Habakkuk 1:4

KJV1611 – Modern English

Therefore the law is powerless, and justice never goes forth, for the wicked surround the righteous; therefore perverse judgment proceeds.

📖 Grammatical Analysis

Original Text

עַל־כֵּן֙ תָּפ֣וּג תּוֹרָ֔ה וְלֹֽא־יֵצֵ֥א לָנֶ֖צַח מִשְׁפָּ֑ט כִּ֤י רָשָׁע֙ מַכְתִּ֣יר אֶת־הַצַּדִּ֔יק עַל־כֵּ֛ן יֵצֵ֥א מִשְׁפָּ֖ט מְעֻקָּֽל׃

Transliteration

Therefore tāp̄ûḡ tôrāh and-not-yēṣēʾ to-lāneṣaḥ mišpāṭ because rāšāʿ maḵtîr ʾeṯ-the-ṣaddîq therefore yēṣēʾ mišpāṭ məʿuqqāl

Grammar Details

• *ʿal-kēn*: preposition + adverb - therefore/thus
• *tāp̄ûḡ*: verb, Qal imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular - grows numb/is slackened
• *tôrāh*: noun, feminine singular - law/instruction
• *wə-lōʾ-yēṣēʾ*: conjunction + negative particle + verb, Qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular - and not goes forth
• *lāneṣaḥ*: preposition + noun, masculine singular - to victory/forever/perpetuity
• *mišpāṭ*: noun, masculine singular - justice/judgment
• *kî*: conjunction - because/for
• *rāšāʿ*: adjective, masculine singular - wicked person
• *maḵtîr*: verb, Hiphil participle, masculine singular - surrounds/encircles
• *ʾeṯ-haṣṣaddîq*: direct object marker + definite article + noun, masculine singular - the righteous person
• *yēṣēʾ*: verb, Qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular - goes forth
• *məʿuqqāl*: adjective, masculine singular, Pual participle - distorted/perverted

Word Meanings

• *tāp̄ûḡ*: grows numb/is slackened/fails/becomes feeble
• *tôrāh*: law/instruction/teaching
• *lāneṣaḥ*: to victory/forever/perpetually/completely
• *mišpāṭ*: justice/judgment/legal decision
• *rāšāʿ*: wicked person/unrighteous one
• *maḵtîr*: surrounds/encircles/hemms in
• *ṣaddîq*: righteous person/just one
• *məʿuqqāl*: distorted/perverted/twisted

Other Translations

• Linguistic Bible Translation from Source Texts

  Therefore, the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked hem in the righteous, so justice comes out distorted.

• King James Version 1769 (Standard Version)

  Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth.

• American Standard Version with Strong's Numbers

  Therefore the law{H8451} is slacked,{H6313} and justice{H4941} doth never{H5331} go forth;{H3318} for the wicked{H7563} doth compass{H3803} about the righteous;{H6662} therefore justice{H4941} goeth forth{H3318} perverted.{H6127}

• King James Version with Strong's Numbers

  Therefore the law{H8451} is slacked{H6313}{(H8799)}, and judgment{H4941} doth never{H5331} go forth{H3318}{(H8799)}: for the wicked{H7563} doth compass{H3803}{(H8688)} about the righteous{H6662}; therefore wrong{H6127}{(H8794)} judgment{H4941} proceedeth{H3318}{(H8799)}.

• Coverdale Bible (1535)

  for the lawe is torne in peces, and there can no right iudgment go forth. And why? the vngodly is more set by then the rightuous: this is the cause, yt wronge iudgment procedeth.

• Geneva Bible (1560)

  Therefore the Lawe is dissolued, and iudgement doeth neuer go forth: for the wicked doeth compasse about the righteous: therefore wrong iudgement proceedeth.

• Bishops' Bible (1568)

  Therfore the law is dissolued, & iudgement doth neuer go foorth: for the wicked doth compasse about the righteous, therfore wrong iudgement proceedeth.

• Authorized King James Version (1611)

  Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth.

• Webster's Bible (1833)

  Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth; for the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice goes forth perverted.

• Young's Literal Translation (1862/1898)

  Therefore doth law cease, And judgment doth not go forth for ever, For the wicked is compassing the righteous, Therefore wrong judgment goeth forth.

• American Standard Version (1901)

  Therefore the law is slacked, and justice doth never go forth; for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore justice goeth forth perverted.

• American Standard Version (1901)

  Therefore the law is slacked, and justice doth never go forth; for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore justice goeth forth perverted.

