpat, which is imposed, may itself have its origin in God’s nearness and concern. It is difficult to state exactly where in such mishpat hesed ends and objective justice begins. A justice that never loses sight of the actual human situation with which it is benevolently concerned is never wholly objective. Its main concern is not with what is due to a person, but what may hurt a person. It is not a formal legal concept, but a material moral one. Of his servant, upon whom He put His spirit, God says in the words of Isaiah that he shall make mishpat go forth to the nations. And of his mishpat it is said that:

A bruised reed shall he not break,

And the dimly burning wick shall he not quench;

He shall make mishpat to go forth according to the truth. (42:3)

Mishpat according to the truth is the non-abstract, the non-objective justice. A justice that does not respect persons in judgment, but does consider their need. It is a justice that does not break, but delivers; and if it breaks, it is in order to deliver. Such justice may easily be coordinated with hesed and rahamim and it may unashamedly call for the practice of s’daqah, as we saw it to be the case in numerous passages in the Bible. At times, it even merges with hesed. Because He is a God of mishpat, we heard Isaiah say, He waits for the moment when judgment has passed and He may again be gracious and compassionate toward Israel. When Moses said of God:

The Rock, His work is perfect;

For all his ways are mishpat. (Deut. 32:4)

he could not have meant that all God’s ways were justice. That would not be true. According to the entire testimony of the Bible, God is not only just, he is also merciful and Iongsuffering, and compassionate, and loving. But he could well have meant the mishpat which we have found to be the cosmic principle of the measured balance and harmonized coordination which is the God-implanted appropriateness of the universal order. It is because of that mishpat that His work is perfect. Therefore all His ways, along which His work grows, are ways of mishpat. But since this mishpat is the order of all life and its preservation, one might also say that what God does as mishpat is altogether hesed from the viewpoint of his creation. As indeed the psalmist put it:

All the paths of the Lord are hesed and emeth²³We leave emeth untranslated because, as we shall show in the next chapter, its translation as truth, especially in this context, is utterly misleading.
CHAPTER 6

Unto such as keep His covenant and His testimonies. (25:10)

JOB’S PROBLEM AND ITS SOLUTION

The problem that often occupies man’s mind is, however, not that God is a judge who is too exacting, executing justice without mercy and charity, but rather that he seems to be so often indifferent toward the evil perpetrated by man and the suffering of the innocent. It is not the task of this study to discuss the age-old theological problem of theodicy. However, one classical version of theodicy has a direct bearing on our immediate subject. It is the version which is found in Job. The story is well-known. Job queries the justice of God. One ought to appreciate the seriousness of Job’s inner struggle. Not his undeserved suffering is his chief preoccupation, nor the self-righteous affirmation of his innocence. His concern is with the nature of God. How can God be unjust? It is the most serious problem that may perturb a believing soul. It is for this reason that he must reject all the arguments of his friends. The issue is a fundamental issue of religious faith. It must not be blurred over with pious words. How can God be unjust?! And we who read the book and know from the introduction what was hidden from the eyes of Job, also know that what was done to Job was not justice. Demanding justice of God, Job is the great hero of faith who struggles for the honor of his God. He will not rest until he is given answer, until he understands. For it cannot be, it must not be, that God should not act justly; and yet, he has experienced injustice at the hand of God. The issue must be faced for the sake of God.

The more one senses the believing fervor with which Job struggles to understand the God in whom he puts his trust, the more is one puzzled by God’s answer. For what was God’s answer? The Bible says:

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said:

Gird up thy loins now like a man;

I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto Me.

Wilt thou even make void My judgment [mishpat]?

Wilt thou condemn Me, that thou mayest be justified?

Or hast thou an arm like God?

And canst thou thunder with a voice like Him?

Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency,

And array thyself with glory and beauty.

Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath;

And look upon everyone that is proud, and abase him.

Look upon everyone that is proud, and bring him low;

And tread down the wicked in their place.

Hide them in the dust together;

Bind their faces in the hidden place.

