The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
Justice and Mercy
Exodus 23:1–9 — Justice and Mercy. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
1“You shall not spread a false report. Do not join the wicked by being a malicious witness.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
lō ṯiś·śā šāw šê·ma‘ ’al- tā·šeṯ yā·ḏə·ḵā ‘im- rā·šā‘ lih·yōṯ ḥā·mās ‘êḏ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
Not shall-you-lift-up a-report empty; not shall-you-set your-hand with a-wicked-one to-be a-witness-of violence.
Where the English smooths the original
"Thou shalt not raise (bring out) an empty report." שׁוא שׁמע, a report that has no foundation, and, as the context shows, does injury to another, charges him with wrongdoing, and involves him in legal proceedings.
Sometimes the receiver, in this case, is as bad as the thief: and a backbiting tongue would not do so much mischief if it were not countenanced.
an unrighteous witness ] better, a malicious witness : lit. a witness of violence (so Deuteronomy 19:16 , Psalm 35:11 †), i.e. a witness who seeks to subvert the innocent, either ( ll.cc. ) directly, or, as here, by assisting to clear the guilty.Cambridge recovers the literal sense of ḥāmās — "witness of violence" — behind BSB's "malicious witness."
These four commands, addressed to the conscience, are illustrations of the ninth commandment, mainly in reference to the giving of evidence in legal causes.
Put not thine hand, i.e. not conspire or agree with them, which is signified by joining hands, Proverbs 11:21 , not give them a helping hand in it, not encourage them to it by gifts or promises, not assist them by counsel or interest. Others, not swear with them; but swearing is not noted by putting the hand , but by lifting it up .The verse's idiom is a clasp of hands in conspiracy (Proverbs 11:21), not an oath — which is sworn by the lifted hand, not the laid one.
2You shall not follow the crowd in wrongdoing. When you testify in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
lō- ṯih·yeh ’a·ḥă·rê- rab·bîm lə·rā·‘ōṯ ṯa·‘ă·neh ‘al- riḇ wə·lō- lə·haṭ·ṭōṯ lin·ṭōṯ ’a·ḥă·rê rab·bîm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
Not shall-you-be after many to-evils; and-not shall-you-testify concerning a-dispute to-turn-aside after many to-pervert.
Where the English smooths the original
It is perhaps true that the offence especially condemned is joining with a majority in an unrighteous judgment; but the words of the precept extend much further than this, and forbid our being carried away by numbers or popularity in any case. Vox populi vox Dei is a favourite maxim with many, but Scripture nowhere sanctions it.
But the Hebrew rabbin both here and in the following clause is by some rendered great men , men in power and authority, whom we are commanded not to follow .Poole flags the live ambiguity in rabbîm — "many" or "the great" — that survives in the modern translations.
speak ] answer (in a court of law), i.e. bear witness (RVm.), as Exodus 20:16 . The Heb. ‘ânâh never means simply to ‘speak.’
we must be judged by our Master, not our fellow-servants; and it is too great a compliment to be willing to go to hell for company.
3And do not show favoritism to a poor man in his lawsuit.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
lō ṯeh·dar wə·ḏāl bə·rî·ḇōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-a-poor-man not shall-you-honor in-his-dispute.
Where the English smooths the original
countenance—adorn, embellish—thou shalt not varnish the cause even of a poor man to give it a better coloring than it merits.JFB recovers the literal force of hādar — "adorn" — behind the colorless "countenance / show favoritism."
We must not “pervert judgment” either in favour of the rich or of the poor. Justice must hold her scales even, and be proof equally against a paltry fear of the rich and a weak compassion for the indigent. The cause alone is to be considered, not the persons.
After the many precepts in favour of the poor, this injunction produces a sort of shock. But it is to be understood as simply forbidding any undue favouring of the poor because they are poor
4If you encounter your enemy’s stray ox or donkey, you must return it to him.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
kî ṯip̄·ga‘ ’ō·yiḇ·ḵā tō·‘eh šō·wr ’ōw ḥă·mō·rōw hā·šêḇ tə·šî·ḇen·nū lōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
If you-meet ox-of your-enemy or his-donkey going-astray, returning you-shall-return-it to-him.