• Bible in Basic English (1941)

  For this reason the law is feeble and decisions are not effected: for the upright man is circled round by evil-doers; because of which right is twisted.

• World English Bible (2000)

  Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth; for the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice goes forth perverted.

• NET Bible® (New English Translation)

  For this reason the law lacks power, and justice is never carried out. Indeed, the wicked intimidate the innocent. For this reason justice is perverted.

Referenced Verses

• Ps 119:126 : 126 It is time for You to act, O LORD, for they have regarded Your law as void.
• Ezek 9:9 : 9 Then he said to me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of perverseness: for they say, The LORD has forsaken the earth, and the LORD does not see.
• Job 21:7 : 7 Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, grow mighty in power?
• Ps 94:20-21 : 20 Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with you, which frames mischief by a law? 21 They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn innocent blood.
• Isa 1:21-23 : 21 How the faithful city has become a harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers. 22 Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water: 23 Your princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: everyone loves gifts, and follows after rewards: they do not judge the fatherless, nor does the cause of the widow come to them.
• Isa 5:20 : 20 Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
• Jer 12:1 : 1 Righteous are You, O LORD, when I plead with You; yet let me speak with You about Your judgments. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are all those happy who deal very treacherously?
• Ps 58:1-2 : 1 Do you indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? Do you judge uprightly, O you sons of men? 2 Yes, in heart you work wickedness; you weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.
• Ps 59:2 : 2 Deliver me from the workers of iniquity, and save me from bloodthirsty men.
• Ps 59:4 : 4 They run and prepare themselves without my fault; awake to help me, and see.
• Ps 82:1-5 : 1 God stands in the assembly of the mighty; He judges among the gods. 2 How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah. 3 Defend the poor and fatherless; do justice to the afflicted and needy. 4 Deliver the poor and needy; rescue them from the hand of the wicked. 5 They do not know, nor do they understand; they walk in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
• Ps 94:3 : 3 LORD, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph?
• Exod 23:2 : 2 You shall not follow a crowd to do evil; nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to pervert justice by following the majority.
• Exod 23:6 : 6 You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in his dispute.
• Deut 16:19 : 19 You shall not pervert justice; you shall not show partiality, nor take a bribe: for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise, and perverts the words of the righteous.
• 1 Kgs 21:13 : 13 And two men, worthless fellows, came in and sat before him; and the men bore witness against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, Naboth blasphemed God and the king. Then they carried him out of the city and stoned him with stones, so that he died.
• Jer 12:6 : 6 For even your brothers, the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you; yes, they have called a multitude after you. Do not believe them, even though they speak kind words to you.
• Jer 26:8 : 8 Now it happened, when Jeremiah had finished speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak to all the people, that the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, saying, You shall surely die.
• Jer 26:21-23 : 21 And when Jehoiakim the king, with all his mighty men, and all the princes, heard his words, the king sought to put him to death; but when Urijah heard it, he was afraid and fled and went into Egypt; 22 And Jehoiakim the king sent men into Egypt, namely, Elnathan the son of Achbor, and certain men with him into Egypt. 23 And they brought Urijah out of Egypt and brought him to Jehoiakim the king, who killed him with the sword and cast his dead body into the tombs of the common people.
• Jer 37:14-16 : 14 Then Jeremiah said, 'It is false; I am not falling away to the Chaldeans.' But he did not listen to him; so Irijah took Jeremiah and brought him to the princes. 15 Therefore the princes were angry with Jeremiah, and struck him, and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe, for they had made that the prison. 16 When Jeremiah had entered into the dungeon and into the cells, and Jeremiah had remained there many days,
• Jer 38:4-6 : 4 Therefore the princes said to the king, We beg you, let this man be put to death; for he weakens the hands of the men of war who remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, by speaking such words to them; for this man does not seek the welfare of this people, but the harm. 5 Then Zedekiah the king said, Behold, he is in your hand; for the king is not anyone who can do anything against you. 6 Then they took Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah the son of Hammelech, which was in the court of the prison; and they let down Jeremiah with cords. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire; so Jeremiah sank in the mire.
• Isa 59:2-8 : 2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. 3 For your hands are stained with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perverseness. 4 No one calls for justice, nor does anyone plead for truth: they trust in vanity and speak lies; they conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity. 5 They hatch viper’s eggs and weave the spider's web: he who eats of their eggs dies, and what is crushed breaks out into a viper. 6 Their webs will not become garments, nor will they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands. 7 Their feet run to evil, and they hurry to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; devastation and destruction are in their paths. 8 The way of peace they do not know; and there is no justice in their paths: they have made crooked paths for themselves; whoever walks therein shall not know peace.
