Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Deuteronomy 17:1
Thou shalt not sacrifice unto the LORD thy God [any] bullock, or sheep, wherein is blemish, [or] any evilfavoredness: for that [is] an abomination unto the LORD thy God.
Deu 16:21 to Deu 17:7. Isolated Group of Laws on Worship
This group of laws against heathen symbols and blemished sacrifices and the worship of other gods all of them abominations to, or hated by, Jehovah is quite isolated, between two sets of laws on judicial procedure, Deu 16:18-20 and Deu 17:8 ff.; and we have seen reasons (above p. 173) for supposing that the whole group originally stood between Deu 12:29-31 and Deu 13:1-18. The notes below will show that there are both similarities and dissimilarities between the two separated sections. The reason which Steuernagel gives for supposing that Deu 16:21 is by another author than that of ch. 12, with a different aim of reform viz. because he speaks only of an altar and does not use the formulas found in 12 for the One Altar is not convincing. With regard to this and the other dissimilarities of the present section from Deu 12:29 to Deu 13:18 it must be remembered that within the latter there are also dissimilarities. Throughout the form of address is in the Sg.: there are some editorial additions.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
This verse belongs in subject to the last chapter. It prohibits once more (compare Deu 15:21) that form of insult to God which consists in offering to Him a blemished sacrifice.
Any evil-favoredness – Render any evil thing. The reference is to the faults or maims enumerated in Lev 22:22-24.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
CHAPTER XVII
All sacrifices to be without blemish, 1.
Of persons consisted of idolatry and their punishment, 2-7.
Difficult matters in judgment to be laid before the priests and
judges, and to be determined by them; and all to submit to their
decision, 8-13.
The king that may be chosen to be one of their brethren; no
stranger to be appointed to that office, 14, 15.
He shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to
return unto Egypt, 16.
Nor multiply wives, money, &c., 17.
He shall write a copy of the law for his own use, and read and
study it all his days, that his heart be not lifted up above
his brethren, 18-20.
NOTES ON CHAP. XVII
Verse 1. Wherein is blemish] God must not have that offered to him which thou wouldst not use thyself. This not only refers to the perfect sacrifice offered by Christ Jesus, but to that sincerity and uprightness of heart which God requires in all those who approach him in the way of worship.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Any bullock or sheep, i.e. either greater or smaller sacrifices, all being comprehended under the two most eminent kinds. See Lev 22:20,21.
An abomination, i.e. abominable, as Deu 18:12.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. Thou shalt not sacrifice . . .any bullock, or sheep, wherein is blemishUnder the name ofbullock were comprehended bulls, cows, and calves; under that ofsheep, rams, lambs, kids, he- and she-goats. An ox, from mutilation,was inadmissible. The qualifications required in animals destined forsacrifice are described (Exo 12:5;Lev 1:3).
De17:2-7. IDOLATERS MUSTBE SLAIN.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Thou shalt not sacrifice unto the Lord thy God any bullock or sheep wherein is blemish,…. No sacrifice of any sort, whether burnt offering, sin offering, or peace offering, was to have any blemish in it; typical of the unblemished and immaculate Lamb of God, who, being without sin, offered himself without spot to God, and so could take away the sins of others by the sacrifice of himself; see Le 22:18,
[or] any evilfavouredness; any sickness or disease upon it of any sort, which made it ill favoured to the sight, or disagreeable to the smell, or however unacceptable for sacrifice:
for that is an abomination to the Lord thy God; every such blemished and ill favoured sacrifice; see Mal 1:8.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Not only did the inclination to nature-worship, such as the setting up of the idols of Ashera and Baal, belong to the crimes which merited punishment, but also a manifest transgression of the laws concerning the worship of Jehovah, such as the offering of an ox or sheep that had some fault, which was an abomination in the sight of Jehovah (see at Lev 22:20.). “ Any evil thing,” i.e., any of the faults enumerated in Lev 22:22-24.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Punishment of Idolatry. | B. C. 1451. |
1 Thou shalt not sacrifice unto the LORD thy God any bullock, or sheep, wherein is blemish, or any evilfavouredness: for that is an abomination unto the LORD thy God. 2 If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant, 3 And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; 4 And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel: 5 Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die. 6 At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death. 7 The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So thou shalt put the evil away from among you.
Here is, I. A law for preserving the honour of God’s worship, by providing that no creature that had any blemish should be offered in sacrifice to him, v. 1. This caveat we have often met with: Thou shalt not sacrifice that which has any blemish, which renders it unsightly, or any evil matter or thing (as the following word night better be rendered), any sickness or weakness, though not discernible at first view; it is an abomination to God. God is the best of beings, and therefore whatsoever he is served with ought to be the best in its kind. And the Old-Testament sacrifices in a special manner must be so, because they were types of Christ, who is a Lamb without blemish or spot (1 Pet. i. 19), perfectly pure from all sin and all appearance of it. In the latter times of the Jewish church, when by the captivity in Babylon they were cured of idolatry, yet they were charged with profaneness in the breach of this law, with offering the blind, and the lame, and the sick for sacrifice, Mal. i. 8.
II. A law for the punishing of those that worshipped false gods. It was made a capital crime to seduce others to idolatry (ch. xiii.), here it is made no less to be seduced. If the blind thus mislead the blind, both must fall into the ditch. Thus God would possess them with a dread of that sin, which they must conclude exceedingly sinful when so many sanguinary laws were made against it, and would deter those from it that would not otherwise be persuaded against it; and yet the law, which works death, proved ineffectual. See here,
1. What the crime was against which this law was levelled, serving or worshipping other gods, v. 3. That which was the most ancient and plausible idolatry is specified, worshipping the sun, moon, and stars; and, if that was so detestable a thing, much more was it so to worship stocks and stones, or the representations of mean and contemptible animals. Of this it is said, (1.) That it is what God had not commanded. He had again and again forbidden it; but it is thus expressed to intimate that, if there had been no more against it, this had been enough (for in the worship of God his institution and appointment must be our rule and warrant), and that God never commanded his worshippers to debase themselves so far as to do homage to their fellow-creatures: had God commanded them to do it, they might justly have complained of it as a reproach and disparagement to them; yet, when he has forbidden it, they will, from a spirit of contradiction, put this indignity upon themselves. (2.) That it is wickedness in the sight of God, v. 2. Be it ever so industriously concealed, he sees it, and, be it ever so ingeniously palliated, he hates it: it is a sin in itself exceedingly heinous, and the highest affront that can be offered to Almighty God. (3.) That it is a transgression of the covenant. It was on this condition that God took them to be his peculiar people, that they should serve and worship him only as their God, so that if they gave to any other the honour which was due to him alone that covenant was void, and all the benefit of it forfeited. Other sins were transgressions of the command, but this was a transgression of the covenant. It was spiritual adultery, which breaks them marriage bond. (4.) That it is abomination in Israel, v. 4. Idolatry was bad enough in any, but it was particularly abominable in Israel, a people so blessed with peculiar discoveries of the will and favour of the only true and living God.
2. How it must be tried. Upon information given of it, or any ground of suspicion that any person whatsoever, man or woman, had served other gods, (1.) Enquiry must be made, v. 4. Though it appears not certain at first, it may afterwards upon search appear so; and, if it can possibly be discovered, it must not be unpunished; if not, yet the very enquiry concerning it would possess the country with a dread of it. (2.) Evidence must be given in, v. 6. How heinous and dangerous soever the crime is, yet they must not punish any for it, unless there were good proof against them, by two witnesses at least. They must not, under pretence of honouring God, wrong an innocent man. This law, which requires two witnesses in case of life, we had before, Num. xxxv. 30; it is quoted, Matt. xviii. 16.
3. What sentence must be passed and executed. So great a punishment as death, so great a death as stoning, must be inflicted on the idolater, whether man or woman, for the infirmity of the weaker sex would be no excuse, v. 5. The place of execution must be the gate of the city, that the shame might be the greater to the criminal and the warning the more public to all others. The hands of the witnesses, in this as in other cases, must be first upon him, that is, they must cast the first stone at him, thereby avowing their testimony, and solemnly imprecating the guilt of his blood upon themselves if their evidence were false. This custom might be of use to deter men from false-witness bearing. The witnesses are really, and therefore it was required that they should be actually, the death of the malefactor. But they must be followed, and the execution completed, by the hands of all the people, who were thus to testify their detestation of the crime and to put the evil away from among them, as before, ch. xiii. 9.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
DEUTERONOMY – CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Verse 1:
This is a repetition of the regulation given in Lev 22:17-24.
“Evil-favoredness,” dabar ra, “evil thing,” a defect or blemish of any kind. To offer such upon the altar of Jehovah would profane His service, and thus be an abomination before Him.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
THE RECAPITULATION OF THE LAW
Deu 5:1 to Deu 26:19 record for us a recapitulation of the Law. The study of this section sets out clearly certain fundamental truths.
The Decalog is repeated with significant variations. Chapter 5, fundamental to all the laws of God is the Decalog. In Exodus, Moses delivered the same as he brought it from the tip of the fingers Divine. In Deuteronomy, the Law is given again. From the first to the tenth commandment, the very language of Exodus is employed, save in the instance of the fourth. Here, the reason assigned to the Jew for keeping the Sabbath, is strangely and significantly changed, namely, from because the Lord in six days made heaven and earth and rested on the seventh day, to Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm; therefore, the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day (Deu 5:15).
This change is so strange and so unexpected that it arrests immediate attention and demands adequate explanation. Why did God shift the reason for keeping the Sabbath from the finished creation to a completed redemption? The answer is not difficult. In the Divine plan, redemption is a far greater event than creation; the soul of man exceeds the weight of the world; for that matter, of all worlds. The Law was given by Moses, but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ. The Law was given for Jews; the Gentiles were never in bondage to it, and above all, believing Gentiles are not bound by it. To them, the Law is not a great external or outside force created for practices of restraint. Its spirit is transcribed to their souls rather; they walk at liberty while seeking Divine precepts. This is not to inveigh against the Law. The Law is just, and true and good, but by Law no man has ever been redeemed. It is to exalt Grace, which God hath revealed through Jesus Christ, in whom men have redemption from sin. If I only love my father and mother because the Law commands it, I do not love them at all; if I refrain from making images and bowing down before them because this is the demand of the Law, my heart may yet be as full of idolatry as a heathen temple. Redemption is not by the Law; it is by Grace in Jesus Christ!
The early Church was shortly called upon to settle this question of salvation by Law or Grace, and in the Jerusalem Conference Peter rose up and said unto them,
Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the Word of the Gospel, and believe.
And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us;
And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.
Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? (Act 15:7-10).
Later he said, We believe that through the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ (not by Law) we shall be saved, even as they (Act 15:7-11). Mark you, in that very sentence, Peter, the Apostle, proves his realization of the fact that the Law had failed as a savior and the very Jew himself had hope alone in grace. How strange, then, for men of the Twentieth Century to turn back to Law and proclaim the Law as though it were a redeemer, and protest that men who ignore the Jewish Saturday as the Sabbath will plunge themselves into the pit thereby, when the Law never saved! The keeping of the Sabbath was the one Law that contained in itself no ethical demand. The Law to worship, the Law to honor father and mother, the Law against killing, stealing and covetousnessthese are all questions of right and wrong; but to tithe time by the keeping of the Sabbath was a command solely in the interest of mans physical life. When, therefore, by the pen of inspiration the reason for it was shifted from a finished creation to a finished redemption, the act was lifted at once to a high spiritual level and became a symbol of the day when Christ, risen from the grave, should have completed redemptions plan. That great fortune to mankind fell out on the first day of the week, creating not so much a Christian Sabbath as making forever a memorial day for redemption itself, for the eighth day, or the first day of the week, clearly indicated the new order of things, or the new creation through Christ.
We have no sympathy whatever with secularizing each one of the seven days; but we would have the first day of the week kept in the spirit of rejoicing as redemptions memorial. On that day our Lord rose from the dead; on that day He met his disciples again and again; on that day the brethren at Troas assembled with the Apostles and broke bread; on that day the Christians laid aside their offerings; on that day they met for prayer and breaking of breadthe fellowship of the saints; on that day John was caught up in the spirit and witnessed the marvels recorded in his apocalyptic vision. Oh, what a day! No legal bondage, for what have we to do with holy days, sabbaths and new moons; but salvations memorial, a day of special service to the Son of God, our Saviour, a day for the souls rejoicing in Jesus. Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth.
But as we pass on in the study of this section of Scripture, we find Moses defends the Decalog in character and consequence. He reminds them of the glory out of which the voice spake (Deu 5:24). He reminds them of the obligation in the words themselves (Deu 5:32). He reminds them of the relationship of the possession of the land to obedience of the precepts. He pleads with them as a father, Hear, therefore, O Israel (Deu 6:4). He anticipates the day of prophecy and begs that these words have place in their hearts (Deu 6:6), to be diligently taught to their children (Deu 6:7); bound for a sign upon their hands and frontlets between their eyes, lest they be forgotten (Deu 6:8); written upon the posts of the house and on the gates, where they could not be unobserved (Deu 6:9). Moses knew the relationship of law-keeping to national living. It is doubtful if modernists now have or will ever again entertain the same sacred reverence for Law that characterized the ancients, even the heathen of far-off days.
We cannot forget how Socrates, when he was sentenced to death and, after an imprisonment of thirty days, was to drink the juice of the hemlock, spent his time preparing for the end; friends conceived and executed plans for his escape and earnestly endeavored to prevail upon him to avail himself of the opportunity, but he answered, That would be a crime to violate the law even when the sentence is unjust. I would rather die than do evil. If a heathen philosopher could treat unjust laws with such reverence, Moses was justified in pleading with his people to regard the laws that were true and just and good, and such were the mandates of Deuteronomy.
It is easy enough for one to pick out some one of these precepts and, by detaching it from its context, create the impression that it was foolish or superficial or even utterly unjust; but when one reads the whole Book, he sees the effectual relationship of laws, general and particular, to the life Israel was leading, and for that matter, catches the supreme spiritual significance of the same as they interpret themselves in the light of New Testament teaching. There is not a warning that was not needed, nor an exhortation which, if heeded, would have failed to profit the people. It all came to one conclusion for Israel.
What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul (Deu 10:12)?
And as there was not a law in the Old Testament but was fitted for the profit of Israel, so there is not a command in the New Testament but looks to the conquest of the Christian soul.