Where the English smooths the original
Here and in Exodus 23:5 we have a sort of anticipation of Christianity—active kindness to an enemy being required, even when it costs us some trouble. The principle of friendliness is involved—the germ which in Christianity blossoms out into the precept, “Love your enemies.”
So far was the spirit of the law from encouraging personal revenge that it would not allow a man to neglect an opportunity of saving his enemy from loss.
If we are bound to do good to our enemies beast, how much more to our enemy himself, Mt 5:44.The 1599 Geneva margin already reads this law forward to Matthew 5:44 — an a fortiori from beast to man.
5If you see the donkey of one who hates you fallen under its load, do not leave it there; you must help him with it.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
kî- ṯir·’eh ḥă·mō·wr śō·na·’ă·ḵā rō·ḇêṣ ta·ḥaṯ maś·śā·’ōw wə·ḥā·ḏal·tā mê·‘ă·zōḇ lōw ‘ā·zōḇ ta·‘ă·zōḇ ‘im·mōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
If you-see donkey-of your-hater lying-down under its-burden, then-you-shall-cease from-leaving it; helping you-shall-help with-him.
Where the English smooths the original
This rend. (= AV.) of the existing text is quite impossible: ‘âzab means to leave, forsake , &c., but never to ‘help.’Cambridge marks the textual crux honestly: ʻāzab cannot mean "help," so either it means "release" or the text is to be emended to ʻāzar.
beware of leaving an ass which has sunk down beneath its burden in a helpless condition, even to thine enemy, to try whether he can help it up alone; rather help him to set it loose from its burden, that it may get up again.
The joint participation in an act of mercy towards a fallen beast would bring the enemies into friendly contact, and soften their feelings towards each other.
If God commands us to help our enemy's donkey under his burden, will he suffer us to cast down our brethren with heavy burdens?
6You shall not deny justice to the poor in their lawsuits.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
lō ṯaṭ·ṭeh miš·paṭ ’eḇ·yō·nə·ḵā bə·rî·ḇōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
Not shall-you-turn-aside the-justice of-your-needy in-his-dispute.
Where the English smooths the original
The words thy poor, are emphatical, importing that they were members of their body, though poor.
As is well known, the maladministration of justice is, and always has been, a crying evil among Oriental nations; and the poor, especially, are rarely able to get their rights.
The scales of justice are to be held even; strict right is to be done; our feelings are not be allowed to influence us, much less our class prejudices.
the phrase, "thy poor", is very emphatic, and intended to engage judges to regard them, as being of the same flesh and blood with them, of the same nation and religion; and who were particularly committed to their care and protection under God, who is the Judge and protector of the poor, of the widow and the fatherless.Gill presses the possessive suffix of ʼeḇyōnəḵā ("thy needy"): the destitute are the judges' own — kin and covenant charge — and behind them stands God as the poor man's Judge.
7Stay far away from a false accusation. Do not kill the innocent or the just, for I will not acquit the guilty.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
tir·ḥāq še·qer mid·də·ḇar- ’al- ta·hă·rōḡ wə·nā·qî wə·ṣad·dîq kî lō- ’aṣ·dîq rā·šā‘
Literal — word-for-word from the original
From-a-word-of falsehood you-shall-keep-far; and-the-innocent and-the-righteous do-not kill; for I-will-not-acquit a-wicked-one.
Where the English smooths the original
Keep thee far, i.e. abstain from all occasions, degrees, or appearances of it.
this is not contrary to Romans 4:5 for though God justifies the ungodly, he does not justify ungodliness in them, or them in ungodliness, but from it, and that by the imputation of the righteousness of his Son.Gill holds the tension: "I will not acquit the wicked" (here) and "God justifies the ungodly" (Rom 4:5) are reconciled in imputed righteousness, not the excusing of sin.
LXX. however read, and thou shalt not justify the wicked , which may be the original reading (Bä.); cf. Deuteronomy 25:1 .A textual variant: MT has God say "I will not acquit," LXX reads it as a charge to the judge.
I will condemn him that unjustly condemns others.
8Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the righteous.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
lō ṯiq·qāḥ wə·šō·ḥaḏ kî haš·šō·ḥaḏ yə·‘aw·wêr piq·ḥîm wî·sal·lêp̄ diḇ·rê ṣad·dî·qîm
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-a-bribe not shall-you-take; for the-bribe blinds the-clear-sighted, and-twists the-words of-righteous-ones.
