Properly, a verdict (favorable or unfavorable) pronounced judicially, especially a sentence or formal decree (human or (participant's) divine law , individual or collective), including the act, the place, the suit, the crime, and the penalty; abstractly, justice , including a participant's right or privilege (statutory or customary), or even a style
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מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat) is a Hebrew noun whose range includes a judicial decision, a legal case, an ordinance, an established procedure, a person’s due, and justice as the ordering of life according to what is right. Exodus 21:1 uses the plural for the ordinances placed before Israel, while Leviticus 19:15 uses the singular in a command not to pervert justice.
Reader summary
Full entry for מִשְׁפָּט (H4941) · Open the biblical lexicon
מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat) is a Hebrew noun whose range includes a judicial decision, a legal case, an ordinance, an established procedure, a person’s due, and justice as the ordering of life according to what is right. Exodus 21:1 uses the plural for the ordinances placed before Israel, while Leviticus 19:15 uses the singular in a command not to pervert justice.
The BSB source-word alignment has 410 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include justice (61), and ordinances (28), My ordinances (18), and justice (12), ordinances (11).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 18:19. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (64), Ezekiel (42), Isaiah (40), Deuteronomy (36).
This entry includes 1 verse guide that explain exact original-language forms in context.
מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat) is a Hebrew noun whose range includes a judicial decision, a legal case, an ordinance, an established procedure, a person’s due, and justice as the ordering of life according to what is right. Exodus 21:1 uses the plural for the ordinances placed before Israel, while Leviticus 19:15 uses the singular in a command not to pervert justice. The same English gloss therefore cannot be pressed onto every occurrence. The actor, setting, grammatical construction, and object at stake show whether the passage emphasizes a rule, a verdict, a process, a claim, or the practice of justice.
Scripture roots mishpat in God’s own righteous government. Deuteronomy 10:18 presents Him as the One who executes justice for the fatherless and widow. Psalm 89:14 places righteousness and justice at the foundation of His throne. Human judges do not invent the moral order they administer; they answer to the God who sees the vulnerable, judges without corruption, and rules faithfully. Yet divine justice and a human court’s limited judgment are not identical in scope. Human authorities remain creatures who require truthful evidence, impartial procedure, and accountability.
The prophets show what happens when mishpat is absent. Isaiah 1:17 joins seeking justice to correcting oppression and pleading the causes of those easily ignored. Amos 5:24 contrasts flowing justice with worship that God rejects, and Micah 6:8 places doing justice beside covenant love and humble walking with God. These passages refuse both private piety without neighbor responsibility and public slogans detached from God’s revealed character. Mishpat does not hand one modern movement a ready-made platform. It summons courts, leaders, households, and worshiping communities to identify the actual wrong, honor the person whose due is threatened, use truthful means, and submit every claim of justice to the whole counsel of Scripture.
Mishpat moves through Torah, worship, wisdom, royal theology, and prophetic indictment as ordinance, adjudication, due right, and just order. The passages share a concern for what is right under God, but each use must be read according to its legal, covenantal, liturgical, or communal setting.
“These are the ordinances that you are to set before them:
The plural introduces concrete covenant ordinances, showing that mishpat can name prescribed case law rather than an abstract ideal.
You must not pervert justice; you must not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the rich; you are to judge your neighbor fairly.
The command forbids distorting judgment through partiality toward either poor or rich, tying justice to fair adjudication of an actual neighbor.
He executes justice for the fatherless and widow, and He loves the foreigner, giving him food and clothing.
God executes justice for people who commonly lack social protection, grounding Israel’s care for vulnerable neighbors in His own action.
You are to appoint judges and officials for your tribes in every town that the Lord your God is giving you. They are to judge the people with righteous judgment.
Appointed local judges must render righteous judgment, so the verse joins institutional responsibility, moral standard, and accountable public decision.
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; loving devotion and faithfulness go before You.
Justice belongs to the foundation of God’s throne alongside righteousness, while loving devotion and faithfulness accompany His royal presence.
Learn to do right; seek justice and correct the oppressor. Defend the fatherless and plead the case of the widow.”
Seeking justice takes verbal form through learning, correction, defense, and pleading, not merely through approving a noble concept.
But let justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
The river image answers a chapter that rejects Israel’s worship, demanding sustained justice where religious performance had concealed covenant corruption.
He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
Doing justice is one coordinated part of the good God requires, held together with covenant love and humble fellowship with Him.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Hebrew word. Judicial decision encompassing verdict, law, and justice; God's decisive rulings establish cosmic and moral order.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 8 selected witnesses from 424 lexical occurrence verses.
Leaders were expected to embody mishpat; their failure represents direct covenant violation.Hosea 12:1-6
Its distortion by leaders represents direct violation of covenant standards.Isaiah 1:10-20
It defines social righteousness as a core expectation of covenant obedience.Isaiah 10:1-4
By commanding Judah to seek mishpāṭ, God shows that authentic repentance will reshape how his people treat others, especially those who can easily be neglected or exploited.Isaiah 16:1-5
The corruption of mishpāṭ reveals systemic covenant violation.Isaiah 28:1-6
Justice defines the nature of the promised Davidic reign.Isaiah 28:14-22
God empowers righteous governance among his faithful.Isaiah 30:18-26
God measures human claims against his righteous standard.Isaiah 32:1-8
Divine mercy operates within righteous justice.
Marks the governing principle of righteous leadership.
Defines the mission of the Servant toward the nations.
Justice is the fruit God desired; its absence signals deep covenant violation.
Perverting mishpāṭ reveals direct opposition to God’s righteous character.
The Lord is exalted through justice, demonstrating that his holiness governs history.
Concrete expression of covenant obedience.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Mishpat teaches that justice is never merely a mood of fairness or a slogan attached to a cause. In Exodus it can name ordinances that direct covenant life. In Leviticus it governs a judge who must resist pressure from both poverty and power. In Deuteronomy it describes God’s defense of the fatherless and widow and the work of appointed judges. In the Psalms it belongs to the foundation of God’s reign, and in the prophets it exposes worship that coexists with oppression and corrupted judgment.
These uses are related because each concerns what is right under God, but they are not interchangeable. Faithful teaching asks what decision, process, duty, or due is present in the text. That approach restrains ideological capture while still allowing Scripture to confront courts, institutions, churches, families, and individual disciples. God’s people cannot honor His throne while ignoring false testimony, favoritism, exploitation, or the neighbor whose cause no powerful person wants to hear.
Lev.19.15
Mishpat is a noun related to judging, but etymology does not decide a verse. Singular and plural forms can name a judgment, case, ordinance, procedure, customary due, or justice, and complements or parallel terms often reveal the active sense.
The New Testament continues the demand for impartial judgment, truthful witness, care for vulnerable neighbors, and confidence in God’s final judgment. James confronts partiality in the assembly, Jesus condemns neglect of justice and the love of God, and apostolic preaching announces a day when God will judge the world through the risen Christ. Those connections develop the canonical theme without pretending that one Greek term reproduces every function of mishpat.