Then will I also confess unto thee

That thine own right hand can save thee. (40:6–12)

Upon this reference of God to his own overwhelming power, follows the great poetic description of the majestic might of some of his creatures, like behemoth and leviathan. Can Job compete with that? And God continues:

Who then is able to stand before Me?

Who hath given Me anything beforehand, that I should repay him?

Whatsoever is under the whole heaven is Mine. (41:2–3)

The more we read on, the more our amazement deepens. The answer seems to sidestep the issue. God owes no one anything—except justice. No one doubted God’s omnipotence, but to take a stand on it does not seem to meet Job’s quest for divine justice. If one is puzzled by God’s answer, one is even more mystified by Job’s reaction to it.

Then Job answered the Lord, and said:

I know that Thou canst do everything,

And that no purpose can be withholden from Thee.

Who is this that hideth counsel without knowledge?

Therefore have I uttered that which I understood not,

Things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear;

But now mine eye seeth Thee;

Wherefore I abhor my words, and repent,

Seeing I am dust and ashes. (42:1–6)

Job is duly impressed by God’s omnipotence and omniscience. But what has become of the heroic struggler with the problem of divine justice? Has he been answered or only silenced? One may well understand that God’s self-revelation would overwhelm a mere man who would then be willing to abhor and repent the words which he had uttered, but then, after having posed the question mightily, we are left without an answer. Yet, Job’s conduct after God had revealed Himself to him suggests that somewhere along the line he was given an answer which brought peace to his anguished soul.

A great deal has been written on the mystery of the conclusion of the book. It would seem to us, however, that a great deal depends on the proper understanding of the word mishpat in the key line in God’s answer: “Wilt thou even make void My mishpat?” If we translate the word in this context as justice, or as judgment, then indeed what follows becomes rather questionable. It would seem to us that such an interpretation is excluded by the very words spoken by God to Eliphaz after the denouement. When all was said, God turned to him with the words:

My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends; for ye have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as My servant Job hath. (42:7)

One may wonder. If the answer to Job was that one should not dare question the justice of an omnipotent God, in which way did Job speak rightly about God, whereas his friends did not? Were not the arguments of his friends rather similar to the ultimate answer which he was given, i.e., that one must not question God’s justice? Having done just that, having demanded justice even of God, in which way did Job speak of God “the thing that is right”? Therefore we maintain that “Wilt thou even make void My mishpat?” does not mean: dare you question My justice (or judgment, in the sense of executing justice)? Job did say the right thing about God. What was done to him was not justice. He did ask the right question: how can God be unjust? All that was well spoken about God, unlike his friends who tried to defend what was not justice as God’s just judgment. They were distorting justice in order to defend God. That was speaking wrongly about God. God does not stand for the bending of justice for the greater glory of his name. He is a just God. But he is God and not man. Apart from justice, he has also other considerations in the management of his universe, like—for instance—the terrifying testing of the faith of the righteous, as was the case with Job. Such a thing cannot be justified on the basis of justice. But it may have its place within God’s mishpat, if we understand the term in the sense of the cosmic principle of universal appropriateness, as we found it used in chapter 40 of Isaiah. “Wilt thou even make void My mishpat?” means: wilt thou invalidate the way in which I run the universe? So understood, the mocking challenge to Job, whether he had an arm like God? whether he could thunder like a God? was justified. God was not reproaching Job for having doubted the justness of what befell him. But God taught him that in the plan of a universal creator there are other considerations, too, apart from that of justice alone, whose validity may only be understood from the viewpoint of the Creator alone. In order to understand, not God’s justice, but God’s mishpat, the principle of cosmic appropriateness by which he sustains his creation, one would have to be God oneself.

If we have said earlier that the ways of God with men become the laws of God for men, it applies only to the extent to which those ways may be projected to the human scene. Insofar, however, God’s way is God’s mishpat as the cosmic order of God envisaged appropriateness, no imitatio dei is possible. Thus, in history, a chasm may open between the way of God that is just and the one that, though not justice, yet is mishpat. And the heart of faith which alone may bridge the chasm, plays with the thought that in the end, when all is known, even God’s inscrutable mishpat may turn out to be one of those paths of God, of which it has been said that they all are hesed and emeth, lovingkindness and faithfulness.