Among these enactments were personal and significant suggestions. They gave dietary and sanitary suggestions (Deuteronomy 14); they established the Sabbatic year (Deuteronomy 13); they fixed the time of the Passover (Deuteronomy 16); they set forth the character of the offerings (Deuteronomy 17); they determined the duties of the Levites (Deuteronomy 18); they gave direction concerning the cities of refuge (Deuteronomy 19); they determined the way of righteous warfare (chap. 20); they established a court of inquest (Deuteronomy 21); they announced the law of brotherhood (Deuteronomy 22); they descended to the minute instances of social life and regulations of the same (Deuteronomy 23); they dealt with the great and difficult question of divorce (Deuteronomy 24); they ended (Deuteronomy 23) in an almost unlimited series of regulations concerning the social life of the people knowing a wilderness experience, including the law of the first fruits (Deuteronomy 26).
It is interesting to study not alone the laws enacted here, but the penalties declared, including the blessings and curses from Ebal to Gerizim. There is about them all an innate righteousness that has been unknown to those purely human codes for which God never assumed responsibility. From the curse against bribery to the curse against brutal murder to this day the sentences are justified in the judgment of the worlds most thoughtful men.
In all they contrast the injustice and inordinately severe punishments often afflicted by godless governments. Plutarch, in writing about Solon, tells us that he repealed the laws of Draco except those concerning murder. Such was the severity of their punishments in proportion to the offense that we are amazed as we read them. If one was convicted of idleness, death was the penalty. If one stole a few apples or potherbs, he must surely die, and by as ignominious a method as did the murderer. And out of that grew the saying of Demades that Draco wrote his laws, not with ink but with blood. And when Draco was asked why such severe penalties, he answered, Small ones deserve it, and I can find no greater for the most heinous. Such were human laws in contrast to these laws Divine.
But a further study of these laws involves a third lesson.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
CRITICAL REMARKS.Israel not only had tendency to idolatry, but inclination to offer animals with faults and to transgress the laws of worship. Blemishes named in Leviticus 22.
Deu. 17:2-7. Idolaters slain. Done wickedness, lit. the wickedness, the special sin denounced. Facts were to be enquired into, the charge substantiated. Two witnessses were needful (Num. 25:14) to condemn. Thy gates, where judicial proceedings took place (cf. Neh. 8:1-3; Job. 29:7). The sentence executed outside the town, as it had been outside the camp in the wilderness (Lev. 24:14; Num. 15:36), to indicate the exclusion of the criminal from the congregation, and from fellowship with Godput away, lit. consume, set fire to, destroy by burning; hence to root out, remove, annihilate.
Deu. 17:8-13. The Higher Judicial Court at the Sanctuary. Too hard. Deu. 17:8. The transition is obvious for enactments of capital crimes to obscure and difficult cases; cases like that brought before Moses (Exo. 18:23-27). In future judges of the different towns were to bring all cases which they were unable to decide, before the priests, the Levites and the judge that shall be in those days. Deu. 17:9. The judge would no doubt be a layman, and thus the court would contain both an ecclesiastical and civil element. (Speak. Com.) Deu. 17:10. This superior court was not a court of appeal to adjudicate on verdicts given by another court. Its decisions were final and authoritative; founded on lawthe suitors must obey them as the voice of Jehovah. Deu. 17:12. Do presumptuously. If a person was refractory and disobedient he would be put to death as a rebel against God.
Deu. 17:14-20. The choice and duties of a king. The choice of a king is not like that of judges and officers (16), enjoined, but simply permitted. The reason is obvious. Provision for due administration of justice is essential; that justice should be dispensed through monarchial forms is not so; and is accordingly only recognised as an arrangement, which might probably result on the settlement and consolidation of the people in Canaan. (Speak. Com.)
Deu. 17:16-20. Three rules given for the guidance of the king. He was not to keep many horses and thus lead back the people to Egypt, from which God had delivered them. He must trust in God, not in warlike preparations. Deu. 17:17. Nor to have many wives, lest his heart should be turned from God. Lastly, he must not accumulate a vast treasure, by engaging in foreign commerce. Solomon transgressed this rule (2Ch. 1:15), and was imitated by Uzziah (2Ch. 26:2). Deu. 17:18. Instead of minding earthly things he must meditate in the law; copy it himself or have a copy written for him; daily consult it, to keep him from pride and error; to prolong his own life and secure the crown to his posterity.
BLEMISHED SACRIFICES.Deu. 17:1
Sacrifices are of divine origin, and God alone can specify what kind will be acceptable to him. Animals perfect and uninjured were always to be offered (Exo. 12:5; Lev. 1:3).
I. God requires perfect sacrifices. No blemish. There must be no flaw in character, obedience, and life. No hypocrisy in worship and profession. Nothing ill-favoured and unsightly. Our sacrifices must befit the sacred purpose for which they are offered, and be the symbol of the moral integrity of those who offer them. Whatsoever hath a blemish, that shall ye not offer: for it shall not be acceptable for you.
II. Men offer imperfect sacrifices. Many things are withheld which God demands, and things which are offered are lame and blind. They are blemished, defective in spirit and measure. We keep back part of our time and the best of our service. They are tainted with worldly influence, half-heartedness, selfishness, and reluctance. Should I accept this at your hand?
III. How then can our sacrifices be acceptable to God? Not through our merits, but the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. In ancient time animals were not accepted so much on account of their perfect, physical organisation, or intrinsic excellence, as their typical value. They were selected and offered on behalf of the guilty. When offered in penitence and faith they were received. If we come in rectitude of heart, God will pardon and bless. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works, to serve the living God?
THE DETECTION AND PUNISHMENT OF GUILT.Deu. 17:2-7
The duties of magistrates are again enjoined, and special forms legalised to detect and punish idolators.
I. The detection of guilt. Actions speak louder than words. If a man or woman served other gods it would be known and talked about. But crime was discovered.
1. Not by mere report. It be told thee. Reports do mischief, and must be sifted before circulated. They were not to act on hearsay, or under prejudice and excitement.
2. Honest enquiry was made. Inquired diligently. Flying rumours were judicially examined. Diligent search might substantiate the report. If not, a salutary dread would impress the people.
3. The offence proved by competent witnesses. Not by the testimony of one, but of two or three witnesses was the guilty punished (Deu. 17:6). This was a safeguard against a hasty and unjust verdict. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established (2Co. 13:1).
II. The punishment of the guilty. He that is worthy of death be put to death (Deu. 17:6).
1. The witnesses must lead (Deu. 17:7). This would check false witness, and ensure truthfulness and sincerity. It would be a public avowal of their testimony, and a proof that the sin had met its due punishment.
2. The punishment was inflicted openly. At the gates. Condemned criminals were executed outside the walls, and thus put to greater shame as a warning to others. This was a type of the rejection of Jesus, who suffered without the camp, and bore our reproach (Heb. 13:12.)
3. All the people took part. The hands of the witness first, and then the people (Deu. 17:7). All are interested in checking crime, and all must be purified when it is detected. God will have no rival. Idolatary of every degree and description is a capital crime, and death is decreed as its penalty. We must detest it, uproot it in our hearts and customs. So thou shalt put the evil away from among you.
IDOLATRY, A GRIEVOUS SIN
I. It is offensive to God. The wickedness in the sight of the Lord.
1. A violation of His covenant. In transgressing His covenant (Deu. 17:2). Concealed or open, cultured or gross in form, it robbed God of His due. It was spiritual adultery which breaks the marriage bond, says Henry. It rendered void the covenant, and therefore forfeited all its blessings.
2. A defeating of His purpose. Israel was chosen to be a holy people and to preserve purity of worship, but idolatry defeated this object.
II. It is injurious to society. Abomination wrought in Israel (Deu. 17:4). It extinguishes the light and impaires the moral sensibilities of the nation. It breaks the moral bonds and creates debasing habits in society. It is the spring of possest immorality. An act of treason and rebellion against the majesty of Heaven.
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Deu. 17:4-5. Precautions in search of the truth. Told thee privately, and in confidence; thou hast heard of it, therefore notorious, a public scandal and likely to be true; enquired diligently, sought to find out the truth, by careful examination of persons and circumstances: behold it is true, not founded on vague rumour or malice; the thing certain, proved by the clearest evidence; then bring forth the man, etc. (Deu. 17:5). The charge of idolatry was the most solemn and awful that could be brought against an Israelite, because it affected his life; therefore, God required that the charge should be substantiated by most unequivocal facts, and most competent witnesses. Hence all the precautions mentioned must be carefully used, to arrive at so affecting, and so awful a truth.(Ad. Clarke.)
The Sacredness of Human Life.
1. A man thought innocent until proved guilty.
2. A fair trial to establish the guilt.
3. The method of punishing guilt a wise procedure. (a) Interesting the people in its detection and punishment. (b) Securing moral certainty in truthful verdict. (c) Economy in judicial administration.
Witnesses inflicting punishment.
1. To deter from rash accusation.
2. To check the evil thus punished. A rule which would naturally lead to the supposition that no man would come forward as a witness without the fullest certainty or the greatest depravity. (Keil). He assigned this part to the witnesses, chiefly because there are so many whose tongue is so slippery, not to say good for nothing, that they would boldly strangle a man with their words, when they would not dare to touch him with one of their fingers. It was the best remedy, therefore, that could be tried for restraining such levity, to refuse to admit the testimony of any man who was not ready to execute judgment with his own hand.(Calvin.)
DECISION OF CONTROVERSIES.Deu. 17:8-13
In all evil and criminal cases where doubts and difficulties were involved, local magistrates were to submit them to the supreme council for final decision. From this decision there must be no swerving right or left.
I. Human interests often perplex. A matter too hard for thee in judgment. Cases were often complicated and obscure, too hard for inferior judges to decide.
1. They spring up in small circles, within thy gates (Deu. 17:8). In towns and villages difficult questions have to be consideredpoor laws, sanitary measures, and bitter cries in many forms. Often the smaller the circle the more perplexing the problem.
2. They relate to civil matters. Cases of murder or death, accidentally or wilfully, between blood and blood contending parties in law suits, between plea and plea. Actions of assault or bodily injury, between stroke and stroke. Society is not perfect. Men are selfish, cruel and disobedient. The wisest rules are often unable to solve the controversy within the gates. That which is crooked cannot be made straight.
II. The court of appeal to settle these interests. Courts of judgment were in every city (Deu. 16:18), empowered to determine cases of the crown and of the people.
1. Composed of appointed officers. Thou shalt come unto the priests, the Levites, and unto the judge. Representatives of God in every department of life must be expounders of law and examples of justice.
2. Assembled in one place. Get thee up into the place which the Lord thy God shall choose (Deu. 17:8). The sittings were held near the sanctuary, that in great emergencies the high priest might consult the Urim (Num. 27:21). The house of God is the place of righteousness and the seat of learning. We must come not only to meditate and praise, but to enquire from His servants and word. Ask now the priests concerning the law.
III. The importance of the decision given by this court. This was the highest judicial authority and its decisions were most important.
1. They were legally right. They shall show thee the sentence of judgment (Deu. 17:9). In harmony with the will of God and the interests of the suitors. Not the result of worldly wisdom but of divine teaching.
2. They were binding in authority. No appeal from this judgment. It was was the law of God, not the enactment of men. a. Obedience was enforced. Thou shalt do. We must receive the truth, not as the word of man, but the word of God. b. Disobedience was punished. The man that would not hearken but acted presumptuously must die. Resistance was rebellion, which was severely rebuked, condemned and punished. It was striving with the priest (Hos. 4:4) and contending with God. What shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel of God?
3. They were benevolent in their aim. That the people might hear and fear and do no more presumptuously (Deu. 17:13). To check evil, keep humble, and promote order and righteousness. For the punishment of evil doers and the praise of them that do well.
SOCIETYS WELFARE PROMOTED
Mankind are associated together for something more than to eat, sleep, and secure protection. They co-exist for mutual intercourse, mutual help and the advancement of present and eternal good. This is accomplished
I. By legal tribunals. Since society is not human in its origin, conventional in its principals, and accidental in its destination, its institutions must harmonise with its character and aim. Government is needful to its existence and welfare. Courts of justice are tribunals to defend right, truth, and liberty. God who lays upon mankind the necessity of appointing rulers, has laid upon rulers the necessity of rewarding good and punishing evil. Resistance tends to weaken government and create disorder. Let every good soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained (ordered) of God.
II. By the co-operation of all its functions. We have different classes, different ranks and various interests among men. But in politital, ecclesiastical and civil matters, the good of the whole should be consulted. Priests and ministers of religion may enlighten the public conscience and expound the law. Judges and magistrates may administer that law for the punishment of evil doers and for the praise of them that do well. There should be no invasion of rights and no alienation of ranks; no miscarriage of justice and no schism in the body. There are many departments with one interest and end; diversities of operation with the same spirit.
Heaven forming each on other to depend
A master, or a servant, or a friend,
Bids each on other for assistance call,
Till one mans weakness grows the strength of all.
III. By upholding the authority of Gods Word. The law must be honoured and upheld. This is the only guarantee of order, prosperity and morality. It should be the ruling principle of kings, parliaments, and people. It should regulate the counsels of statesmen and the maxims of lawyers; reign in the country and the colonies, in the cottage and the court. This is the sweet ground on which a nations prosperity can rest and rise to the highest pitch. Institutions and enterprises, thrones and empires that disregard the word of God will fall, and great will be their fall. When the law of God is exalted there will be security of thy times, riches of salvation, of wisdom and knowledge. Fear of Jehovah is then the treasure of Judah (Isa. 33:6).
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Deu. 17:8-13. There is a misconception of this passage. The argument built upon it by the most able Romish controversialists is, that here plainly the Bible is not enough; that you are to go to a judge, the priest to get his opinion and his decision, and if you will not accept it, that then you are to be anathematized and expelled. But just mark a few distinctions overlooked in such a statement. First, it is not to hear a controversy about doctrine, but a controversy about blood, and plea, and stroke,civil matters. Secondly, when there is a controversy, it is not the high priest that is to decide it; but it is the priest or the Levitea laymanor the judgea layman also. Therefore if they will quote this passage as a precedent for Papal infallibility, deciding doctrinal discussions and expelling them that will not submit to it, they ought to quote fully; and if they quote fully, they will see it is not controversy about doctrine, but about civil matters; and next, that the controversy is to be appealed not to an ecclesiastic only, but to a layman as well.(Dr. Cumming.)
