עִם נָבָ֖ר תִּתָּבָ֑ר וְעִם עִקֵּ֖שׁ תִּתַּפָּֽל
With the pure you will show yourself pure; With the crooked you will show yourself shrewd.
World English Bible · Public Domain
2 Samuel 22:27
Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex) 2 Samuel 22:27 appears in the Hebrew Old Testament. The text above is from the Westminster Leningrad Codex. Each word links to its Strong’s number, a concise gloss, and parsing drawn from the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible morphology. Click any word for its full Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB) entry.
English Translation
With the pure you will show yourself pure; With the crooked you will show yourself shrewd.
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Compare translations 3
The same verse in 3 English versions, stacked beneath the original-language interlinear above. Click any original word for its lexicon entry.
Each is an independent rendering of the whole verse — the interlinear is not word-aligned to these translations.
Highlighted words mark where these versions differ — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment.
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World English Bible Public Domain
With the pure you will show yourself pure; With the crooked you will show yourself shrewd.
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King James Version Public Domain
With the pure thou wilt show thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt show thyself unsavory.
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unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
With the purified, you show yourself pure, but with the crooked, you show yourself cunning.
unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult).
Show all 18 translations
Every available English version of this verse, each an independent rendering of the whole verse.
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World English Bible Public Domain
With the pure you will show yourself pure; With the crooked you will show yourself shrewd.
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Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
to the pure You show Yourself pure, but to the crooked You show Yourself shrewd.
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Majority Standard Bible Public Domain
to the pure You show Yourself pure, but to the crooked You show Yourself shrewd.
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King James Version Public Domain
With the pure thou wilt show thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt show thyself unsavory.
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American Standard Version (1901) Public Domain
With the pure thou wilt show thyself pure; And with the perverse thou wilt show thyself froward.
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Revised Version (1885) Public Domain
With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the perverse thou wilt shew thyself froward.
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Geneva Bible (1599) Public Domain
With the pure thou wilt shewe thy selfe pure, and with the frowarde thou wilt shew thy selfe frowarde.
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Douay-Rheims (1899) Public Domain
With the elect thou wilt be elect: and with the perverse thou wilt be perverted.
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Young's Literal Translation Public Domain
With the pure Thou shewest Thyself pure, And with the perverse Thou shewest Thyself a wrestler.
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Literal Standard Version CC BY-SA 4.0
With the pure You show Yourself pure, || And with the perverse You show Yourself a wrestler.
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Unlocked Literal Bible CC BY-SA 4.0
With the pure you show yourself pure, but you are perverse to the twisted.
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unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
With the purified, you show yourself pure, but with the crooked, you show yourself cunning.
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Darby Bible Public Domain
With the pure thou dost shew thyself pure; And with the perverse thou dost shew thyself contrary.
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World Messianic Bible Public Domain
With the pure you will show yourself pure. With the crooked you will show yourself shrewd.
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Webster's Bible Public Domain
With the pure thou wilt show thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt contend.
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Free Bible Version CC BY-SA 4.0
You show yourself pure to those who are pure, but you show yourself astute to those who are crafty.
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Bible in Basic English Public Domain
He who is holy will see that you are holy; but to the man whose way is not straight you will be a hard judge.
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JPS Tanakh (1917) Public Domain
With the pure Thou dost show myself pure; and with the crooked Thou dost show Thyself subtle.
Literal Standard Version (2020), Covenant Press — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). Unlocked Literal Bible (unfoldingWord) — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult). Free Bible Version, Dr. Jonathan Gallagher — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org).
