Keluaran 23:8

23:8 “You must not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see ¹  and subverts the words of the righteous.

Mazmur 15:5

15:5 He does not charge interest when he lends his money. ² 

He does not take bribes to testify against the innocent. ³ 

The one who lives like this ⁴  will never be upended.

Yesaya 1:23

1:23 Your officials are rebels, ⁵ 

they associate with ⁶  thieves.

All of them love bribery,

and look for ⁷  payoffs. ⁸ 

They do not take up the cause of the orphan, ⁹ 

or defend the rights of the widow. ¹⁰ 

[23:8]  ¹ tn Heb “blinds the open-eyed.”

[15:5]  ² sn He does not charge interest. Such an individual is truly generous, and not simply concerned with making a profit.

[15:5]  ³ tn Heb “a bribe against the innocent he does not take.” For other texts condemning the practice of a judge or witness taking a bribe, see Exod 23:8; Deut 16:19; 27:25; 1 Sam 8:3; Ezek 22:12; Prov 17:23.

[15:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “does these things.”

[1:23]  ⁵ tn Or “stubborn”; CEV “have rejected me.”

[1:23]  ⁶ tn Heb “and companions of” (so KJV, NASB); CEV “friends of crooks.”

[1:23]  ⁷ tn Heb “pursue”; NIV “chase after gifts.”

[1:23]  ⁸ sn Isaiah may have chosen the word for gifts (שַׁלְמוֹנִים, shalmonim; a hapax legomena here), as a sarcastic pun on what these rulers should have been doing. Instead of attending to peace and wholeness (שָׁלוֹם, shalom), they sought after payoffs (שַׁלְמוֹנִים).

[1:23]  ⁹ sn See the note at v. 17.

[1:23]  ¹⁰ sn The rich oppressors referred to in Isaiah and the other eighth century prophets were not rich capitalists in the modern sense of the word. They were members of the royal military and judicial bureaucracies in Israel and Judah. As these bureaucracies grew, they acquired more and more land and gradually commandeered the economy and legal system. At various administrative levels bribery and graft become commonplace. The common people outside the urban administrative centers were vulnerable to exploitation in such a system, especially those, like widows and orphans, who had lost their family provider through death. Through confiscatory taxation, conscription, excessive interest rates, and other oppressive governmental measures and policies, they were gradually disenfranchised and lost their landed property, and with it, their rights as citizens. The socio-economic equilibrium envisioned in the law of Moses was radically disturbed.