Deu. 17:9-10.Duties of priests to expound the law, of judges to administer it, and of the people to ascertain it. The law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet.
Deu. 17:12-13. Presumptuous sins.
1. Resistance to priests when dissatisfied with interpretation of law.
2. Resistance to judges when discontented with sentence or decisions given. Such refractory conduct worthy of death. Presumptuous are they and self-willed. Keep back thy servant from presumptuous sin.
THE CHOICE AND DUTY OF A KING.Deu. 17:14-20
If Israel should wish for a king when they possessed the land, God gave permission to choose one under His direction. The appointment of a king is not commanded, like the institution of judges (Deu. 16:18), because Israel could exist under the government of Jehovah without an earthly king; it is simply permitted, in case the need should arise for a regal government. (Keil.)
I. The choice of a king. Moses foresaw the nations wish to have a king, and is taught to legislate for his choice and conduct (cf. 1Sa. 8:10-12).
1. According to Divine arrangement. Set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose. The people might select, but subject somehow to Divine approval. Kings are Gods vice-regents, and He nominates when nations elect them. Gods will should direct and determine our choice. The people are reproved for acting in forgetfulness. They have set up kings, but not by me (Hos. 8:4).
2. Not from a strange nation. Not a stranger over thee which is not thy brother. Kings must own their kinship to the people and act as brothers, not as Eastern despots nor royal castes. A gentile head for a Jewish nation would be strange, might defeat the end in view in separating that nation from others, and introduce strange customs and foreign alliances.
II. The duties of the king. These are specified.
1. Negatively. (a) He is not to depend upon horses. Not multiply horses (Deu. 17:16). His trust must not be in horses and chariots and warlike preparations, but in the living God. Egypt furnished Canaan with horses (1Ki. 10:28-29), and they might be endangered by alliance, and tainted by idolatry. Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help, and stay on horses etc. (Isa. 31:1). (b) Not to be seduced by many wives. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself. No harem must be kept to gratify the love of pleasure. His heart must not be turned away from business and works of piety. When Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods (1Ki. 11:1-4). (c) Not to accumulate riches. Neither shall he greatly mulitiply to himself silver and gold. Desire for wealth might lead to oppression and injustice. Riches produce pride, and we are not to trust in uncertain riches.
2. Positively. (a) He must copy the law, or some qualified scribe must copy it for him. This would inure himself to labour and study, enlighten and impress his mind. The Word of God must not only be written on parchment, but imprinted on the mind and heart. (b) He must read it when copied. He shall read therein. It is not enough to have the Bible in the cabinet, or in the drawer; we must read it. Read it daily, read it all through life as our guide and companion. Alexander valued Homer most highly and Scipio Africanus would scarcely allow Xenophons Cyclopedia to be put out of sight. The king of Israel was to study Gods word, and meditate therein day and night.
EARTHLY KINGS UNDER THE POWER OF THE HEAVENLY KING
I. In the method of their election. None chosen without Gods permission, or if chosen, elected without His providence. The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will (Dan. 4:32; Dan. 5:21).
II. In the laws by which they govern. Good laws are made by good men, and good men are the gift of God. Bad laws are often overruled for the good of men. Of law, says Hooker, these can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of Godher voice the harmony of the world.
III. In the duration of their reignGod can lengthen or shorten their days. He puts down one and sets up another. He changeth the times and the seasons: He removeth kings and setteth up kings (Dan. 2:21).
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Deu. 17:14. Anticipated provisions. Regal government not enjoined, almost discountenanced and forbidden, but future provision made and rules of conduct given. So in Christian history and Christian life.
Deu. 17:16. Horses. As horses appear to have been generally furnished by Egypt, God prohibits these.
1. Lest these should be such commerce with Egypt as might lead to idolatry.
2. Lest the people might depend upon a well appointed cavalry as a means of security and so cease trusting in the strength and protection of God. And
3. That they might not be tempted to extend their dominion by means of cavalry and so get scattered among the surrounding idolatrous nations, and thus cease in process of time to be that distinct and separate people which God intended they should be; and without which the prophecies relative to the Messiah, could not be known to have the due and full accomplishment.A. Clarke.
Deu. 17:18. Write a copy.
1. A standard of reference. Probably an autograph kept in the tabernacle by the priests.
2. A preventative from error. Possibly every copy was revised by priests and compared to the original.
3. A provision for the future. Former copies would bear out, but new ones were to be made. Thus the Word of God has been handed down from age to age.
Deu. 17:18-19. Observe on this passage
1. That it was the surest way to bring the Israelitish king to an acquaintance with the divine law, to oblige him to write out a fair copy of it with his own hand.
2. He has to read this law diligently and constantly; neither the greatness of his place nor the height and multitude of his business must excuse or hinder him.
3. It is not enough to have Bibles, but we must use them; yea, use them daily. Our souls must have constant meals of that manna, which, if well digested, will afford them true nourishment and strength.J. Wilson. The king, even the king, was not to employ an amenuensis, but was himself to write out a copy of the law. Evidently the reason was, what you read rapidly you forget rapidly, but if you sit down and write, and that carefully and in the best handwriting that you can, texts from the Bible, you will recollect them much more easily. And no doubt the object of making the king write it out for himself was that it might be impressed upon his mind and heart the more.Dr. Cumming.
Deu. 17:19-20. Proper reading of Scripture will beget
1. A right state of mind. That his heart be not lifted up. Deep humility becomes all students.
2. Reverence for Divine authority. The fear of God and regard for His statutes.
3. Conscientious obedience to Divine lawTo do them. or daily reading of the law.
(1) To learn to fear God.
(2) To be kept from pride.
(3) To prevent apostacy, and
(4) to secure the possesion of the throne. Elevation begets pride and pride independence. Charles the Great set the crown upon the Bible. The Bible is the best support of the crown and kingdom.
With him. As his vade mecum, his manual, his running library, the man of his counsel. Luther said he would not live in Paradise without the Bible, as with it he could easily live in hell itself.Trapp.
That his heart be not lifted up. Observe
1. It is here intimated that the Scriptures diligently read are a powerful means to keep a person humble, because they show that, though a king, he is subject to a higher monarch, to whom he must give an account of all his administrations, and receive from him his sentence agreeably to their quality, which is sufficient to abate the haughtiest person in the world.
2. That the greatest monarch may receive more benefit by the Scriptures than by all the wealth and power of his monarchy. An attentive, prayerful, believing perusal of the Bible will be of advantage.
(1) To His person. He shall prolong his days in his kingdom. We find in the history of the kings of Judah, that generally the best reigns were the longest, except when God shortened them for the punishment of the people, as Josiahs.
(2) To his family; his children shall also prosper. Entail religion upon posterity and God will entail a blessing upon it.J. Wilson.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 17
Deu. 17:1. Blemish. Remember that God will not be mocked; that it is the heart of the worshipper which he regards. We are never safe till we love Him with our whole heart whom we pretend to worship.Bp. Henshawe.
Deu. 17:2-7. There is but one true God, who made heaven and earth, and sea and winds; but the fully and madness of mankind brought in images as representatives of God (Rom. 1:22-23). All the princes of the earth hath not had so many subjects betrayed and made traitors by their enemies as God hath lost souls by the means of idolatry and images.Bp. Hooker.
Enquire diligently, Deu. 17:4.
Believe not each accusing tongue,
As most weak persons do;
But still believe that story wrong
Which ought not to be true.
Sheridan.
Deu. 17:8-13. Too hard. The greatest difficulties lie where we are not looking for them.(Goethe.) Controversy, Deu. 17:8. Many controversies grow up about religion, as suckers from the root and limbs of a fruit tree, which spend the vital sap that should make it fruitful.(Flavel.) Sentence of judgment, Deu. 17:9. The main strength and force of a law consists in the penalty annexed to it.Blackstone.
Sovereign law, that states collected will
Oer thrones and globes elate,
Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.
Sir W. Jones.
Deu. 17:14-15. King over thee. Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. (Burke.) Horses. For stateliness and majesty what is comparable to a horse?Sir T. More.
Deu. 17:18-20. A book. Bishop Hooker, in a dedication to king Edward VI., remarked, God in heaven, and the king on earth, hath not a greater friend than the Bible. The Bible is the foundation of all good government, as it instructs rulers and subjects in their respective duties. A French lady once said to Lord Chesterfield that she thought the Parliament of England consisted of five or six hundred of the best informed and most sensible men in the kingdom. True, madam, they are generally supposed to be so. What then, my lord, can be the reason that they tolerate so great an absurdity as the Christian religion? I suppose, madam, replied his lordship, it is because they have not been able to substitute anything better in its stead; when they can, I do not doubt but in their wisdom they will readily adopt it.Whitecross.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
4. GENERAL RULES FOR OBSERVANCE
(Deu. 16:16-17; Deu. 16:21-22; Deu. 17:1)
16 Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before Jehovah thy God in the place which he shall choose: in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles; and they shall not appear before Jehovah empty: 17 every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of Jehovah thy God which he hath given thee.
21 Thou shalt not plant thee an Asherah of any kind of tree beside the altar of Jehovah thy God, which thou shalt make thee. 22 Neither shalt thou set thee up a pillar; which Jehovah thy God hateth.
Thou shalt not sacrifice unto Jehovah thy God an ox, or a sheep, wherein is a blemish, or any thing evil; for that is an abomination unto Jehovah thy God.
THOUGHT QUESTIONS 16:16, 17, 21, 22; 17:1
285.
To what place does Deu. 16:16 allude?
286.
What was to be given by every man? In what attitude?
287.
What a strange prohibition! Who would consider such a strange admixture of Jehovah and Asherah? Cf. Deu. 16:21.
288.
If a man did not have a healthy animal to offer to the Lord what should he do?
AMPLIFIED TRANSLATION 16:16, 17, 21, 22; 17:1
16 Three times a year shall all your males appear before the Lord your God in the place which He chooses, in the feast of unleavened bread, in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles or booths. They shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed;
17 Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which He has given you.
21 You shall not plant you any kind of tree as an Asherah beside the altar of the Lord your God which you shall make.
22 Neither shall you set up an idolatrous stone or image, which the Lord your God hates.
You shall not sacrifice to the Lord your God an ox or sheep with a blemish or any defect whatever; for that is an abomination to the Lord your God.
COMMENT 16:16, 17, 21, 22; 17:1
EVERY MAN SHALL GIVE AS HE IS ABLE (Deu. 16:17)This was true of the giving required at these feasts (whether the offerings specified were for the particular feast, or free-will offerings) and all through the ages. Paul asked each Corinthian Christian to lay by him in store, as he may prosper (1Co. 16:2). For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according as a man hath, not according as he hath not (See 2Co. 8:3; 2Co. 8:12).
THOU SHALT NOT PLANT THEE AN ASHERAH OF ANY KIND OF TREE BESIDE THE ALTAR (Deu. 16:21)See Deu. 7:2; Deu. 7:5, notes; Deu. 12:1-4. An Asherah of any kind of tree (or, as otherwise rendered, an asherah [or pole] of any wood) has reference to the idols of wood that were made to this female diety. The commentators are not altogether agreed as to whether the name Asherah is the name of a distinct goddess, as well as the poles, stumps, or stems which represented her; or whether the notorious Ashtoreth (Astarte) was herself worshipped under these obscene images.[34] In any case the rites associated with the Asherahs were immoralinvolving the glorificationeven dieficationof sexual passion.
[34] Rotherham, in a Special Note on the Destruction of the Canaanite Nations. It is difficult to find cultured words to express the grossness of the immorality associated with these idols.
Note here that God did not want his worship associated in any way with idolatry and such sensual and evil rites as accompanied it. Yet there was apparently the possibility that there would be an attempt to blend the true religion of God with the Asherah. So the later statements that Israel feared Jehovah and served other gods.
THOU SHALT NOT SACRIFICE . . . OX . . . SHEEP, WHEREIN IS A BLEMISH (Deu. 17:1)See also Deu. 15:21, Lev. 22:19-25. It seems probable that this exhortation was given in connection with the sacrifices to be offered at the three major festivals just mentioned.
Such animals could be eaten, but not sacrificed to God. There is surely a parallel here between what God demanded in an Old Testament sacrifice, and the life he expects us, through Christ, to give to him as a Christian. We are to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God (See Rom. 12:1-2). And how thankful we can be that the perfect sacrifice of Christ compensates for our imperfection!
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
LESSON FOURTEEN Deu. 16:18-20; Deu. 17:2 to Deu. 18:22
e. THE LEADERS OF GODS PEOPLE (Deu. 16:18-20; Deu. 17:2 to Deu. 18:22)
(Laws concerning Judges, kings, priests, and prophets)
(1) JUDGES (Deu. 16:18-20; Deu. 17:2-13)
18 Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates, which Jehovah thy God giveth thee, according to thy tribes; and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. 19 Thou shalt not wrest justice: thou shalt not respect persons; neither shalt thou take a bribe; for a bribe doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous. 20 That which is altogether just shalt thou follow, that thou mayest live, and inherit the land which Jehovah thy God giveth thee.
2 If there be found in the midst of thee, within any of thy gates which Jehovah thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that doeth that which is evil in the sight of Jehovah thy God, in transgressing his covenant, 3 and hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, or the sun, or the moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; 4 and it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, then shalt thou inquire diligently; and, behold, if it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel, 5 then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, who hath done this evil thing, unto thy gates, even the man or the woman; and thou shalt stone them to death with stones. 6 At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shalt he that is to die be put to death; at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death. 7 The hand of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So thou shalt put away the evil from the midst of thee.
8 If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates; then shalt thou arise, and get thee up unto the place which Jehovah thy God shall choose; 9 and thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days: and thou shalt inquire; and they shall show thee the sentence of judgment. 10 And thou shalt do according to the tenor of the sentence which they shall show thee from that place which Jehovah shall choose; and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they shall teach thee: 11 according to the tenor of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do; thou shalt not turn aside from the sentence which they shall show thee, to the right hand, nor to the left. 12 And the man that doeth presumptuously, in not hearkening unto the priest that standeth to minister there before Jehovah thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die: and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel. 13 And all the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously.
THOUGHT QUESTIONS 16:1820; 17:2-13
289.
Think carefully about the full meaning of the term judge as used here; to what office or work does this term compare in our day? A lawyer?
290.
How could justice be wrested?
291.
Approximate a circumstance in which a bribe could be attractive.
AMPLIFIED TRANSLATION 16:1820; 17:2-13
18 You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns which the Lord your God gives you, according to your tribes; and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.
