For I know how many your offenses, And how great are your sins-- You who afflict the just, Who take a bribe, And who turn aside the needy in the courts.
That take a bribe - Literally, “a ransom.” It may be that, contrary to the law, which forbade, in these same words Numbers 35:22, “to take any ransom for the life of a murderer,” they took some ransom to set free rich murderers, and so, (as we have seen for many years to be the effect of unjust acquittals,) blood was shed with impunity, and was shed the more, because it was disregarded. The word, however, is used in one place apparently of any bribe, through which a man connives at injustice 1 Samuel 12:3.