Leviticus 19:15

Summary

Leviticus 19:15 prohibits injustice in legal judgment, specifically forbidding partiality toward either the poor or the powerful based on their social status. The verse closes with a positive command to judge one's fellow with righteousness.

Key words

• 'avel ("injustice", H5766A) — masculine singular noun naming the wrong to be avoided in judgment; paired with mishpat ("judgment", H4941G) to specify the sphere where this injustice must not occur.
• tissa' ("you will lift up", H5375Q) — qal imperfect of the verb "to lift," here used idiomatically with penei ("face of") to mean showing favor or partiality toward someone.
• dal ("a poor [person]", H1800) — masculine singular adjective functioning as a substantive, the object of the "lifting the face" idiom, marking the poor as the first party not to be favored.
• tehdar ("you will honor", H1921) — qal imperfect describing the second prohibited action, paired with penei gadol ("face of a great [person]") to forbid deference toward the powerful.
• tzedek ("righteousness", H6664G) — masculine singular noun preceded by be- ("in"), specifying the manner in which judgment of one's 'amit ("fellow citizen", H5997) is to be carried out.

What the text says

The verse is structured in three parallel clauses, each built on a negated qal imperfect verb (lo' ta'aSu, lo' tiSa', ve-lo' tehdar) followed by a positive command (be-tzedek tishpot). The first clause states the general principle: lo' ta'aSu 'avel ba-mishpat — "you will not do injustice in the judgment." The second and third clauses specify two symmetrical failure modes using the idiom "to lift the face of" (naSa' penei, H5375Q + H6440N) and "to honor the face of" (hidar penei, H1921 + H6440H). These two Hebrew expressions, though built on different verbs, both function idiomatically to mean showing partiality or deferential favoritism, and both take the construct noun penei ("face of") followed by the person shown favor: dal ("a poor [person]", H1800) in one case, gadol ("a great [person]", H1419A) in the other.

The grammatical parallelism (verb + penei + adjective-noun) creates a structural balance between the poor and the great as equally inappropriate objects of favoritism, regardless of their opposite social standing. The verse closes with be-tzedek tishpot 'amitekha — "in righteousness you will judge your fellow citizen," where tzedek (H6664G) stands in implicit contrast to 'avel (H5766A) from the opening clause, framing the entire verse as a movement from prohibited injustice to commanded righteousness in judgment.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders dal ("poor", H1800) as πτωχοῦ ("poor") and gadol ("great", H1419A) as δυνάστου ("powerful/ruler"), making explicit a socio-political reading of "greatness" as power rather than simply size or status. The Vulgate similarly renders gadol as potentis ("of the powerful one"). The Hebrew 'amit ("fellow citizen", H5997) is rendered by the LXX as τὸν πλησίον ("the neighbor") and by the Vulgate as proximo ("neighbor"), both broadening the specifically civic nuance of "fellow citizen" into a more general term for "neighbor."