Where the English smooths the original
The whole verse is repeated verbatim in Deuteronomy 16:19 , except that ‘eyes of the wise’ is substituted for ‘open-eyed.’Cambridge documents the near-verbatim internal quotation that grounds the verbal thread to Deuteronomy 16:19.
Bribes and interest cast a mist before the eyes, and bias the judgment and affections even of those who are otherwise wise and discerning.
The rendering "words of the righteous" is not correct; for even if we are to understand the expression "seeing men" as referring to judges, the "righteous" can only refer to those who stand at the bar, and have right on their side, which judges who accept of bribes may turn into wrong.Keil presses against the BSB's "words of the righteous," reading diḇrê ṣaddîqîm as the just party's cause.
The corrupt Administration of justice was one of the crying evils which provoked God’s judgments against His people, and led, in the first instance, to the Babylonian captivity, and afterwards to the Roman conquest.
9Do not oppress a foreign resident, since you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners; for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
lō ṯil·ḥāṣ wə·ḡêr wə·’at·tem yə·ḏa‘·tem ’eṯ- ne·p̄eš hag·gêr kî- hĕ·yî·ṯem ḡê·rîm bə·’e·reṣ miṣ·rā·yim
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-a-sojourner not shall-you-oppress; for-you know the-soul of-the-sojourner, for sojourners you-were in-the-land of-Egypt.
Where the English smooths the original
ye know by experience what a distressed, friendless condition that of a stranger is. The disposition, dejection, and distress of his heart, make him an object of pity, not of malice or injustice.
therefore it might be reasonably thought and expected that they would have a heart sympathizing with strangers, and use them well, and especially see that justice was done them
"For ye know the soul (animus, the soul as the seat of feeling) of the stranger," i.e., ye know from your own experience in Egypt how a foreigner feels.
For since he is a stranger, his heart is sorrowful enough.
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
Albert Barnes reads the opening verses exactly: "These four commands, addressed to the conscience, are illustrations of the ninth commandment, mainly in reference to the giving of evidence in legal causes." The unit begins where the Decalogue's "you shall not bear false witness" (Exodus 20:16) leaves off, and extends it — as Charles Ellicott notes — "from principals to accessories." The Hebrew verbs are chosen for breadth. tiśśā ("lift up," v. 1) covers raising, spreading, and receiving a report alike; Jamieson-Fausset-Brown suggests "the Holy Ghost might choose a word of such general signification to show that all these things were forbidden." The report itself is šāwʼ — "empty," the same vanity-word as the third commandment — and Keil & Delitzsch render the whole "an empty report … that has no foundation, and … does injury to another." Then the camera widens from the tongue to the crowd: "not shall-you-be after many to-evils" (v. 2). Ellicott draws the bracing conclusion: "Vox populi vox Dei is a favourite maxim with many, but Scripture nowhere sanctions it." And lest sympathy corrupt where malice cannot, v. 3 forbids even adorning a poor man's cause — tehdar, which JFB recovers as "adorn, embellish … varnish." The Pulpit Commentary admits the "sort of shock" this produces "after the many precepts in favour of the poor"; but the principle, as Ellicott states it, is that "justice must hold her scales even."
Two case-laws break the courtroom sequence to plant something startling: active kindness to a personal enemy. "If you-meet ox-of your-enemy … returning you-shall-return-it" (v. 4); "if you-see donkey-of your-hater lying-down under its-burden" (v. 5), do not pass by. The 1599 Geneva margin already reasons from the lesser to the greater: "If we are bound to do good to our enemies beast, how much more to our enemy himself, Mt 5:44." Ellicott calls these verses "a sort of anticipation of Christianity … the germ which in Christianity blossoms out into the precept, 'Love your enemies.'" The escalation is deliberate in the Hebrew: v. 4's ʼōyiḇ ("enemy") becomes v. 5's śōnēʼ ("hater") — the obligation widens from the foe you fight to the man who simply hates you. Verse 5 is also the unit's hardest text: the thrice-used verb ʻāzab seems to mean both "forsake" and "help." Cambridge calls the old "forbear to help" "quite impossible" — ʻāzab "never means to 'help'" — while Keil reads it as "help him to set it loose from its burden." The Verifier confirms this pair shares the rare vocabulary of Deuteronomy 22:1–4 (shôwr, shûwb), where the same mercy reappears expanded. We hold the difficulty rather than smoothing it.
