Deuteronomy 16:18

Summary

The verse instructs the appointment of shoftim ("judges", H8199) and shotrim ("officials", H7860) in every settlement, described in Hebrew as "gates," that Yehovah is giving to the tribes. These appointed figures are then to judge the people with a specific quality of judgment, expressed through a construct phrase meaning "judgment of righteousness."

Key words

• sho.fe.Tim ("judges", H8199) — qal participle, masculine plural; describes people characterized by the ongoing action of judging, not a fixed title.
• sho.te.Rim ("officials", H7860) — qal participle, masculine plural; parallel term to shoftim, forming a fixed pair naming two distinct functions.
• she.'a.Rei.kha ("your gates", H8179H) — masculine plural construct with pronominal suffix; literally "gates," the physical entry-points of settlements, used here to denote the location where these appointments occur.
• sha.fe.Tu ("they will judge", H8199) — qal sequential perfect; continues the directive begun by the earlier imperfect titten, indicating a resulting or consequent action.
• mish.pat-Tze.dek ("judgment of righteousness", H4941G + H6664G) — construct chain, masculine singular; two nouns joined so the second qualifies the first, producing a fixed expression for the type of judgment required.

What the text says

The sentence opens with two paired participles, shoftim and shotrim, placed before the verb titten ("you will appoint", H5414H), which is a common Hebrew word-order pattern emphasizing the object category before the action. The phrase be-khol-she'areikha ("in all your gates", H3605 + H8179H) uses she'arim, literally "gates," a term referring to the entrance areas of a settlement, which in administrative contexts of the Hebrew Bible often stands for the settlement itself as the site of public and legal activity.

The relative clause introduced by asher ("which", H0834A) describes the land as something Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) your Elohim ("God", H0430G) is currently giving (noten, active participle, H5414G — "the one giving," expressing an ongoing or imminent action) li-shvateikha ("for your tribes", H7626H), tying the appointment of judges to the tribal structure of the land distribution.

The second clause begins with ve-shafetu ("and they will judge", H8199), a sequential perfect form following the earlier imperfect titten. This grammatical sequence links the act of appointing officials to the resulting activity of judging, presenting the two as one continuous directive rather than separate commands. The judging itself is qualified by the construct phrase mishpat-tzedek ("judgment of righteousness", H4941G + H6664G), where the second noun modifies the first, producing a single conceptual unit rather than two separate ideas.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew she'areikha ("your gates", H8179H) is rendered literally as portis ("gates") in the Vulgate, but the LXX and several modern translations (BSB "town," RV1909 and SBLIBRE "ciudades," i.e., "cities") render the same term as settlements or towns rather than gates specifically. The LXX also translates shotrim (H7860) with the compound term γραμματοεισαγωγεῖς, a specific administrative title not present as a direct equivalent in the Hebrew participle form, which simply denotes "those who do the action of shotrim."