• Isa 59:13-15 : 13 In transgressing and lying against the Lord, and departing from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. 14 And judgment is turned backward, and justice stands far off: for truth has fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. 15 Yes, truth fails; and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey: and the Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment.
• Jer 5:27-29 : 27 As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they have become great, and grown rich. 28 They have grown fat, they shine: yes, they surpass the deeds of the wicked: they do not judge the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper; and the right of the needy they do not judge. 29 Shall I not visit for these things? says the LORD: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
• Ezek 22:25-30 : 25 There is a conspiracy of her prophets in its midst, like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured souls; they have taken treasure and precious things; they have made her many widows in its midst. 26 Her priests have violated My law, and have profaned My holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and unholy, neither have they shown difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hidden their eyes from My sabbaths, and I am profaned among them. 27 Her princes in its midst are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain. 28 And her prophets have daubed them with untempered mortar, seeing false visions, and divining lies to them, saying, Thus says the Lord GOD, when the LORD has not spoken. 29 The people of the land have used oppression, and committed robbery, and have wronged the poor and needy: yes, they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully. 30 And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.
• Hos 10:4 : 4 They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant: thus judgment springs up as poison in the furrows of the field.
• Amos 5:7 : 7 You who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth,
• Amos 5:12 : 12 For I know your many transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.
• Mic 2:1-2 : 1 Woe to those who devise iniquity and work evil upon their beds! When the morning is light, they practice it because it is in the power of their hand. 2 They covet fields and take them by violence, and houses, and take them away; so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.
• Mic 3:1-3 : 1 And I said, Hear, I pray you, O leaders of Jacob, and you rulers of the house of Israel; Is it not for you to know justice? 2 Who hate good and love evil; who strip their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones; 3 Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, like meat for the pot, and like flesh within the cauldron.
• Mic 7:2-4 : 2 The good man has perished from the earth, and there is no one upright among men; they all lie in wait for blood, they hunt each his brother with a net. 3 That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asks, and the judge asks for a reward; and the great man utters his mischievous desire: so they wrap it up. 4 The best of them is like a brier; the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge: the day of your watchmen and your visitation comes; now shall be their perplexity.
• Matt 23:34-36 : 34 Therefore, indeed, I send to you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city: 35 that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Truly I say to you, all these things shall come upon this generation.
• Matt 26:59-66 : 59 Now the chief priests, and elders, and all the council, sought false testimony against Jesus, to put him to death; 60 But found none: yes, though many false witnesses came, yet they found none. At last came two false witnesses, 61 And said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days. 62 And the high priest arose, and said to him, Do you answer nothing? What is it which these testify against you? 63 But Jesus held his peace. And the high priest answered and said to him, I adjure you by the living God, that you tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God. 64 Jesus said to him, You have said it: nevertheless I say to you, Hereafter shall you see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. 65 Then the high priest tore his clothes, saying, He has spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? Behold, now you have heard his blasphemy. 66 What do you think? They answered and said, He is guilty of death.
• Matt 27:1-2 : 1 When morning came, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. 2 And when they had bound him, they led him away, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate, the governor.
• Matt 27:25-26 : 25 Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us and on our children. 26 Then he released Barabbas to them, and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.
• Mark 7:9 : 9 And he said to them, You completely reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your own tradition.
• Acts 7:52 : 52 Which of the prophets have your fathers not persecuted? And they have killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you have now become the betrayers and murderers,
• Acts 7:59 : 59 And they stoned Stephen as he called on God and said, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
• Acts 23:12-14 : 12 And when it was day, certain of the Jews banded together, and bound themselves under an oath, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. 13 And there were more than forty who formed this conspiracy. 14 They came to the chief priests and elders and said, We have bound ourselves under a great oath that we will eat nothing until we have killed Paul.
• Rom 3:31 : 31 Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not: on the contrary, we establish the law.
• Jas 2:6-7 : 6 But you have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and haul you into the courts? 7 Do they not blaspheme that worthy name by which you are called?
• Ps 11:3 : 3 If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?
• Ps 22:16 : 16 For dogs have surrounded me; the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me; they pierced my hands and my feet.