The sequence returns to the courtroom, now addressing the judge. Verse 6 mirrors v. 3 with the same verb of injustice (nāṭāh, "to bend"): where v. 3 forbade favoring the poor, v. 6 forbids denying him — Cambridge frames the pair as "fairness in bearing witness" (1–3) and "fairness in administering justice" (6–9). Verse 7 grounds it in God: "the innocent and the righteous do-not kill, for I-will-not-acquit a-wicked-one." Matthew Poole reads the divine first person as a warning to the bench — and John Gill carefully guards it from misuse: "this is not contrary to Romans 4:5 for though God justifies the ungodly, he does not justify ungodliness in them … but from it." Verse 8 names the great corrupter: "a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and twists the words of righteous-ones." Cambridge documents that "the whole verse is repeated verbatim in Deuteronomy 16:19" — and the rare verbs make the link unmistakable: ʻāvar ("to blind," only 5 occurrences, elsewhere of gouging out captives' eyes) and sālap̄ ("to twist," 7 occurrences). Keil disputes BSB's "words of the righteous," reading instead the just party's "causes." The unit ends where Israel's whole ethic begins — in Egypt: "a sojourner not shall-you crush, for you know the soul of the sojourner, for sojourners you were in the land of Egypt." Keil: "ye know from your own experience in Egypt how a foreigner feels." Justice, here, is the overflow of remembered redemption.
Read whole, Exodus 23:1–9 is the ninth commandment turned outward in every direction at once — toward the tongue (v. 1), the crowd (v. 2), the poor (vv. 3, 6), the enemy (vv. 4–5), the courtroom (vv. 7–8), and the alien (v. 9). One Hebrew image holds it together: the verb nāṭāh, "to bend" (vv. 2, 6). Justice is a straight line, and every sin in this unit is a way of bending it — by lying about it, by crowding it, by pitying or despising one of the parties, by selling it for a bribe, by crushing the one too weak to straighten it back. The two enemy-laws (vv. 4–5) are not a digression but the unit's heart: they prove that the demand is not cold impartiality but warm, costly love — the kind that returns the ox of the man who hates you. And the ground of all of it is not abstract principle but memory and mercy: "for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt." A people who were once crushed and once redeemed cannot bend the line against the weak without betraying their own deliverance. This reading is the tool's own, offered to be tested against the text — not added to it.
Justice is a straight line, and every sin in this chapter is a way of bending it.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
Exodus 23:8 reappears almost word-for-word in Moses' second giving of the law: "You shall not pervert justice or show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous." The link rests on a cluster of rare shared lexemes — šōḥaḏ (bribe, 21 verses), and especially ʻāvar (to blind, only 5 verses) and sālap̄ (to twist, only 7 verses) — that occur together nowhere else. Cambridge observes the verse is "repeated verbatim … except that 'eyes of the wise' is substituted for 'open-eyed.'" This is internal Torah quotation, not mere thematic overlap.
Exodus 23:8 · Deuteronomy 16:19
basis: Verifier-computed shared rare lexemes: H5786 ʻâvar (in 5 vv), H5557 çâlaph (in 7 vv), H7810 shachad (in 21 vv), H6662 tsaddîyq — a near-verbatim whole-verse repetition (Cambridge).
The bribe of Exodus 23:8 "blinds the clear-sighted" — piqḥîm (H6493, the open-eyed, the seeing). That adjective is vanishingly rare: in the whole Hebrew Bible it stands in only two verses, and the other is at the burning bush, where the LORD answers Moses' protest: "Who makes a man's mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing (piqqēaḥ), or the blind? Is it not I, the LORD?" (Exodus 4:11). The same Exodus that names sight as God's own gift names the bribe as the thing that puts it out. The corrupt judge does not merely err; he undoes in himself the faculty his Maker bestowed — the irony Keil felt in calling bribery a self-inflicted blinding (and ʻāvar, the verb, is used elsewhere of literally gouging out a captive's eyes).