19 You shall not misinterpret or misapply judgment; you shall not be partial, or take a bribe; for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise, and perverts the words of the righteous.
20 Follow what is altogether just [that is, uncompromisingly righteous], that you may live and inherit the land which your God gives you.
2 If there is found among you, within any of your towns which the Lord your God gives you, a man or woman who does what is wicked in the sight of the Lord your God, by transgressing His covenant,
3 Who has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or moon or any of the host of the heavens, which I have forbidden,
4 And it is told and you hear of it; then inquire diligently, and if it is certainly true that such an abomination has been committed in Israel,
5 Then you shall bring forth to your towns gates that man or woman who has done that wicked thing, and you shall stone that man or woman to death.
6 On the evidence of two or three witnesses, he who is worthy of death shall be put to death; he shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness.
7 The hands of the witnesses shall be the first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from among you.
8 If there arise a matter too hard for you in judgment, between one kind of bloodshed and another, between one legality and another, between one kind of assault and another, matters of controversy within your towns, then arise and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses,
9 And you shall come to the Levitical priests, and to the judge who is in office in those days, and you shall consult them, and they shall make clear to you the decision.
10 And you shall do according to the decision which they declare to you from that place which the Lord chooses, and you shall be watchful to do according to all that they tell you;
11 According to the decision of the law which they shall teach you, and the judgment which they shall announce to you, you shall do; you shall not turn aside from the verdict they give you, either to the right hand or the left.
12 The man who does presumptuously, and will not listen to the priest who stands to minister there before the Lord your God, or to the judge, that man shall die; so you shall purge the evil from Israel.
13 And all the people shall hear, and (reverently) fear, and not act presumptuously again.
COMMENT 16:1820; 17:2-13
We have treated the last of these two sections in lesson ten because the basic subject matter is the same. But because the scripture also concerns the judges, we include it again here.
JUDGES AND OFFICERS SHALT THOU MAKE IN ALL THY GATES (Deu. 16:18)Obviously anticipating the settled life in Canaan. In ancient times, the gates of the city composed the city hall, and the chief area of civil business. In Ch. Deu. 1:13-18 we saw how judges were appointed for Israels good for the length of their wilderness wanderings. Now, a similar system was in order for each city. JUDGES . . . shophetim, among the Hebrews, were probably the same as our magistrates or justices of the peace. OFFICERS . . . shoterim, seems to have been the same as our inquest sergeants, beadles [formerly, messengers of the court] & c., whose office it was to go into the houses, shops, & c., and examine weights, measures, and the civil conduct of the people. When they found anything amiss, they brought the person offending before the magistrate, and he was punished by the officer on the spot. They seem also to have acted as heralds in the army, Deu. 20:5. (Clarke, who is, of course, comparing Britain).
The Hebrew word for judge (shaphat) is the same as occurs in the book of Judges, but, as we saw in Lesson Ten (Deu. 17:9), the same word is used for men who usually performed very different functions than those outlined here.[35]
[35] Some judges during that era did appear to perform in an office similar to Moses in the wilderness, judging the hard mattersJdg. 3:10; Jdg. 4:5, 1Sa. 4:18; 1Sa. 7:6; 1Sa. 7:15. But when it is said of a man, he judged Israel twenty years (Samson. Jdg. 16:31), much more is meant.
THOU SHALT NOT WREST JUSTICE (Deu. 16:19)See Deu. 1:16-17, notes.
IF THERE BE FOUND IN THE MIDST OF THEE (Deu. 16:2)On Deu. 16:2-13, see our remarks in lesson ten. Note that the judge is involved in judgment of the difficult cases (Deu. 16:9) working in conjunction with the priests. Cf. Deu. 19:15-21.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
XVII.
(1) Thou shalt not sacrifice . . .The law concerning the purity of victims is given in full in Lev. 22:17-25. It takes its place there among the special laws of holiness. The same principle appears to unite the several topics treated here in Deuteronomy, as the holy days, the administration of justice, the absence of groves and images, with such a precept as this regarding the perfection of sacrifices. The holiness of the God of Israel necessitates them all. Truth, justice, and purity are demanded in all that come nigh Him. The dignity of His Kingdom is also concerned here. (See Introduction.)
Sheep.The Hebrew word is sh (on which see Deu. 14:4, note). It may be either a lamb or a kid.
The only time in history when the sacrifice of imperfect creatures is complained of to any great extent is the time of the prophet Malachi (see Mal. 1:7-14). The laxity of the priests in his time called forth the prophecy that in every place incense should be offered to Gods name and a pure offering.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
1. Any evil favouredness Literally, any evil thing. In Lev 22:22-24, the faults and blemishes which render the offering unacceptable are enumerated. The investigation of charges of idolatry, and the punishment of the guilty, are enjoined upon the magistrates. If a man or woman was charged with idolatry, and the crime proved, the guilty one was to be led out to the gate and stoned.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Chapter 17 Honouring Yahweh And Establishing True Justice.
The emphasis on right justice and right behaviour towards Yahweh has led on to the banning of wooden Asherim and stone Pillars as an approach to God. The mention of the Asherim and the Pillars leads on to other questions concerning their approach to God and their attitude towards other gods, blemished offerings and outright idolatry. That verse 1 connects with Deu 16:21-22 is suggested by the three fold, ‘you shall not plant yourself an Asherah — nor shall you set up to yourself a pillar — you shall not sacrifice to Yahweh your God an ox or a sheep in which is a blemish’. These are three angles of one fact, that such behaviour invalidates those who judge. In order to serve Yahweh it was necessary to be true within.
(In this chapter, up to Deu 17:16 where it is ‘ye’ (in a quotation), the singular ‘thou’ is used. After Deu 17:16 neither occurs).
Nothing Must Be Offered To Yahweh Which Was Blemished ( Deu 17:1 ).
Deu 17:1
‘ You shall not sacrifice to Yahweh your God an ox, or a sheep, in which is a blemish, or anything evil, for that is an abomination to Yahweh your God.’
Nothing must be brought to the altar of Yahweh which was blemished or evil. This included the bringing and sacrificing of blemished animals, whether ox bull or sheep, or animals with anything at all that could render them unsuitable. To offer a blemished animal was as bad as introducing false religious symbols. It was to treat Yahweh as though He could not see what was being offered, and with unfeigned contempt. Compare Deu 15:21; Mal 1:6-8. It would put them in a condition where they were not fit to pass judgment, for they would have demonstrated their duplicity. It would be ‘an abomination to Yahweh your God’.
It is strange how easily even we think that we can deceive God. But we are only deceiving ourselves. When we come to Him with our offerings we must recognise that He knows precisely what is in our hearts.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
A Ban On All Religious Objects And Behaviour Which Would Dishonour Yahweh And Make Them Unfit As Judges ( Deu 16:21 to Deu 17:1 ).
It is quite possible that certain matters of justice among the Canaanites (both in Canaan, and in Egypt where Canaanites settled) were decided at Canaanite sanctuaries, with pillars and Asherah involved in the procedures. If so such a procedure was not to be followed by Israel. It would reveal the judges as unfit to judge. So would the offering of blemished sacrifices. All would demonstrate an attitude of mind that was contrary to Yahweh. For where God was to be involved Israel must rather come to the priests and the supreme judge (Deu 17:9), in the courtyard of the tabernacle, in the place where Yahweh would choose to dwell (Deu 17:8; Deu 17:10), where any difficult case could be settled before Yahweh (Deu 17:12).
Analysis using the words of Moses.
“You shall not plant yourself an Asherah of any kind of tree beside the altar of Yahweh your God, which you shall make for yourself (Deu 16:21).
Nor shall you set yourself up a pillar, which Yahweh your God hates (Deu 16:22).
You shall not sacrifice to Yahweh your God an ox, or a sheep, in which is a blemish, or anything evil (Deu 17:1 a).
For that is an abomination to Yahweh your God (Deu 17:1 b).
Note in ‘a’ that to plant an Asherah (female goddess) which they had made for themselves next to the altar of Yahweh their God, and parallel to that is a general statement which covers these verses. All of them are an abomination to Yahweh their God. In ‘b’ nor were they to set up a pillar which Yahweh their God hates, nor in the parallel were they to offer to Yahweh their God a sacrifice of a blemished ox or sheep, or one in which there was evil (or disfavour or anything disagreeable). Thus a blemished offering is equally an abomination to Yahweh their God as an Asherah or Pillar in Yahweh’s Dwellingplace.
Deu 16:21
‘ You shall not plant yourself an Asherah of any kind of tree beside the altar of Yahweh your God, which you shall make for yourself.’
Having established the altar of Yahweh their God at the place which Yahweh would choose as His dwellingplace, they must brook no rivals. No handmade Asherah image or pole, of any kind of wood whatsoever, was permitted beside His altar. Asherah, a Canaanite goddess, was represented at Canaanite sanctuaries either by a wooden image or a pole representing a tree (it is not certain which), probably as the wife of the Baal who was the main god there, the latter often represented by a stone pillar. Such provision of female company for Yahweh was absolutely banned. It was an abomination (Deu 17:1). Yahweh was above sexual differentiation as to male or female and was not involved in procreation, both of which He brought into being, but did not indulge in Himself. He is Yahweh and above all.
Deu 16:22
‘ Nor shall you set yourself up a pillar, which Yahweh your God hates.’
Nor were they to set up a pillar by the altar of Yahweh before which men could worship and consult and dispense justice. The thought may have been that the pillar was to represent Yahweh, but as such it would be equally evil. It would be something that Yahweh hated. The stress is on not aping the Canaanites, and on not trying to represent Yahweh in any way. Here we have the second commandment being enforced, no graven images or images of any kind. This did not contradict in any way memorial pillars erected away from the sanctuary which were not for worship and consultation, and were permitted.
Jacob set up memorial pillars to Yahweh (Gen 28:18; Gen 31:13; Gen 31:45; although gratitude could be expressed at them by pouring a libation over them – Gen 35:14) and Isaiah spoke of a similar memorial pillar being set up on the borders of Egypt when Egypt had begun to seek Yahweh (Isa 19:19, compare with this the memorial altar in Jos 22:26-27 on the border of Transjordan), both of which were acceptable. Memorial pillars were common (Gen 31:45-54; Gen 35:20; Exo 24:4; Jos 4:1-9; Jos 24:26-27; 2Sa 18:18). None of these had the purpose that men should worship before them.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Deu 17:9 And thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and enquire; and they shall shew thee the sentence of judgment:
Deu 17:9
Exo 18:1-27 – Jethro advises Moses to appoint judges.
Num 11:16-30 – God anoints seventy elders.
Deu 16:18, “Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates, which the LORD thy God giveth thee, throughout thy tribes: and they shall judge the people with just judgment.”
Deu 17:9, “And thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and enquire; and they shall shew thee the sentence of judgment: “
Deu 17:12, “And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the LORD thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die: and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel.”
Deu 25:1, “If there be a controversy between men, and they come unto judgment, that the judges may judge them; then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked.”
Deu 17:14 When thou art come unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me;
Deu 17:15 Deu 17:14-15
1Sa 8:5-6, “And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the LORD.”
1Sa 10:19, “And ye have this day rejected your God, who himself saved you out of all your adversities and your tribulations; and ye have said unto him, Nay, but set a king over us. Now therefore present yourselves before the LORD by your tribes, and by your thousands.”
Deu 17:19 And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them:
Deu 17:19
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Punishment of Idolatry
v. 1. Thou shalt not sacrifice unto the Lord, thy God, any bullock or sheep wherein is blemish, or any evil-favoredness; for that is an abomination unto the Lord, thy God. v. 2. If there be found among you, within any of thy gates, v. 3. and hath gone and served other gods, and worshiped them, v. 4. and it be told thee, v. 5. then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman which have committed that wicked thing unto thy gates, v. 6. At the mouth of two witnesses or three witnesses, v. 7. The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
SACRIFICES TO BE OF ANIMALS UNBLEMISHED. IDOLATERS TO BE SOUGHT OUT, CONVICTED, AND PUT TO DEATH. THE HIGHER JUDICIAL COURT AT THE SANCTUARY. ELECTION DUTY OF A KING.
Deu 17:1
Not only was the setting up of idols an offence to be punished by the judge, but also all profanation of the service of Jehovah, such as the offering in sacrifice of any animal, bullock or sheep, that had any blemish or defect (cf. Le Deu 22:19-24). Evil-favoredness; literally, any evil thing, i.e. any vice or maim (cf. Le Deu 22:22, etc.).
Deu 17:2
In Deu 13:1-18, Moses enacts what is to be done to those who seduce into idolatry. Here he declares what is to be done to those who are so seduced. Done wickedness; literally, done the evil. The definite article is prefixed; it is not any kind of wickedness that is here denounced, but the special sin of idolatry, the wickedness . All idolatry was to be strictly suppressedthose convicted of it to be put to death by stoning.
Deu 17:3
(Cf. Deu 4:19.) Which I have not commanded; i.e. have forbidden, a meiosis, as in Jer 7:31.
Deu 17:5
Unto thy gates; judicial proceedings were conducted at the gates of the city, and in some place outside the walls the sentence was executed on the condemned criminal (Neh 8:1, Neh 8:3; Job 29:7; Deu 22:24; Act 7:58; Heb 13:12), just as, during the journey through the wilderness, it had been outside the camp that transgressors were punished (Le Deu 24:14; Num 15:36).
Deu 17:6, Deu 17:7
Only on the testimony of more than one witness could the accused be condemned (of Num 35:30); and the hand of the witnesses was to be first against him to put him to deatha rule which would tend to prevent accusations being lightly adduced, as none would venture to witness against any one unless so deeply convinced of his guilt that they were willing to assume the responsibility of inflicting on him the last penalty with their own hands. Worthy of death be put to death; i.e. adjudged or appointed to death; literally, the dead man shall die. , the part. of , to die, is here equivalent to , son of death (1Sa 20:31), or , a man of death (1Ki 2:26), i.e. one assigned to death, already the property of death, and so as good as dead. Put the evil away; literally, consume or sweep away the evil. The verb means primarily to consume by burning.
Deu 17:8-13
So long as Moses was with the people, they had in him one to whom, in the last resort, eases might be brought for decision which were found too difficult for the ordinary judges (Exo 18:19-26). But, as he was not to be always with them, it was needful to provide a supreme court, to which such cases might be carried when they could no longer be decided by him; and such a court is here appointed to be held at the sanctuary.
