Musar zu Schemot 23:8

“And you shall not take a bribe” (Exodus 23:8) - even on condition to have the innocent be innocent and the guilty be guilty, and even if the two parties to the argument have agreed to give him a wage together. Thus did our Rabbis, may their memory be blessed, say (Ketuvot 105a): “[Regarding] one who takes a wage to judge, his decisions are null.” But they are permitted to give him the wage of the loss he incurred, in that they disturbed him from his [regular] activities - if the loss is recognizable and fixed, and it is known to people. And [this is] so long as one of them does not give more than his fellow towards the wage of the loss.

Following this injunction, the Torah warns that one should not place obstacles in the path of the blind, an allusion to attempts to bribe judges whose sense of fairness would be blinded by acceptance of a bribe, such as Moses has repeated in Deut. 16,19. There are other dimensions to such bribes, i.e. attempts to trip up the blind, such as the advice given in Jerusalem Talmud Taanit 3,6 "to honour, i.e. send gifts to your physician before you are in need of him." People who do this know that sooner or later they will be in need of the services of a physician, and they want to ensure that they will then get immediate attention. The same is true of someone who is in the habit of sending gifts to a judge. He knows that if ever he will need to have to appear before a judge in litigation, he can choose this judge knowing he will be favourably disposed towards him. The Torah therefore ends the verse with the injunction to fear the Lord your G–d, i.e. that G–d is quite aware of our machinations. This fear of the Lord is something within the province of one's heart.