Biblical Hebrew Forum

[unikom AT paco.net]

Dear Chris,

The root zdk means not justice, but righteousness. The one acquitted in
court is thus reinstated as a righteous person. In Hebrew thinking, guilt
(pesha or het) is equalized with unrighteousness. You would find the same
reasoning in Islam. In the modern secular thinking, on the contrary, guilt
is not directly related to immorality or inobservance.


Best regards,

Vadim Cherny


>Hello all, I would like peoples' comments please on the following:

The word TSaDaK (justice) is never used in a negative way unlike in western
thinking; by this I mean that we would say that justice is done when the
guilty are punished.  But in hebrew I can only find Justice being used to
"Aquit the Innocent".  My immediate thinking was that i was simply being
pedantically ridiculous, but this concept of never applying the word
"Justice" to the enacment of a sentence against the guilty does have wider
implications - biblically speaking.  When I consider the opposites to this
word I do not find the idea of "injustice" but rather more descriptive words
such as moral distortion, perverse and iniquity.  Obvious I know,  for this
lies at the heart of injustice; as I said comments and rejections are
appreciated. Chris.<