Word by word
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Practice this passage: Drill this verse → Learn its vocabulary →
תִּתַּפָּֽל
pâthal
H6617
“to twist”
Verb, Hithpael, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular
- Appears 5× in the Hebrew Bible
- First appears at Genesis 30:8
- Part of Speech
- Verb
- Stem
- Hithpael
- Form
- Imperfect
- Person
- 2nd Person
- Gender
- Masculine
- Number
- Singular
Full BDB Definition
to twist
- (Niphal)
- to be twisted
- to wrestle
- (Hithpael) to be twisted
- עִם ʻim H5973 “with” Preposition
- נָבָ֖ר bârar H1305 “purifying” Verb, Niphal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute
- תִּתָּבָ֑ר bârar H1305 “to purify” Verb, Niphal, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular
- וְעִם ʻim H5973 “and · with” Conjunction + Preposition
- עִקֵּ֖שׁ ʻiqqêsh H6141 “crooked” Adjective, Adjective, Masculine, Singular, Absolute
- תִּתַּפָּֽל pâthal H6617 “to twist” Verb, Hithpael, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular
About this verse
These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →
- 6
- words
- 4
- distinct lemmas
- Historical
- section
Notable vocabulary
The rarest word here is תִּתַּפָּֽל to twist H6617 — appearing just 5 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.
First appearance in Scripture
This word makes its first canonical appearance in the Hebrew Bible here:
- נָבָ֖ר to purify H1305
Shared distinctive vocabulary
תִּתַּפָּֽל to twist H6617 occurs in 5 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:
Grammatical profile
- 3 verbs
- 1 adjective
- 2 prepositions
Verb forms
- נָבָ֖ר Niphal · Participle Active
- תִּתָּבָ֑ר Niphal · Imperfect
- תִּתַּפָּֽל Hithpael · Imperfect
Repetition
Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 16 words from the Hebrew and 16 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the same length.
A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.
Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.
In the original languages it is 6 Hebrew tokens and 9 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.
Cross-references
7Topical passages linked to 2 Samuel 22:27 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.
- Psalms 18:26 With the pure, you will show yourself pure. With the crooked you will show yourself shrewd.
- Matthew 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God.
- Leviticus 26:23–28 "'If by these things you won't be reformed to me, but will walk contrary to me;
- Psalms 125:5 But as for those who turn aside to their crooked ways, Yahweh will lead them away with the workers of iniquity. Peace be on Israel.
- Isaiah 45:9 Woe to him who strives with his Maker--a potsherd among the potsherds of the earth! Shall the clay ask him who fashions it, "What are you making?" or your work, "He has no hands?"
- Exodus 18:11 Now I know that Yahweh is greater than all gods because of the thing in which they dealt arrogantly against them."
- Deuteronomy 28:58–61 If you will not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and fearful name, YAHWEH YOUR GOD;
Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).
Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint
The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.
These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.
καί μετά ἐκλεκτός ἐκλεκτός εἰμί καί μετά στρεβλός στρεβλόω
and with the excellent you will be excellent, and with the froward you will be froward.
LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain
Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →
Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)
The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.
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Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)
עִם יַעֲקֹב דְהַלִיךְ בִּבְרִירוּתָּא קֳדָמָךְ בְּחַרְתָּא בְנוֹהִי מִכָּל עַמְמַיָא וְאַפְרַשְׁתָּא זַרְעֵיהּ מִכָּל פְּסוֹלָא פַּרְעֹה וּמִצְרָאֵי דַחֲשִׁיבוּ מַחְשְׁבָן עַל עַמָךְ בַּלְבַּלְתִּינוּן בְּמַחְשְׁבַתְהוֹן:
(no public-domain English translation for this verse)
Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Lesson kit
Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.
2 Samuel, in the Historical, opens this verse with 6 words (4 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is pâthal (“to twist”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Discussion questions
- What does “to twist” (pâthal) contribute to the verse as a whole?
- The word “to purify” first appears here in Scripture. What is being introduced at this debut?
- Genesis 30:8 shares the word «to twist» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
- “to purify” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
- These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
- The verb «נָבָ֖ר» is Niphal Participle Active. How does its form color the action?
- Reading how Geneva Bible (1599) and Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?
Things to notice
- 1 word makes its first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
- This verse counts 6 Hebrew ↔ 9 Greek words.
- These translations choose different wording for 11 words in this verse.
- “to purify” occurs 2× in this single verse.
- 4 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 6 words in this verse.
Commentary
Notes on 2 Samuel 22:27 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.
Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →
Geneva Bible (1599)
Geneva Bible translators
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill's Exposition
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Rashi
Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)
Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.