To BE IN THE RIGHT, be righteous — the root of tsedaqah, 'righteousness,' the noun 'counted' to Abram when he believed (15:6). Its most startling appearance is Judah's confession: tsadqah mimmenni, 'she is more righteous than I' (38:26) — the comparative form, spoken in public by a patriarch about the Canaanite widow who tricked him, and the first honest sentence he speaks in the Bible. The same root gives Noah his description ('a righteous man,' 6:9) and Abraham his argument at Sodom ('will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?', 18:23). → first discussed at Gen 38:26