Deu 17:8
A matter too hard for thee; literally, too marvelous; something extraordinary, and which could not be decided by the ordinary rules of the judicature. Between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke; i.e. in cases where blood had been shed and death had ensued, either accidentally or from murderous intent (cf. Exo 21:13, etc.; Num 35:9, etc.); in cases of disputed rights and claims (cf. 2Ch 19:10); and in cases where corporeal injury had been suffered, whether in strife or from assault (Exo 21:18, etc.); and, in general, wherever matters of controversydisputes as to what was lawful and right, might arise in their towns and villages. In all such cases recourse was to be had to the court at the sanctuary”to the priests the Levites,” i.e. the priests who were of the tribe of Levi, and to the judge presiding therethe lay judge associated with the high priest as president. It is not intended by this that an appeal was to lie from the lower court to the higher, or that the parties in a suit might carry it at once to the supreme judge; the meaning rather is that, when the ordinary judges found a ease too difficult for them to deal with, they were themselves to transmit it to the supreme court for decision.
Deu 17:9
Enquire; what, namely, is “the sentence of judgment;” and this the judge should declare. Sentence of judgment; literally, word of right, verbum juris, declaration of what was legally right.
Deu 17:10-12
This sentence, being founded on the Law, the suitors were to accept and implicitly obey. If any through pride or arrogance should refuse to accept the interpretation of the Law given by the priests, or to submit to the sentence pronounced by the judge, he was to be regarded as a rebel against God, and to be put to death, that others might be deterred from the like presumption (Deu 13:11). The sentence, which they of that place which the Lord shall choose shall show thee; rather, which they shall declare to thee from that place which the Lord shall choose. According to the sentence of the law; literally, according to the mouth of the Law; i.e. according as the Law prescribes, according to the purport of the statute.
Deu 17:14-20
Israel, being under a theocracy, did not need an earthly king; but neither was this thereby precluded, provided the king chosen by the people were one whom Jehovah would approve as his vicegerent. In case, then, of their coming to desire to have a king over them like the nations around them, Moses gives instructions here as to the choice of a king, and as to the duties and obligations resting upon those who might be elevated to that office. The form in which these are conveyed clearly indicates that, at the time this was uttered, the existence of a king in Israel was contemplated as only a distant possibility.
Deu 17:14
When thou art come unto the land, etc. This phraseology, which is common to the laws which respect the affairs of the Hebrews after they should be settled in Canaan, implies that this law was given whilst they were yet outside the Promised Land. It is plain also, from the tenor of the whole statement in this verse, that the legislator in this case is providing for what he supposes may happen, is likely to happen, but which he by no means desires should happen. Moses foresaw that the people would wish to be as the nations around themgoverned by a kingand he legislates accordingly, without approving of that wish.
Deu 17:15
The prohibition to choose a foreigner indicates that the people had the right of election. In what way this was to be exercised, and how it was subject to the Divine choice, is not declared. Judging from what actually happened in subsequent history, it would appear that only on special occasions, such as the election of the first king or a change of dynasty, did God take the initiative, and through a prophet direct the choice of the people; ultimately the monarchy became hereditary, and it was understood that the prince who succeeded to the throne did so with the Divine approval, unless the opposite was expressly intimated by a message from God.
Deu 17:16, Deu 17:17
Certain rules are prescribed for the king. It is forbidden to him to multiply horses, to multiply wives, and to amass large treasures of silver and gold, and he must have a copy of the Law written out for him from that kept by the priests, that he might have it by him, and read it all the days of his life. The multiplying of horses is prohibited, because this would bring Israel into intercourse and friendly relations with Egypt, and might tend to their going back to that country from which they had been so marvelously delivered; a prohibition which could only have been given at an early stage in the history of the people, for at a later period, after they had been well established in Canaan, such a prohibition for such a reason would have been simply ridiculous. The prohibition to multiply wives and to amass large treasures has respect to the usage common from the earliest period with Oriental monarchs to have vast harems and huge accumulations of the precious metals, as much for ostentation as for either luxury or use; and as there was no small danger of the King of Israel being seduced to follow this usage, and so to have his heart turned away from the Lord, it was fitting that such a prohibition should be prospectively enacted for his guidance. Both these prohibitions were neglected by Solomon, and probably by others of the Jewish kings; but this only indicates that the law was so ancient that it had come in their time to be regarded as obsolete. The rule that the king was to write him a copy of the Law for his own constant use does not necessarily imply that he was to write this with his own hand; he might cause it to be written by some qualified scribe for him.
Deu 17:18
A copy of this law; literally, a double of this Law, i.e. not, as the LXX. have it, “This reiteration of the Law” ( ), but a duplicate or copy of the Pentateuchal Law. The Jews understand by “double” that two copies of the Law were to be made by the king (Maimon; ‘ De Regibus,’ e. 3. 1); but this is unnecessary: every copy of a law is a double of it. Oat of that which is before the priests. The priests were the custodians of the written Law (Deu 31:26); and from the text of their codex was the king’s copy to be written.
Deu 17:19
And it shall be with him, etc. It was to be carefully kept by him, but not as a mere sacred deposit or palladium; it was to be constantly with him wherever he was, was to be the object of his continual study, and was to be the directory and guide of his daily life (cf. Jos 1:8; Psa 1:2; Psa 119:15, Psa 119:16, Psa 119:24, Psa 119:97-99, etc.).
Deu 17:20
That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren. “Not imagining himself to be above all laws, nor slighting his subjects, as unworthy of his notice, but taking a due care to promote their happiness” (Patrick). He, and his children; properly, his sons (). The legislator anticipated not an elective monarchy, but one hereditary in the same family (cf. Michaelis, ‘Laws of Moses,’ pt. 1. 54).
HOMILETICS
Deu 17:1
(See Homily, Deu 15:21, on “Sacrifices to be without blemish.”)
Deu 17:2-7
The sacredness of personal reputation seen in the regulations concerning human testimony.
So far as this passage presents to us the doctrine that idolatry, being apostasy from God, was treason to the Hebrew commonwealth, and was to be punished with death, the matter is dealt with in the Homily on the thirteenth chapter. An inquiry of great importance would sooner or later arise, and would, therefore, need to be provided for in the Mosaic institutes, viz.: “On what evidence shall any one be adjudged guilty of such a crime?” It will be seen here that, while God so guarded his own honor that it might not be sullied with impunity, so he guarded the reputation of the people that it might not be assailed or impeached on any frivolous pretext or any unproven report. The exactitude in the order of expression in the fourth verse is very noticeable: If it be soand it be told theeand thou hast inquireddiligentlyand, behold, it is trueand the thing certainthen, and not till then, may the penalty be inflicted. Observe:
1. Every one was held to be innocent till he was proved otherwise.
2. No one’s character was put at the mercy of any one unattested witness.
3. He who reported with his tongue should be the one to smite with his hand! (Deu 17:7). A mighty stroke of policy this, to guard personal honor from assailment! It might sometimes make crime more difficult of proof, but it gave the innocent a wondrous guard against unjust accusation. Many would be ready to backbite who would shrink from stoning another. Men by thousands may be found who would not break bones, but who think nothing of breaking hearts.
4. The people were to cooperate in putting away the evil when once it was proved to exist. “Slow to suspect, but quick to put down evil,” was to be the moral rule of their conduct in such cases. Now, of course, it is not our province to deal with all this from the purely legal Point of view, as a matter of jurisprudence; but we cannot fail to indicate the moral principles which are here involved; and which a Christian teacher would do well to set in the light of Mat 7:1, Mat 7:2. Observe
I. OUR GOD WOULD ENLIST THE SYMPATHIES OF HIS PEOPLE IN PUTTING DOWN EVIL. We are to be workers together with him. He has redeemed us that we may be zealous of good works.
II. HE WOULD WAVE US VERY SENSITIVE to the honor of his Name, but also very sensitive to the spotlessness of each other‘s name and fame. This passage is quite as remarkable for the guard it throws around man, as it is for the concern it would evoke for the honor of God (see Psa 15:1-3; Le 19:16; Psa 34:13; 1Pe 3:10).
III. WE MAY NOT REGARD ANOTHER AS GUILTY ON THE BARE EVIDENCE OF RUMOR. Each one’s reputation is too sacred in God’s eye and ought to be too precious in ours for this. It is humiliating to think such precepts as these should be needed. “The Law is not made for a righteous man,” and it is a sad proof of how much unrighteousness there is in the world that such a law should be needed still. Every one is to be regarded as innocent till he is proved guilty.
IV. IF THE PUBLIC GOOD REQUIRES IT, ILL REPORTS SHOULD BE EXAMINED. It may be painful work, but it has to be done sometimes. But we are tempted to think it would be a mighty safeguard against ill reports being raised on any light or frivolous pretext, if he who first moved secretly with his tongue were always required to be the first to smite openly with the hand!
V. SUCH REPORTS ARE TO BE PROVEN TRUE ERE ACTION IS TAKEN THEREON. No man’s repute is to be smitten at a venture. To all men it is precious as life. The best men value it more than life. They would rather give up their breath than part with their honor. And the legislation of high heaven upholds them!
VI. PROVEN EVIL IS TO BE PUT AWAY. We are to be very slow to believe ill of another; “slow to speak.” But when such ill is proved beyond doubt, then it behooves us to censure, to expose, to condemn it, and to put it away. We are to stand by a brother till he is shown to be guilty, but that once done, regard both for God and man requires us to disavow all sympathy with wrong, and to co-operate with the Great Supreme in the extirpation of ill.
Deu 17:8-13
Religion the guard of justice.
In the preceding chapter, Deu 17:18-20, judges and officers are specified as appointed by Goel to be the guardians of justice and right. The Hebrew is very emphatic in Deu 17:20, “Justice, justice, shalt thou follow,” etc. Manifold complications, however, would be sure to arise as the nation advanced, and as the primitive simplicity of their first settlement passed into more fixed arrangements as to property, etc. In such difficult cases, it might not be easy, and perhaps it would not always be possible, for the judges and shoterim to determine what was just. The legislator is here bidden, therefore, to make provision in case such perplexities should arise. When the people should come to the land which the Lord their God gave them, there would be one place which the Lord would choose to put his Name there. There should “thrones of judgment” sit. The priests, who would have to offer sacrifices and to intercede for the people before God, would also be expected to be so versed in the Law of God, that they could appropriately he regarded as the highest court of appeal, by whose decision the highest sanctions of religion would be brought to declare and enforce “justice, justice.” Their decision was held to be given them by light from on high. And when such decision was in accordance with the Divine will, the people were bound by it. To resist it was “a presumptuous sin;” and, withal, it was one of so deep a dye, that it was not safe for Israel that any man should continue among them, who spurned the highest decisions which could possibly be given. At the same time, there were sundry checks and counter-checks against the abuse of this law. The authority of this highest court was relative or conditional, not absolute. If priests became unfaithful, and their judgments unjust, then the sin of presumption was chargeable upon them (cf. Deu 18:20; see also Jeremiah’s, Ezekiel’s, and Malachi’s charges against such unfaithful expounders). Note, further, that as early as the time of the Judges, when the priests profaned their office, God set them aside, and wrought and taught by means of the prophet Samuel. So that the supreme court bound the people only so far as it was what it was designed to be, even God’s appointment for securing justice, by investing it with the sublime sanctions of religion. But when it was that, and so far as it answered its end, its utterances were to the people as the voice of God.
Now, we all know that, as a formal institution, this court of appeal has long since passed away. But we greatly mistake if there are not couched here sundry momentous principles, of which no age, country, or race can afford to lose sight. These principles are
I. THAT RELIGION IS THE TRUE GUARANTEE OF JUSTICE BETWEEN MAN AND MAN. That in the course of time the essence of religion may have so evaporated, and its place be so taken up by forms and ceremonies, that the connection between religion and justice may seem to be lost, must be admitted to be a possibility, but it does not alter the principle here enunciated. The guarantee of justice between man and man is found in a power of appeal on both sides to a law of immutable right mutually acknowledged. To such a law conscience, the regulative faculty, points with steady finger. Such law obeyed, she approves the obedience, and when disobeyed, she condemns the disobedience. Both the approval and the condemnation of the voice within are witnesses to the existence and government of a Great Judge of all, who, seated on the throne of universal empire, issues his mandates to the world! And in the appeal from human acts to the judgment of the Great Supreme, lies the safeguard of justice between man and man. In a word, religion is the sole adequate guarantee of morality. Both are comprehended under the one word, “righteousness.” Religion is righteousness towards God; morality is righteousness towards man. If man ever comes to regard himself as the supreme existence, empowered to make right right, and wrong wrong, instead of regarding himself as subject to the everlasting laws of right, the best and dearest privileges of the human family will be in imminent peril, and at best can endure but for a while!
II. RELIGIOUS SANCTIONS FIND THEIR EXPRESSION IN THE LAW OF GOD. See Psa 19:1-14; in which the Psalmist extols the pure and holy Law of Jehovah, as being the written expression of perfect right. In the Ten Commandments the various phases of the right in act or thought are set forth. And according to the ordinance alluded to in this paragraph, when a case arose which was too difficult to be solved by the lower authorities, it might be taken up to a higher court, that the will of the Lord might thereby be discovered by the most trustworthy exposition of the bearings of God’s Law on each particular case.
III. GOD‘S HOUSE IS TO BE THE SEAT AND CENTER WHERE RIGHTEOUSNESS IS ENTHRONED, EXPOUNDED, AND ENFORCED. If in Israel a poor man could not get justice elsewhere, he was to be sure of it in God’s house. It was a pious Hebrew’s delight to inquire in God’s temple. And we do not think adequately of the temple service if we merely regard it as consisting of sacrifice and mediation; the holy house was also a place where men could learn the mind and will of God in their bearing on the life of man both in general and in specific cases. And one of the delights of the Psalmist’s heart was this: “there are set thrones of judgment.” And so now, in God’s house, not only are we bidden to “behold the Lamb of God,” but “to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world.”
IV. GOD‘S MINISTERS ARE TO BE THE EXPOUNDERS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. There are no priests now, as of yore. But the Church of God has a ministry, and by this ministry the truth of God is to be “opened up” and “commended to every man’s conscience as in the sight of God.”
V. WHEN GOD‘S HOLY AND RIGHTEOUS LAW IS EXPOUNDED TO THE PEOPLE, THEY ARE LOYALLY TO ACCEPT IT, SUBMIT TO IT, AND OBEY IT. And this, not because of him whose voice speaks, but because of him in whose behalf the preacher speaks. Men are to receive the truth, not as the word of man, but as the Word of God (cf. 2Co 10:5).