Exodus 23:8 · Exodus 4:11
basis: Verifier-computed shared lexeme: H6493 piqqêach occurs in only 2 verses in the OT — Exodus 23:8 and Exodus 4:11. A rare-lexeme verbal link within the same book; no quotation claim, but the shared word is distinctive enough to bind the two.
Exodus 23:3 and 6, taken together, forbid tilting the scales either toward the poor or against him. Leviticus 19:15 states the same law in a single sentence: "You shall not pervert justice; you shall not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great." The verbal anchor is the rare verb hādar ("to honor / adorn," only 7 occurrences) shared with v. 3, alongside dal (poor) — Keil cites Leviticus 19:15 precisely to refute the conjecture that Exodus 23:3 should be emended to "great man," since the Torah forbids partiality in both directions.
Exodus 23:3 · Leviticus 19:15
basis: Verifier-computed shared lexemes including the rare H1921 hâdar (in 7 vv) and H1800 dal (in 46 vv); both verses are the Torah's twin statements of forensic impartiality.
The verb nāṭāh ("to stretch, bend, turn aside") is the unit's signature word for injustice, governing v. 2 ("pervert") and v. 6 ("deny justice"). It binds to Deuteronomy 16:19's parallel command and threads the same image — bending the straight line of mišpāṭ (judgment) — across the legal corpus. The shared lexemes are not rare individually, so this is a structural/thematic link of legal vocabulary rather than a quotation claim.
Exodus 23:6 · Deuteronomy 16:19 · Exodus 23:2
basis: Verifier-computed shared lexemes H5186 nâṭâh (in 207 vv) + H4941 mishpâṭ (in 395 vv) — common legal vocabulary, a shared pattern of 'bending judgment,' not a verbal quotation.
Exodus 23:4–5's command to return an enemy's stray ox or donkey, and to help his fallen beast, reappears in expanded form in Deuteronomy 22:1–4, where "enemy" softens to "brother" and "you shall surely lift it up with him" replaces the difficult ʻāzab clause. Cambridge notes the Exodus pair "can hardly be here in their original place" and reads better after the parallel. The shared lexemes (shôwr ox, shûwb return) are moderately common, so the link is structural — a reworked statute — not a verbal quotation.
Exodus 23:4 · Deuteronomy 22:1
basis: Verifier-computed shared lexemes H7794 shôwr (in 69 vv), H176 ʼôw (in 218 vv), H7725 shûwb (in 950 vv) — a parallel statute reworked, not a quotation.
Exodus 23:9's command not to crush the gēr "for you were sojourners in Egypt" is echoed in Deuteronomy 24:17 — "You shall not pervert the justice due the sojourner" — and reaches its prophetic edge in Malachi 3:5, where the LORD comes to judge "those who thrust aside the sojourner." The shared lexeme gēr (sojourner, 83 verses) carries the thread; the binding force is the recurring covenant memory of bondage, so this is thematic rather than a quotation.
Exodus 23:9 · Deuteronomy 24:17
basis: Verifier-computed shared lexeme H1616 gêr (in 83 vv) + the recurring Egypt-memory motif; a shared legal-theological pattern, not a verbal quotation.
Exodus 23:7's "I will not acquit the wicked" states the principle that Proverbs makes a proverb: "He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the LORD" (Proverbs 17:15; cf. Proverbs 21:12, flagged by the Verifier on the shared ṣaddîq/rāšāʻ pairing). The link is the recurring antithesis of the just (ṣaddîq) and the guilty (rāšāʻ) before God's bar. The shared lexemes are common, so the tier is thematic; Proverbs 17:15 is offered as the proverbial crystallization rather than a verbal source.
Exodus 23:7 · Proverbs 21:12
basis: Verifier-computed shared lexemes H6662 tsaddîyq (in 197 vv) + H7563 râshâʻ (in 249 vv) — the common just/wicked antithesis, a shared motif, not a quotation.
Jesus' "Love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44) is widely read as the flowering of Exodus 23:4–5's command to aid an enemy's beast — the 1599 Geneva margin already cites Mt 5:44 on v. 4. But this is a cross-Testament link (Greek New Testament ↔ Hebrew Torah): the Verifier finds no shared original-language lexeme, because no Strong's number bridges Hebrew and Greek. The connection is therefore structural/typological and must be argued, not asserted as verbal — the conceptual line runs from the deed (return the ox) to the disposition (love the enemy), with Jesus naming what the law had only enacted.
