Pamela Colman Smith · RWS deck
The Major Arcana
Justice
- Hebrew Letter
- LAMED
- Element
- LIBRA
- Path
- Geburah ↔ Tiphereth
- State
- Balance / Inequity
Upright · Balance
Your point of balance is at the correct measure. You are determining and measuring things in their correct proportion and not according to your bias.
Reversed · Inequity
You are often missing the point of topics and therefore not able to fairly measure a determination. The scale hangs uneven, energy is spent without producing what it was aimed at.
The image
An ox goad meets a suspended scale exactly at its fulcrum point, Geburah's cutting severity rendered above, Tiphereth's warm, centered light below. The goad — Lamed's own name — is doing the card's actual work: taking raw force and either directing it cleanly onto the scale's balance point, or missing it.
The scale itself is a genuine convergence rather than a borrowing — Libra's own zodiacal symbol, not an image lifted from anywhere else.
Learn how to read Justice in a spread
This page shows you what Justice means. Knowing how to read it — how it shifts next to the other cards, what the reversal is really telling you, and how to turn a spread into a clear answer — is what the RWS Decoded course and book teach, card by card.