VI. REFUSAL TO OBEY THE WILL OF GOD, WHEN CLEARLY EXPOUNDED, IS A PRESUMPTUOUS SIN. (See passages where same Hebrew word is used which is here rendered “presumptuous,” specially Psa 19:13.) The epithet indicates the greatness of the sin. It is one which Jehovah specially hates, severely rebukes, and utterly condemns. He “resisteth the proud.” He hides things from the wise and prudent. He scorneth the scorners. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. First pride, then shame. “What shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?”
Deu 17:14-20
Kings subject to the King of kings.
In this paragraph we have directions to be attended to in case Israel should, in the course of time, desire a king. As things were, the Lord God was their King; and it would be a sinful discontent with the Divine arrangements if they wished any change in that respect in their national constitution. It would show an envious desire to be like unto the nations round about, and a craving after the pomp and display of the heathen world. Still, if such a wish should spring up, they are not to be violently coerced into the maintenance of the theocracy. They are to have their way. A dangerous permission this, but maybe it is a necessary one, to educate the people out of their perversity. The permission, however, is not left without its restrictions. Here are rules for the people, and also rules for their king whenever they should have one. The people are told that they must defer to the will of the Lord their God as to who should be their king; and also that they might not set one over them of an alien nation (Deu 17:15). And as for the king who should be chosen, for him there are four prohibitions and four commands. The prohibitions are these:
(1) the king is not to take them back to Egypt;
(2) nor to multiply cavalry;
(3) nor to amass wealth;
(4) nor to multiply wives to himself.
The commands are these:
(1) The Law of God is to be written,
(2) retained,
(3) read,
(4) obeyed by him; and only as this is the case is there any promise of the stability of his throne.
(For a grand commentary on all this, read 1Sa 12:1-25.) The history of the Hebrew nation continuously discloses the folly and danger of people and kings departing from the Law of God. Hence we have a fine homiletic theme for the preacher, when called on to preach a sermon on national affairs. It is this: Obedience to the Law of God the only stability of thrones.
I. IT IS BY RIGHTEOUSNESS THAT THRONES ARE FIRM. Righteousnessaccording to the root of the wordis acting according to relation. Such is the significance of . It is acting in harmony with the relations between man and man, and between man and God. When a scepter is swayed rightly, the throne is established.
1. God has created man with power to perceive a distinction between right and wrong, and with a faculty which approves one and condemns the other.
2. When the right is manifestly done, the people are content.
3. Content of the people gives cohesion to the nation and support to the throne.
4. God’s blessing is promised to the righteous. The signs of that blessing are seen in continuance and prosperity.
II. THE ONLY AUTHORITATIVE EXPOSITION OF RIGHT FOR THE WORLD IS IN THE WRITTEN LAW OF GOD. (See preceding Homily, Div. II.) Dr. Matthew Arnold speaks of the force pervading the Old Testament as” a power, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness?’ This is the peculiarity of Hebrew literature. Their kings are always estimated according to whether they did right “in the sight of the Lord.”
III. CONSEQUENTLY, IT IS BY OBEDIENCE TO GOD‘S WRITTEN LAW THAT THRONES ARE MADE SECURE. This grand old Book is the charter of the people’s liberties, because it demands that kings rule righteously. It is the monarch’s best safeguard, because it insists on a method of government which will ensure the loyalty of a grateful people, and the blessing of the monarch’s God! With regard to kings and nations, it is true, “Great peace have they which love thy Law, and nothing shall offend them.” Earthly kings will ever find it true, “Them that honor me, I will honor.”
Deu 17:16
No retreat! or The gate behind us closed.
“Ye shall henceforth return no more that way.” In these words, Moses reminds the people that Egypt once quitted was quitted forever. If they should come in the course of time to desire and to choose a king, he must by no means take them back to Egypt; their dark experience of Egyptian bondage was never to be repeated. They should return that way no more. The only course open to them was to go onward to the realization of their destiny as a free people, for the gate behind them was closed, never to be opened again. The text may naturally be regarded as God’s voice to his emancipated host, saying, “No retreat!“ We shall apply this to the life of believers. It is true in two spheres.
I. IT IS TRUE IN THE SPHERE OF BEING. With regard to the old state of sin, out or’ which the children of God have been brought by the redemption which is in Christ Jesus and by the power of the Holy Ghost, it is true, “ye shall henceforth return no more that way.”
1. They way not if they would. They have quitted the broad road which leadeth to destruction, and, through the gateway of repentance, have entered on “the King’s highway of holiness.” Having once come over from Satan to Christ, it is altogether forbidden them to dream of a return. Whosoever he be who has avowedly quitted the service of sin for that of the living God, never must he think of returning to the world he has left. Back to his old life of sin? Never! He is to reckon himself henceforth as “dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God,” and, whether living or dying, he is to be the Lord’s.
2. They would not if they might. Not only is it the Law of God that they must not retreat, but the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus leads them to say, “We will not, by the help of God.” And herein is the blessed freedom of the new creature in Christ Jesus. What God wills, he wills. He has voluntarily left the world, and voluntarily he remains out of its camp. The very thought of “returning any more that way” is anguish to him. He has said to earth, once for all, farewell; to sinful pleasures, farewell; to the pride of life, farewell. He has cast in his lot with Christ, and he esteems reproach for him greater riches than the treasures in Egypt. He would not move a step that is not towards God and heaven. He has done with the vanities of earth, and can return no more that way!
II. IT IS TRUE IN THE SPHERE OF TIME. We can neither retrace the steps we have already trodden, nor recall nor reproduce the circumstances of bygone days or years.
1. We cannot recall, or change, or obliterate the past, even if we would. The trials and cares of bygone years are gone, never to be repeated. The actions of past years are done, and however we may desire it, they cannot be undone. There is no such thing as recalling a single moment, to correct what has been amiss, nor erasing a single word or deed so as to prevent its issues traveling on to eternity! We may do something now to shape future years, butto alter past yearsnothing. For good or ill they have left their mark. We can alter nothing. We can “return no more that way.”
2. The pilgrim, Zionward, would not retreat if he could. The child of God who has been, however imperfectly, endeavoring in Divine strength to serve and please his Father in heaven, reviewing his years with their trials, afflictions, and cares, feels it to be a great joy to him that he can return no more that way. He would not linger here. He wants to speed him onward. He oftentimes sings at eventide, with thankful heart, “a day’s march nearer home.” The goal of his being is ahead. To serve God here is blissful. But he longs, not to repeat past imperfections, but to “go on unto perfection,” to press forward towards the higher service of the heavenly world. He feels and knows that all the Divine arrangements for him are mercy and truth. He would not change them. Mercy shuts off the past beyond recall. Mercy opens the future.
“Then, welcome, each declining day,
Welcome each closing year!”
HOMILIES BY J. ORR
Deu 17:1
The blemished.
I. THE PRINCIPLE INVOLVED. God is to be served with our best. He rejects the blemished for his service.
1. He is entitled to our best.
2. He requires it of us.
3. Withholding it argues unworthy views of God and of what is due to him. It usually implies contempt of God and hypocrisy in his service (Mal 1:12, Mal 1:13).
II. APPLICATIONS OF THE PRINCIPLE. God is to receive from us:
1. The best of our timewhen the head is clearest, the energies most vigorous, the capacity for service greatest, and when there is least distraction. We offer the blemished when we engross these portions of our time for self, and give to God only our late hours, or hurried snatches of a day crowded with unspiritual and exhausting occupations.
2. The best of our ageyouth, the prime of manhood and womanhood, with all the service these can render. We offer the blemished when we conceive the purpose of dedicating to God, in old age, powers already worn out in the service of the world.
3. The heartiest of our service. Service performed half-heartedly and grudgingly falls under the category of blemished sacrifices. Work done in this spirit will never be well done. Services of devotion will be huddled through, sermons will be ill prepared, the class in the Sunday school wilt be badly taught, visitation duties will be inefficiently and unpunctually performed. It is the presentation to God of the torn, lame, and halt.
4. The first of our givings. Givings should be hearty, liberal, of our first and best, and in a spirit of consecration. To give what “will never be missed” is a poor form of service. It is little to give to God what costs us nothing. Still more conspicuously do we offer the blemished when we devote to God but the parings of a lavish worldly expenditure, or give for his service far below our ability.J.O.
Deu 17:2, Deu 17:3
Sabaeism.
The crime here ordained to be punished by death was sabaeism, or the worship of the heavenly bodies. Though this was in some respects the noblest, as it seems to have been the most ancient, form of idolatrythe purest in its ritual, the most elevating in its influence, the least associated with vice, it was not to be tolerated in Israel. Its apparent sublimity made it only the more seductive and dangerous. It was a departure, though at first a very subtle and scarcely recognizable one, from pure monotheismthe beginning of a course of declension which speedily led in Egypt, Phoenicia, Babylonia, India, and most other nations to the grossest abominations. That the seductive influence of sun and star worship was powerfully felt by the ancients appears from Job 31:26, Job 31:27. In Egypt, according to M. de Rouge (quoted by Renouf, ‘Hibbert Lecture’), “the pure monotheistic religion passed through the phase of sabseism; the sun, instead of being considered as the symbol of life, was taken as the manifestation of God himself.” Max Muller tells us that the “oldest prayer in the world” (?) is one in the Rig-Veda, addressed to the sun. The term for God, which is common to the Indo-Germanic races (deva, daeva, theos, deus, etc.), proves that the conception of the Divine among them was formed from that of light, and that the objects of their religious worship were the effects and appearances of light. All ancient mythologies turn, as their principal subject, on the sunrise and sunset, the battle between light and darkness, etc.
We learn:
1. It is the beginnings of evil which need most jealously to be guarded against.
2. Evil is not the less, but the more to be feared, that its first forms are usually pleasing and seductive.
3. It does not excuse evil that in its earlier forms it is still able to associate itself with worthy and noble ideas.
4. The workings of evil, however deceptive its first appearances, invariably end by revealing its true iniquity and hideousness. How astonishing the descent from the first enticing of the heart to worship sun or moon, and so to deny the God that is above, to the abominations and cruelties of Baal and Moloch worship! Yet the later excesses were present in germ from the beginning, and the descent was as natural and logical as history shows it to have been inevitable.J.O.
Deu 17:4-8
Criminal procedure.
I. THE RIGHT OF THE CRIMINAL TO A PAIR AND PULL TRIAL. The right is asserted in the Law of Moses as strenuously as it could be anywhere. However abhorrent his crime, the criminal had every protection against unjust treatment which the Law could afford him. He must be formally impeached, tried before judges, and legally convicted under stringent conditions of proof. The evidence of one witness, however apparently conclusive, was not to be accepted as sufficient. A second must confirm it. The principle is a plain dictate of justice. Suspicion, rumor, dislike of the individual, or even moral certainty of his guilt, form no sufficient ground for condemnation. He is entitled to demand that his crime be proved under legal forms. A person really guilty may thus occasionally escape, but better this should happen than that the innocent should suffer. Lessons:
1. The rule of criminal jurisprudence should be the rule of our private thoughts, and of our expressed opinions about others. We are entitled to hold no man guilty of deeds for which we have not explicit proof.
2. While moral certainty of guilt may be created by proof which would not warrant judicial condemnation, we should beware of admitting as proof that which at the most only seems to tell against the person under suspicion.
3. Where no better ground exists for unfavorable judgment than vague, unsifted rumor, or the dislikes and prejudices with which a person is regarded, it is the grossest unfairness, and often great cruelty to the person concerned, to entertain evil reports, or even to allow them in the slightest degree to influence us.
4. Where opportunity for investigating reports to the discredit of another does not exist, or where we have no call to undertake such investigation, our duty is not to judge at all (Mat 7:1). The utmost we should do is to exercise caution.
II. THE GRAVE RESPONSIBILITY WHICH RESTS ON WITNESSES. This was well brought out by requiring that the hands of the witnesses should be first upon the condemned person to put him to death. We may note:
1. That those who prefer serious accusations against others, ought to be prepared publicly to substantiate them. Were this more insisted on than it is, it would quash in the birth not a few malicious accusations.
2. That blood-guiltiness rests on those who, by false testimony, whether borne publicly or in private, effect another’s ruin.J.O.
Deu 17:8-13
The priest and the judge.
The priests, in association with a judge or judges (Deu 19:17), constituted a supreme tribunal to which difficult causes were carried, and whose judgment was to be final. The priest had naturally a place in this supreme court:
1. As representing God in the theocracy.
2. As a member of the distinctively learned class of the nation.
3. As one whose special office it was to teach and interpret the Law of God (Le Deu 10:11; Deu 33:10; Eze 44:24; Mal 2:7). The differentiation of functions in society has long since taken learning in the law out of the hands of the clergy, but we may remark
I. THAT SPIRITUAL AND CIVIL FUNCTIONARIES MAY RENDER EACH OTHER IMPORTANT ASSISTANCE. The spheres of civil and spiritual jurisdiction are indeed distinct. Yet as the lawyer and judge, with their legal expertness, their knowledge of forms, and their experience in sifting evidence, are often of the greatest service in processes purely ecclesiastical, so, on the other hand, the best of them stand in need of that higher direction and enlightenment of the conscience from God’s Word, which it is the business of a body of spiritual teachers to supply. The ministers of religion have a function:
1. In upholding the Law of God as the supreme standard of right.
2. In furnishing general enlightenment to the conscience.
3. In reminding judges, the highest of them, of their duties and responsibilities before God as set “for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well” (1Pe 2:14).
II. THAT LAWS BASED ON GOD‘S WORD HAVE ATTACHING TO THEM A DIVINE AS WELL AS A HUMAN AUTHORITY. The duty of the priest was not to invent laws, but to interpret the existing Law of God. To it all cases of right had ultimately to be appealed. God’s Law, as exhibiting the unalterable principles of right, underlies human law and gives to it authority. Whatever may happen in courts on earth, no decision will stand in the court of heaven which that Law is found to condemn. Laws e.g. which invade rights of conscience, which (as in slave-holding countries) place the life of one man at the mercy of another, which are favorable to illicit relations of the sexes, which make light of divorce, which bear unequally on different classes of the community, which prop up abuses, etc; may be submitted to, but cannot be justified. Where, on the contrary, the law of a land is in essential harmony with the principles of righteousness, obedience to it becomes a duty of religion. He who sets it at naught strives with God not less than with man, is “as they which strive with the priest,” and does “presumptuously” (cf. Hos 4:4).J.O.
