2:6

his: In this verse the Hebrew forms which the Berean Standard Bible translates as his continue to refer to Levi and his descendants, especially to those who were priests.

2:6a

True instruction: The Hebrew word which the Berean Standard Bible translates here as instruction refers to what the priests taught the people about God’s law. This was one of their responsibilities.

True: The priests taught the people God’s law in an accurate way. They told the truth about what was written in the law.

in his mouth: In Hebrew the expression which the Berean Standard Bible translates as in his mouth is a poetic way to refer to the words/teachings of the priests. For example:

They taught the true teachings. (New Century Version)

2:6b

nothing false was found on his lips: That is, he never said/spoke anything evil or untrue.

on his lips: The Hebrew expression which the Berean Standard Bible translates as on his lips is similar to the phrase “in his mouth” in 2:6a. It is another poetic way to refer to the words of Levi and his descendants.

General Comment on 2:6a–b

These two verse parts are parallel. Notice the use of positive and negative terms: true instruction and nothing false (speech).

True instruction was in his mouth,

and nothing false was found on his lips.

2:6c

He walked with Me: This is a figure of speech in Hebrew. “To walk with someone” in this figurative sense means “to live in harmony with someone,” “to live in close fellowship.”

peace: See the note on 2:5a.

uprightness: The Hebrew word which the Berean Standard Bible translates as uprightness can also mean “integrity, loyalty, honesty.”

One way to express this without using a noun is to say, “they always did what was right.”

2:6d

he turned many from iniquity: This is a figure of speech. The early descendants of Levi obeyed the LORD and accurately explained his laws to the people. This caused many people to change the way they behaved—they stopped sinning and began to obey the LORD.

© 2007 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.