Exodus 23:6

Summary

The verse issues a prohibition against distorting the legal claim of a poor person in the context of a lawsuit. The Hebrew constructs a causative verb form to express "turning aside" or "twisting" justice, applied specifically to the case of an 'evyon ("needy person").

Key words

• ta.Teh ("you must turn aside", H5186) — Hiphil (causative) imperfect, second person masculine singular. The Hiphil stem makes this "cause to turn/twist" rather than simply "turn," and the imperfect conveys an ongoing prohibition (with the preceding negation lo', H3808).
• mish.Pat ("justice/judgment of", H4941) — masculine singular construct, meaning it must attach to a following noun; here it forms a chain with 'evyonkha.
• 'ev.yo.ne. + kha ("needy [person]" + "your", H0034 + H9021) — construct adjective functioning as a noun, with a second-person masculine singular possessive suffix, yielding "your needy [person]."
• ri.V + o ("case at law" + "his", H7379 + H9023) — construct noun with a third-person masculine singular suffix, "his lawsuit" or "his legal dispute."
• be. ("in", H9003) — preposition governing rivo, situating the prohibited action "in" the context of the legal proceeding.

What the text says

The sentence is built on a single verbal clause: lo' ta.Teh ("you shall not turn aside/twist"), governed by the negation lo' plus a Hiphil imperfect verb. The Hiphil stem is causative, so the base sense of natah ("to turn, stretch, incline") becomes "cause to turn aside" — i.e., divert or distort something from its proper direction. The direct object of this verb is the construct phrase mishpat 'evyonkha, literally "the judgment/justice of your needy person." This construct chain ties the abstract noun mishpat to the specific figure of the 'evyon, the economically vulnerable party, marked as belonging to the addressee ("your needy person") through the second-person suffix.

The final phrase, be-rivo ("in his case/dispute"), uses the preposition be to locate the entire action within the setting of a formal legal dispute (riv), a term distinct from mishpat — the Hebrew text uses two different legal nouns (mishpat and riv) rather than repeating one.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders mishpat as κρίμα ("judgment/verdict") and riv as κρίσει ("judgment/trial"), using two related but distinct Greek legal terms paralleling the Hebrew's two-term structure. The Vulgate's "Non declinabis in judicium pauperis" ("You shall not decline in the judgment of the poor") compresses the phrase into a single judicium, without a separate Latin equivalent for riv ("his lawsuit") as found in the Hebrew and LXX.