Deu 17:14-20
The king in Israel
We have here
I. THE DESIRE OF A KING ANTICIPATED. (Deu 17:14.) Moses anticipates that, when settled in the land, the people would desire a king, that they might be like other nations. This was:
1. A desire springing from a wrong motive.
(1) As involving a low estimate of their privilege in being ruled directly by Jehovah. It was the glory and distinction of their nation that they had God so nigh them, and were under his immediate care and sovereignty. But they could not rise to the sublimity of this thought. They deemed it a grander thing to have a mortal as their king, to be like other nations, and be led, judged, and ruled by a visible monarch. Their demand was a substantial rejection of God, that he should not reign over them (1Sa 8:7).
(2) As involving the idea of a king modeled on the pattern of the kings around them. The king they wished for was one who would embody for them their own ideas of splendor and prowess, and these were of a purely carnal type. Saul, their first king, had many of the qualities which answered to their notion of a king, while David, ruling in humble subordination to the will and authority of Heaven, answered to the Divine idea. Piety and submission at every point to the will of God are not elements that bulk largely in the common conception of a monarch.
(3) As involving self-willedness. The people did not humbly present their case to God, and entreat him for a king. They took the law into their own hands, and demanded one, or rather they declared their intention of setting one over them, irrespective of whether God wished it or not.
2. A desire in some respects natural. The spiritual government of an invisible Ruler was an idea difficult to grasp. The mind craved for some concrete and visible embodiment of that authority under which they lived. It probably lay in God’s purpose ultimately to give them a king, but it was necessary that they should be made first distinctly to feel their need of it. The need in human nature to which this points is adequately supplied in the Messianic King, Christ Jesus. The central idea of the Kingship of Christ is the personal indwelling of the Divine in the human. In Christ, moreover, is realized the three things which ancient nations sought for in their kings.
(1) An ideal of personal excellence. “Heroic kingship depended partly on divinely given prerogative, and partly on the possession of supereminent strength, courage, and wisdom” (Maine).
(2) A leader inspiring them with personal devotion.
(3) A bond of unity in the State, the monarch representing, as he does still, the whole system of law and authority which is centralized and embodied in his person. “The king is the dot on the i” (Hegel). The kingship in Israel typified that of Christ.
II. THE ELECTION OF A KING PROVIDED FOR. (Deu 17:15.) The position of king in Israel was essentially different from that of the monarch of any other nation. While discharging the same general functions as other kings (ruling, judging, leading in battle), his authority was checked and limited in ways that theirs was not. He was no irresponsible despot, whose will was law and who governed as he listed. He filled the throne, not as absolute and independent sovereign, but only as the deputy of Jehovah, and ruled simply in the name and in subordination to the will of Godin this respect affording another marked type of God’s true king, whom he has set on his holy hill of Zion (Psalm it.). This fact gave rise to a second peculiarity, that he had no authority to make laws, but only to administer the Law already given. The manner of his election corresponded to these peculiarities of his position.
1. He was chosen under Divine guidance (cf. i Samuel Deu 10:20, Deu 10:21).
2. The Divine choice was ratified by the free election of the people (1Sa 10:24). From which we learn
(1) that the throne is strong only when it rests on the free choice, and on the loyal affection of the body of the people
(2) That kingly like all other authority, is derived from God. This is a truth of general application, though it was in a peculiar sense true of Israel. The Scripture gives no sanction to the “right Divine of kings to govern wrong.” But popular sentiment has always recognized that a certain “divinity doth hedge a king.” Ancient nations (Egypt, etc.) held him to be the representative of God on earth. The state and style with which a monarch is surrounded, and the homage paid to him, are expressions of the same idea. He embodies the functions of government, and has honor, majesty, and high-sounding titles bestowed on him on that ground. But this is simply to say that in certain respects he represents Deity. To constitute perfect “Divine right,” it would be necessary:
(a) That a monarch should occupy the throne with perfect Divine sanction. Most rulers, on ascending the throne, try to make out, however weakly, some shadow of right to it.
(b) That he should govern in perfect accordance with the Divine will. The only perfect case of ruling by Divine fight is the reign of Christ.
III. THE CHARACTER OF THE KING DELINEATED. (Deu 17:15-20.) He was to be an Israeliteone of themselves. Then:
1. He was not to multiply horses to himself, that is:
(1) He was not to be ambitious of military distinction.
(2) He was not to place his main reliance for the defense of the nation on extravagant military preparations.
(3) He was not, for the sake of supposed material advantage, to lead the people into ensnaring alliances.
2. He was not to multiply wives to himself. That is:
(1) He was to avoid enervating luxury.
(2) His court was to be chaste and pure. Cf. Tennyson, ‘To the Queen:’ “Her court was pure; her life serene,” etc.; and ‘Dedication’ to the Idyls
“Who reverenced his conscience as his king;
Whose glory was, redressing human wrong;
Who spake no slander, no, nor listened to it;
Who loved one only, and who clave to her,” etc.
3. He was not to multiply to himself silver and gold; that is, he was not to affect the dazzle of imperial splendor, but to be simple and unostentatious in his manner of life. But:
4. He was to be a diligent student of the Word of God.
(1) He was to write out with his own hand a copy of the Law.
(2) He was to read in it diligently all the days of his life; the result of which would be:
(a) That he would be kept in the way of obedience;
(b) that his heart would be preserved humble towards God and his brethren; and
(c) he and his seed would enjoy prosperity on the throne. What a noble sketch of the model king, yet how contrary to current ideas of royal greatness! We have happily been taught in our own country to appreciate the advantages of a pure court, and to feel its wholesome influence on the general tone of morals, and we are able to understand, also, the beneficial effect of uprightness and piety in a sovereign in adding to the love, esteem, and reverence with which the sovereign is regarded; but how far are we from dissociating the greatness of a reign from its external splendor, its military conquests, the wealth and luxury of its aristocracy, the figure it displays in the eyes of other nations, and the terror with which it can inspire them! Nor do we look in sovereigns generally for all the virtues which we find in our own, but are apt to condone want of piety, and even acts of great iniquity, if they but prove themselves to be bold, energetic, and enterprising rulers. The character of the sovereign is in some respects of less moment than it once was, but its influence for good or evil is still very great, and the evil fruits reaped from the court life, say of a Charles II. or a George IV; are not exhausted in one or a few generations. Piety upon the throne will lead to piety in the court and throughout the nation, and will give an impulse to everything else that is good. Whereas an evil and corrupting example sows seeds of mischief, which may involve the nation in the greatest losses and disasters (see Massillon’s sermon, ‘Des Exemples des Grands’).J.O.
HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR
Deu 17:1-7
Idolatry a capital crime.
The closing verses of last chapter prohibiting groves near God’s altar may be taken in connection with the verses now before us as constituting the solemn prohibition of idolatry. God will not have any rival, either sun, moon, or any of the host of heaven, not to speak of the more miserable idolatries of things on earth; he makes idolatry a capital crime, and decrees death as its penalty. This brings out the enormity of the sin in the eyes of God; and it does not follow, because idolatry is not still visited with death, that it has become a lighter matter in the eyes of “the Judge of all the earth.”
I. THE TEMPTATION TO NATURE WORSHIP. When men are not watchful, they live by sight and forget the life of faith. Others make the senses the only organs of knowledge, and base their so-called philosophy upon sensation. It is not to be wondered at, in such circumstances, that nature-worship prevailed in olden times and prevails still. A great deal of the antitheistic science of the present time is, when analyzed, just nature-worship. When men in their headstrong self-confidence attribute independent powers to nature; when they maintain-on what grounds they do not tell us, for it is a matter of faith, not of sightthat the “reign of law” is workable without God, then they are really idolizing nature. It seems a light thing to men to eliminate God from his works, but the sin will have to be answered for before the Judge.
Besides, it was more excusable in the old Israelite than in the modern philosopher. The heavenly bodies in these Eastern countries are so magnificent that the impression produced upon the gazer is akin to worship. It was little wonder if in an unwatchful moment he “beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness; and the heart was secretly enticed, or his mouth kissed his hand” (Job 31:26, Job 31:27). The temptation to worship the heavenly bodies was strong and natural.
II. IS GOD‘S SIGHT THE WORSHIP OF NATURE IS A CAPITAL CRIME, It is worthy of a violent death. Directions are given for the solemn execution. The witnesses, of whom there must be a plurality at least, are first to lay their hands upon the head of the idolater, then the whole people, doubtless through their representative elders, showing their acquiescence in the severe sentence; and then he is to be stoned to death. The idea is manifestly that he is unworthy of living longer when he has so far forgotten and ignored the claims of God.
And assuredly our scientific nature-worshippers are equally guilty, nay, more guilty, in God’s sight. If they are not put to death by public law, it is not because their sin is changed in its heinousness, but because God has made their case a reserved one for himself. “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”
III. IN THESE CIRCUMSTANCES WE ARE LEFT ONE WAY OF GETTING RID OF THE EVIL, AND THAT IS BY GOOD. God having withdrawn the prerogative of vengeance from men for sins against himself, and reserved the case for his own dealing with it, he has given us our direction in the words, “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom 12:21). The Israelites in their rude time were directed to remove the idolater by force; we are to get rid of him by loving persuasion. The former was the easier remedy. To heap coals of fire on the head of our opponent and enemy is not so easy an operation. But it can be done. God shows us the example himself. While reserving the prerogative of vengeance, he meanwhile manifests himself in Jesus Christ as the God of love. Though provoked by man’s idolatries, he subjects him to the treatment of his love, and goes forth in converting power to meet his enemies. Of course the love is sometimes lost upon them, as we are accustomed to say. The appeal is rejected, but they have got the opportunity, and must account at last for despising it.
In his loving footsteps let us follow. The nature-worship and manifold idolatries are amenable to the treatment of enlightened love. Let us study candidly and carefully the case, and administer with all tenderness the remedy. It may be that in some cases the old picture may be reversed. Instead of the imposition of hands in order to destruction, it may be an imposition of hands in ordaining to Divine work those who formerly ignored God altogether. However this may be, our duty is clear to try to overcome this particular evil by good.R.M.E.
Deu 17:8-13
The ruling -power of the priests in the Jewish Church.
The government among the Israelites was first by an eldership elected on the representative principle. Thus in Gen 1:7 we find at the funeral of Jacob “all the elders of the land of Egypt.” Again, when Moses came from Midian to emancipate his brethren, he was directed to consult “the elders of Israel,” who were to go in with him before Pharaoh (Exo 3:16, Exo 3:18). After the Exodus, the priests were appointed as the ministers of religion; and with these were associated the elders selected to the number of seventy from those already in office, and to whom God gave his Spirit (Num 11:16, etc.). When the people settled in Canaan, they were directed to elect judges for judgment. This was the distribution and development of the eldership. And in case of any special difficulty, the aggrieved parties were to repair to the place of the central altar, and there lay the matter before the priests and the judge. It follows that the priests had co-ordinate ruling power with the elders or judges, that they were rulers and officiating ministers besides. And here we have to notice
I. THESE CHURCH OFFICERS EXERCISED THEIR AUTHORITY UNDER GOD AS KING. The Church was a theocracy, and God was regarded as ever present with his officers and people. The same is true in the Church still. It is a theocracy; an ever-present Jesus still presides even where two or three are met together for the purposes of Church government (Mat 18:20).
II. THE PRIESTS AND THE JUDGE ARE TO SHOW THE PARTIES THE DIVINE LAW ON THE SUBJECT. The decision is to be expository of existing law, not a decision on the ground of expediency. Now this necessarily follows from the Kingship of God. His will must be paramount. His officers simply try to find out his will. A national parliament may manufacture laws; but Church officers take their laws from the inspired Statute-book. It is exposition of Divine Law that the ruler in God’s Church is really concerned with.
III. THE CHURCH OFFICERS REQUIRED IMPLICIT OBEDIENCE FROM THE PEOPLE TO THEIR INTERPRETATION OF GOD‘S WILL. In a rude age this was needful, implicit obedience such as we require from children. But when we reach the corresponding part of the New Testament economy, the exhortation is, “Prove all things, hold fast that which is good” (1Th 5:21). The right of private judgment is admitted, and regulates the obedience. Just as when children grow to manhood, the implicit obedience demanded gives place to persuasion and the appeal to conscience.
IV. PRESUMPTUOUS DISREGARD OF GOD‘S WILL EXPRESSED BY THE PRIEST AND JUDGE WAS PUNISHED WITH DEATH. This was disobedience in its generic form, and came under the penalty of death, just as in Eden. The aggrieved parties had appealed for light to God’s officer; he was to be their Arbitrator, and they contracted to abide by his decision. Disobedience under such circumstances would overthrow the order both of Church and State. Hence the death penalty.
Presumptuous disregard of Divine commandments is not now less heinous than it was then, though it may escape for the time being such a terrible penalty. The judgment of God is only postponed. Should the presumption continue, the penalty will come at last with compound interest.
V. THE PATIENT STUDY OF GOD‘S WORD IS SURELY A DUTY WHEN PRESUMPTUOUS DISREGARD OF GOD‘S WILL IS SO HEINOUS A SIN. It should be our supreme desire to know what God would have us to do. This can only be known through systematic and patient study of the holy oracles. The priest with the Urim and Thummim is not now available. We must content ourselves with a quieter way. The Book is given instead of the oracle, and we are directed to consult it for ourselves. Approaching it in a patient, obedient spirit, we shall find it unlocking many a mystery to us, and affording us the light we need.R.M.E.
Deu 17:14-20
The limitations of monarchy.
We have here provision made for the probable demand of the people for a visible king like the other nations. The unseen King did not make the same sensation in their view, and hence Moses is inspired to anticipate the unbelieving demand. And here notice
I. THE UNSEEN KING MUST HAVE THE SELECTION OF THE VISIBLE ONE. It is in this way that the monarchy, when it came, was kept under the control of God. The theocracy was still the fountainhead of power. The people were not to choose their king. He was to have Divine right.
It is noticeable that, in giving them Saul, the Lord made emphatic the sensationalism that lay under the demand, for the visible king was head and shoulders above his brethren. David was also a big man, else Saul would never have offered him his armor, when proposing to fight the giant. And it is noticeable how the sensationalism is rebuked in the enemies of Israel producing Goliath as a champion, before whom it is evident that the big Saul feared and quaked.
