Genesis 18:25

Summary

The verse records a rhetorical protest expressing that it would be unthinkable for God to kill the righteous tzaddiq along with the wicked rasha', treating both alike. It closes with a question presenting God as shofet ("judge") of "all the earth," asking whether he will act with mishpat ("justice").

Key words

• chalilah ("far be it", H2486) — an interjection expressing strong rejection or abhorrence, repeated twice (positions 1 and 21) to frame the entire statement.
• tzaddiq ("righteous", H6662) — masculine singular adjective, appearing twice (positions 12 and 18), each time paired contrastively with rasha'.
• rasha' ("wicked", H7563) — masculine singular noun, also appearing twice (positions 14 and 20), forming a fixed pair with tzaddiq.
• shofet ("judge of", H8199) — qal participle, construct form, meaning "the one who judges/doing justice"; grammatically linked to kol ha'aretz ("all the earth") as its object, hence "judge of all the earth."
• mishpat ("justice", H4941H) — masculine singular noun, the direct object of ya'aseh ("will he do", H6213A), forming the closing question "will he not do justice."

What the text says

The passage is built in two parallel movements, each opened by chalilah ("far be it", H2486). The first movement (positions 1–20) states the impossibility of ha.Mit ("putting to death", H4191, hiphil infinitive of causation) the tzaddiq "with" ('im, H5973A) the rasha', followed by a sequential clause using ve.haYah ("and it will be", H1961, sequential perfect) that continues the logical consequence: the righteous would then "be as" (ka-, H9004) the wicked — a grammatical construction using the same preposition-plus-article form twice (ka.tzaddiq, ka.rasha') to place both terms in symmetric comparison.

The second movement (positions 21–31) repeats chalilah and shifts to a question, marked by the interrogative particle ha (H9008) prefixed to shofet (H8199). The participle shofet is in construct form, taking kol ha'aretz ("all the earth", H3605 + H0776G) as its governed noun — literally "the one-judging of all the earth." The clause ends with a negated imperfect, lo' ya'aseh mishpat ("he will not do justice"), where the negation lo' (H3808) combined with the imperfect ya'aseh (H6213A) frames the question as expecting the opposite answer — that the judge of the earth would indeed do mishpat.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the second chalilah clause as a separate short exclamation ("μηδαμῶς") before continuing with the question, matching the Hebrew's double repetition of chalilah. The Vulgate, however, inserts an added clause not present in the Hebrew, "non est hoc tuum" ("this is not fitting for you"), between the two statements, which has no corresponding Hebrew wording in the provided text. The Vulgate also renders the final clause as "nequaquam facies judicium hoc" ("you will by no means do this judgment"), adding "hoc" ("this") not present in the Hebrew mishpat alone.