Rabbi Nathan interpreted the verse "and perverts the words of the righteous" (Exodus 23:8) as referring to something far more severe than ordinary judicial corruption. The one who accepts a bribe, Rabbi Nathan taught, "distorts the righteous words pronounced at Sinai."
The connection between bribery and Sinai may not be immediately obvious, but the Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael makes the logic explicit. The laws of justice given in the Torah are not human inventions. They were spoken by God at Mount Sinai alongside the Ten Commandments and every other element of divine law. When a judge accepts a bribe and rules falsely, he is not merely cheating the litigant who stands before him. He is twisting the very words that God pronounced at Sinai.
The "righteous words" (divrei tzaddik (a righteous person)im (the righteous)) are the Torah's legal provisions themselves—the commandments about fair weights, honest testimony, equal treatment of the poor and the powerful. These words are "righteous" because they originate from God, the ultimate source of righteousness. A corrupt judge takes those perfect, divinely authored words and bends them to serve the interests of whoever paid him. In Rabbi Nathan's view, this is not just a crime against the human parties in the case. It is a desecration of revelation itself.
The preceding Mekhilta passage explains that a bribe "blinds the eyes of the wise"—meaning that it corrupts even scholars and sages who would otherwise see the truth clearly. Rabbi Nathan adds the cosmic dimension: the damage extends beyond the judge and the courtroom. Every corrupt ruling is an assault on Sinai, a distortion of the words that God Himself placed into the world for the sake of justice. The bribe-taker is not just a bad judge. He is, in the rabbinic imagination, an enemy of the Torah itself.