Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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much more should we endeavour, by comforts and encouragements, to help up a sinking spirit, saying to those that are of a fearful heart, Be strong. We must seek the relief and welfare of others as our own, Php 2:4. If thou sayest, Behold, we know it not, doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? See Pr 24:11,12.
6 Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor in his cause.
Neither must they pervert judgment in prejudice to a poor man, nor suffer him to be wronged because he had not wherewithal to right himself; in such cases the judges themselves must become advocates for the poor, as far as their cause was good and honest (Ex 23:6): "Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of the poor; remember they are thy poor, bone of thy bone, thy poor neighbours, thy poor brethren; let them not therefore fare the worse for being poor."
7 Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous
slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked.
They must dread the thoughts of assisting or abetting a bad cause (Ex 23:7): "Keep thyself far from a false matter; do not only keep thyself free from it, nor think it enough to say thou art unconcerned in it, but keep far from it, dread it as a dangerous snare. The innocent and righteous thou wouldest not, for all the world, slay with thy own hands; keep far therefore from a false matter, for thou knowest not but it may end in that, and the righteous God will not leave such wickedness unpunished: I will not justify the wicked," that is, "I will condemn him that unjustly condemns others." Judges themselves are accountable to the great judge.
8 And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and
perverteth the words of the righteous.
They must not take bribes, Ex 23:8. They must not only not be swayed by a gift to give an unjust judgment, to condemn the innocent, or acquit the guilty, or adjudge a man's right from him, but they must not so much as take a gift, lest it should have a bad influence upon them, and overrule them, contrary to their intentions; for it has a strange tendency to blind those that otherwise would do well.
9 Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a
stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.