In varying ways such judicial settings reflect “contentions” or “lawsuits” in which God appears not as a detached official, but as a party to the dispute.3 Righteousness language takes on at least two significant dimensions in such contexts. First, “justice pronounced” is regularly joined to “justice done.” Or, to put it another way, in the Hebrew Scriptures—and here we are taking not merely words, but their contexts into view—we do not find bare verdicts, but verdicts expressed in vindicating acts.