Exodus 23:4 · Matthew 5:44
basis: Cross-Testament (Greek↔Hebrew): Verifier found no shared original-language lexeme. Cannot be 'verbal'; the link is thematic/typological and argued, per the 1599 Geneva margin's a-fortiori reading.
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
Exodus 23:7 closes on God's own forensic refusal: "I will not acquit the wicked." This is the standard no human court can finally meet and no sinner can finally pass. The gospel does not lower it — Gill insists "this is not contrary to Romans 4:5" — but answers it: God "justifies the ungodly" not by calling evil good but by imputing the righteousness of his Son, the one truly innocent (nāqî) and righteous (ṣaddîq) man of v. 7, condemned in the place of the wicked. The cross is where "I will not acquit the wicked" and "God justifies the ungodly" meet without either bending.
Exodus 23:7 · Romans 4:5 · 2 Corinthians 5:21
Verses 4–5 require costly kindness to the one who hates you; Ellicott calls them "the germ which in Christianity blossoms out into the precept, 'Love your enemies.'" Christ is both the teacher of that precept (Matthew 5:44) and its perfect performance: "while we were still enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son" (Romans 5:10). The law that bound an Israelite to lift his enemy's fallen ass is fulfilled in the One who, finding his enemies fallen under a burden they could not lift, did not pass by but bore it himself.
Exodus 23:4 · Exodus 23:5 · Romans 5:10
The unit grounds mercy in redemption: "you know the soul of the sojourner, for sojourners you were in the land of Egypt" (v. 9). The pattern — a people redeemed from bondage and therefore bound to deal justly with the powerless — finds its deepest figure in Christ, who took on the alien's lot ("the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head"), who was "oppressed" (lāḥaṣ's prophetic kin in Isaiah 53:7), and whose deliverance of his people from a greater Egypt becomes the ground of all Christian mercy toward the stranger. This reading extends the Exodus-redemption typology to Christ; it is offered as a novel synthesis of the unit's own logic, not a claim of ancient consensus.
Exodus 23:9 · Isaiah 53:7 · Hebrews 13:2
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
This unit is entirely Hebrew (Exodus 23:1–9). Several honesty notes apply. (1) Verse 5 is textually difficult. The verb ʻāzab is used three times with apparently contradictory senses ("forsake" / "release" / "help"); Cambridge calls the AV's "forbear to help" "quite impossible," and many scholars emend the final ʻāzab to ʻāzar ("help") on the strength of Deuteronomy 22:4. We have presented the difficulty rather than resolving it by fiat. (2) Verse 2's text is flagged by Cambridge as "in parts suspicious," though the general sense is secure. (3) Verse 7 has a real variant: the Masoretic Text reads "I will not acquit the wicked" (God speaking); the LXX reads "thou shalt not justify the wicked" (charge to the judge). Cambridge thinks the LXX "may be the original reading." (4) The Matthew 5:44 thread is flagged. It is a genuine and ancient reading of vv. 4–5 (already in the 1599 Geneva margin), but because it crosses from Hebrew to Greek it can carry no shared Strong's lexeme and must be argued as thematic/typological, never asserted as verbal. (5) Matthew Henry's contribution in the source is a single comment repeated under every verse (his note on the whole pericope, 23:1–9); to avoid that redundancy we have set it aside and drawn verse-specific authors throughout, so Henry is not surfaced as a voice. (6) The Christ readings in sections one and two reflect widely-held Christian exegesis; the sojourner/Christ typology (section three) is marked novel — a synthesis of the unit's redemption-logic, offered to be tested under Sola Scriptura, not imposed on the text. (7) The Exodus 4:11 ↔ 23:8 thread rests on a genuinely rare lexeme — piqqêach ("seeing") occurs in only those two verses in the Hebrew Bible — so the Verifier tiers it verbal-confirmed; there is no quotation between them, only a striking shared word, and the badge basis says so plainly. (8) The Jamieson-Fausset-Brown voice surfaced on v. 1 ("put not thine hand … joining hands, Proverbs 11:21") is verbatim from the JFB-keyed source block on BibleHub, which there absorbs Poole-style annotation under the JFB header; we cite it under the heading it carries in the source.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)