Hebrew word · H6417

פְּלִילִיָּה

peliliyah

judgment

Judicial decision or verdict. The word occurs only here. Its root, palal, means "to arbitrate or intervene", which gives pelilim, "judges" or "arbiters" (Exod 21:22; Deut 32:31; Job 31:11, 28), and pelili, "judicial" or "to be judged".

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament.

What it means

the giving a decision, pronouncement of judgment, reasoning

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Isaiah 28:7

Range of meaning

Judicial decision or verdict. The word occurs only here. Its root, palal, means "to arbitrate or intervene", which gives pelilim, "judges" or "arbiters" (Exod 21:22; Deut 32:31; Job 31:11, 28), and pelili, "judicial" or "to be judged". The reflexive form of the same root, hitpallel, is the ordinary word for "pray", as when someone intervenes on another's behalf before God.

Against the English

KJV's "stumble [in] judgment" can suggest poor personal judgment, or God's judgment. The Hebrew means rulings given from the bench. NASB and NIV express this with "rendering judgment" or "rendering decisions".

How it drifted

"Judgment" in English now mostly means either discernment or divine condemnation. Its sense of a court's formal ruling has faded in everyday speech.

Used elsewhere in the period

Deut 17:8–12 sends hard cases to "the Levitical priests and the judge" for a binding decision. Exod 21:22 has payment made "as the judges (pelilim) determine".

Similar words

Where it appears

Isaiah · 1

  1. Isaiah 28:7 פְּלִילִיָּֽה׃ decision

    These also stagger from wine and stumble from strong drink: Priests and prophets reel from strong drink and are befuddled by wine. They stumble because of strong drink, muddled in their visions and stumbling in their judgments.

    Here: "[In] giving a ruling." This word occurs only here. It comes from the root for arbitrating or judging a case, and it means the formal decisions priests gave when people brought them disputes and questions.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.