II. THEY ARE NOT TO EXPECT OR TO THINK OF A STRANGER KING. Thus the patriotism of the people is fostered. It is one of themselves that is to have the kingship when it comes. It is interesting to notice this deliverance after the reservation already noticed. God’s choice is thus guaranteed to Israel. He will stand to the nation, if the nation will be faithful to him.
III. THE KING IS NOT TO RELY UPON THE CAVALRY ARM. Palestine, being mountainous, did not require cavalry. Infantry would be more effective. Cavalry, if raised and relied on, would necessitate an alliance with a cattle-breeding country like Egypt, and would be the precursor of a “spirited foreign policy,” such as proves ruinous to a pastoral people such as Israel was meant to be. There was thus a wise restraint laid upon the foreign policy of the nation; as God desired their separation from surrounding nations, and their religious stability upon the mountain ridges of Palestine, he warns them against this danger. Besides, the cavalry arm until recently was the most powerful in the service, and the charge of cavalry is something to be proud of or to fear. Now, of course, artillery has put cavalry out of its vaunted position. The temptation was to “trust in horses and in chariots,” and not in the Lord. Hence the warning.
IV. THE KING IS NOT TO HAVE A SERAGLIO. For through the wives he will surely be unmanned and have his heart turned away from God. It is the spiritual disasters of polygamy which are here insisted upon. A divided heart socially must entail a divided heart spiritually. No wonder the Psalmist prayed, “Unite my heart to fear thy Name.”
V. NOR IS THE KING TO AIM AT GREAT RICHES. For wealth is a great snare, and it competes with God for the heart. Money, like cavalry, is a most natural foundation of trust. A too wealthy monarch is likely to be worldly minded and unspiritual.
VI. THE KING IS TO MAKE A SPECIAL STUDY OF THE DIVINE LAW. He is to get a copy for himselfhe is to have it daily read to himand he is to allow its humiliating influence to be exercised over him so as to be obedient always. And if obedient, he is promised an hereditary interest in the throne. He was thus to be kept in subjection to the unseen King.
And though we may not aspire to kingships, we can profit by the warnings here prophetically addressed to the coming kings of Israel. For it is surely for us to allow nothing seen and temporal to threaten our faith in God. It may not be horses and chariots; it may not be money; it may be men in whom we are tempted to trust. Whatever it be, whether persons or things, that tempts us from our trust in God, it must be avoided. Better is it to be friendless, to be poor, to be solitary, than to be skeptical. Worldly success is where skepticism is born. The idols multiply as wealth and luxuries increase. There is something, we think, to hold by in the strain of life.
And whatever our position in this world, let us feel always not only our trust in God, but our subordination in all things to him. If he is King of kings, he is certainly Lord over us. Let us live under the theocracy, and serve him with our whole hearts.R.M.E.
HOMILIES BY D. DAVIES
Deu 17:1
The prevention of religious fraud.
Men who pride themselves on honesty towards their fellows are often dishonest in dealing with God. They are punctual in observing appointments with men; they are unpunctual in reaching the house of God. When the principle of piety in a man is weakened, he will stoop to many artifices to deprive God of his due.
I. AN IMPERFECT SACRIFICE SPRINGS FROM BLIND PARSIMONY. When piety declines, a man becomes the slave of his senses. He is moved or terrified only by what is visible. He is afraid of a human frown; he is impervious to the Divine displeasure. The lamb which is unfit for barter, and which is scarce fit for food, will be deemed good enough for sacrifice. Yet how mentally blind is the man! What thick scales he has manufactured for his eyes! Yet, “he that formed the eye, shall he not see?” And cannot God, with a breath, blast that man’s prosperity, and cage his soul in bondage? He had thought to snatch from God a dollar, and lo! he loses everything!
II. AN IMPERFECT SACRIFICE VITIATES ITS SYMBOLIC EFFICACY. These animal sacrifices had many moral uses. They developed the sentiment of gratitude for gifts bestowed. They expressed the penitence of the offerer, who thereby confessed that for his sins he had deserved to die. And inasmuch as a lamb or a heifer was immeasurably inferior to man, the sacrifice betokened the offering of a better Sacrifice, which should be a real atonement. Now, if men were permitted to bring a blemished victim, it would no longer prefigure him who is the “Lamb without blemish and without spot.” In such a case, the faith of the offerer was dead.
III. Such RELIGIOUS FRAUD WAS INCIPIENT ATHEISM. Here was the budding of blackest sinthe first step on a slippery decline, which would land one in death. If I can set aside God’s plain commands, as my selfishness desires; if I can treat God as my equal or my inferior, and devote to him only what is useless for myself;I am on the very borders of utter atheism, and to-minnow shall be ready to say, “There is no God.” Rankest unbelief often springs from practical disobedience. There is no neglect of God without self-injury.D.
Deu 17:2-7
Idolatry a crime against society.
Whether the fact be obvious to all men or not, it is fact that sin against God is also sin against human society. The relation of the Hebrew nation to God, is a type of the relation which God sustains to every nation. He is the Creator of individual life and of individual endowments. He is the Source of all the moral forces which bind men together in civil society. He has appointed to each nation its habitation, and has enriched it with more or less of material good. Hence every nation is under obligation to acknowledge and honor the one creating and reigning God.
I. THE CRIME. The crime consisted in esteeming the creature above the Creator. This was a direct breach of treaty between God and the nation. On God’s side the engagement was to bring them into the land of Canaan, and secure them against foes. On Israel’s side the engagement was to worship no other Deity but Jehovah. Hence the violation of a covenant so openly made and frequently ratified was a flagrant sin. Yet with every nation such a covenant is made by implication. If life is obtained from the invisible God, it is held on conditions imposed by him, and every item of conduct which is contrary to his known will is an act of rebellion. If rebellion against an earthly king is counted highest crime, incomparably greater is a deed of open rebellion against the King of kings. Idolatry is the root-stem of grossest immorality.
II. THE DETECTION AND PROOF OF THIS CRIME. In proportion to the greatness of the crime must be the carefulness of investigation, No punishment is to be inflicted on the ground of suspicion or prejudice. Human life is to be accounted precious, but the interests of righteousness are more precious still. On both these grounds, the scrutiny must be thorough. To prevent any injury to the sacred cause of justice, through error, or incompetence, or malice, one witness must be incompetent to obtain a verdict. Security against injustice comes from corroborated testimony and from independent witnesses. While every man is bound, in his sphere, to think and act righteously towards his neighbors, he must safeguard himself against hasty judgments and against the whispers of slanderers. In many positions in life we are called to act in the place of God.
III. THE PUNISHMENT DECREED. It was death by stoning. In that early age, and especially in the desert, there were no mechanical contrivances for suddenly extinguishing life. They were largely the children of nature, and possessed but few inventions of civilized life. The sagacity of Supreme Wisdom had placed frail man among natural forces, which might easily be employed in terminating bodily life. This arrangement impresses men with a sense of dependence. His bodily life succumbs to a stone. The unit must be sacrificed to the well-being of the community. “Into man lives for himself.”
IV. THE INSTRUMENTS OF THE EXECUTION. The chief witness against an offender, became, by God’s appointment, executor of the judicial sentence. This secured economy in the administration of law. It secured, to a large extent, veracity among witnesses, and moral certainty of the rightness of the verdict. Yet, that obloquy might not attach itself to one man alone, the whole community were charged to take part in the execution of the sentence. The deed would thus be the common deed of all. This practice would foster oneness of sentiment, oneness of purpose, and would promote harmonious national life.D.
Deu 17:8-13
High court of appeal.
We can imagine a condition of human society in which wrong-doing would at once declare itself by some visible pain or sign. We can imagine a condition of society in which God would himself step forth and punish every offence against truth or virtue. But then, men would lose the benefits of moral training which the present system ensures. This necessity for men to take part in the administration of justice brings large advantage.
I. HUMAN INTERESTS OFTEN BECOME VERY COMPLICATED. The interests men have in property, liberty, reputation, often become very involved. This arises largely from the operation of selfishness. Every item which will add to a man’s self-importance he will sue for by every process of law. This comes from the neglect of the comprehensive precept, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Another great difficulty in the administration of justice arises from men’s untruthfulness. The day will dawn when a stigma of shame will brand the man who withholds or violates the truth. If now, in every judicial inquiry, the whole truth, pure and simple, were forthcoming, decision and verdict would be a simple result.
II. THE MOST HOLY WILL BE, CAETERIS PARIBUS, THE MOST SAGACIOUS. The man who lives nearest to God will obtain the most of God’s wisdom. He will be free from base and selfish motive. He will be the most trusted by his fellows. He will have fullest access to God when intricate questions have to be solved. “If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God.” “Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness.” But pretended piety will serve no practical good.
III. EVERY JUDGE AMONG MEN ACTS SPECIALLY IN THE STEAD OF GOD. To be the administrator of justice, to adjudicate between right and wrong, is the highest office which men can fill. No position is more responsible; none more honorable. For all practical purposes, his decision must be regarded as the decision of God. Otherwise, there will be no termination to litigation and strife. From the verdict of the highest human judge, there is but one court of appeal, viz. the court of heaven. Without doubt, many judicial decisions on earth will be reversed by the Great Judge of all. This is sweet solace to the injured now. Yet it is nobler to suffer wrong at the hands of men than to resist by violence. For the present, we are to accept the sentence of the judge as absolute and obligatory. Our feet must diverge neither to the right hand nor to the left.
IV. CONTUMACY IS CRIME, PUNISHABLE BY DEATH. To despise the verdict of the judge is to weaken the authority of the Stateis to sow the seeds of anarchy and ruin. Defective administration of law is better than none. “Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry.” Yet, if contempt of human authority be accounted a capital crime, how much more criminal must be contumacy against God!
V. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT HAS FOR ITS END THE GOOD OF THE COMMUNITY. It is an advantage to remove from the circle of human society a pesta firebrand. The authority of law, the sacredness of justice, are set on high in flaming characters, and on all classes of the community the impression is salutary. Reverence for constituted authority is strengthened, and unbiased minds learn the heinous wickedness of disobedience. The effect is virtue, order, peace.D.
Deu 17:14-20
Limitations round about a king.
A king is the creation of a nation’s will. The nation does not exist for the king, but the king exists for the nation. His proper aim is not personal glory, but the widest public good.
I. KINGS ARE THE PRODUCT OF A DEGENERATE AGE. Since the King of heaven is willing to give his counsel and aid to men, it is for our honor and advantage to live under the direct administration of God; and it is only when piety and faith decline that men clamor for a human king. The conquests of Canaan by Israel had been most complete when Israel most carefully followed the commands of God. To sensitive minds, it would have been a dagger-thrust to imitate the practices of the degenerate heathen.
II. DIVINE LIMITATIONS ABOUT THE CHOICE OF A KING. In condescension to human infirmity, God will allow the elevation of a man to the throne. Through our own caprices, God ofttimes punishes us. Yet God kindly sets barriers about our capricious wills. For martial purposes, foolish men would often choose a stalwart giant, some Goliath, to be their king, though he be of foreign birth; or some successful warrior to lead them forth to battle. This is prohibited. The nation is to be self-contained. All the elements of prosperity may be found within its own borders. The will of God must be respected. God himself will select the man, point him out by unmistakable methods, and the nation can do no more than gratefully accept God’s wise decision, He will choose; they must anoint.
III. DIVINE LIMITATIONS ABOUT THE CONDUCT OF A KING. To him does not belong the privilege to gratify every taste and temper. The very contrary. He is under greater obligations than any other man to restrain himself. Temptation will surround him on every side; but he must meet temptation with vigilance, patience, firmness. To be a true king, he must first conquer himself. He must restrain carnal ambition. He must restrain love of display. He must restrain the passion for conquest. He must restrain sensual pleasure. He must restrain his avarice. His real distinction is not to have many horses, many wives, or great riches. His distinction is to be wise administrator of righteousness, the protector of public liberty and peace. To fulfill faithfully the functions of a king, he must walk circumspectly in the narrow waybe a loyal subject to the King of heaven.
IV. LIMITATIONS ABOUT THE PRIVATE LIFE OF A KING, His first concern must be respecting his personal fitness for such responsible office. No pains must he spare to obtain complete equipment. He must count no labor severe or menial by which he may qualify himself for kingly duties. His first duty is to obtain completest acquaintance with the will of God. To this end he must possess a copy of God’s written Law, and in this Law he must meditate day and night. The spirit of this Law must animate his being and breathe in all his speech. God’s Word must be his vade mecum, his daily compass and chart. He must move among his courtiers and governors as a visible embodiment of truth and purity, a living transcript of the Divine will. This is a true pattern of a kinga man who excels in wisdom, having learnt of God; a man who is eminent for pious obedience, and writes in largest characters the model of a noble life. Such a man shall live. “Though lie die, his influence and rule shall live.”D.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
The Fifth Command
Deu 16:18 to Deu 18:22
Deu 16:18-22
18Judges and officers shalt thou make [give] thee in all thy gates, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, throughout thy tribes: and they shall judge the people with just judgment. 19Thou shalt not wrest [bend, turn aside] judgment; thou shalt not respect persons [the face] neither take a gift: for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous. 20That which is altogether just, [Justice, justice] shalt thou follow, that thou mayest live, and inherit the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. 21Thou shalt not plant thee a grove [as a tree-pillar]* of any trees near unto the altar of the Lord thy God, which thou shalt make thee. 22Neither shalt thou set thee up any image [image, pillar, statue]; which the Lord thy God hateth.
Deu 17:1.Thou shalt not sacrifice unto the Lord thy God any bullock, or sheep [and goat] wherein is blemish, or any evil favouredness [evil thing]1; for that is an abomination unto the Lord thy God. 2If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee, man or woman that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the Lord thy God, in transgressing his covenant, 3And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either [and, indeed, to wit,] the sun, or moon, or any of the host [or the whole host] of heaven, which I have not commanded; 4And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and inquired diligently, and behold it be true, [truth (is it)] and the thing [the word] certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel: 5Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.2 6At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death [to be put to death] be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death. 7The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So thou shalt put the evil away from among you. 8If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea [cause and cause] and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy [contested cases] within thy gates: then shalt thou arise, and get thee up into the place which the Lord thy God shall choose; 9And thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and inquire; and they shall shew thee the sentence [word, what is right, sentence] of judgment: 10And thou shalt do according to the sentence [the sound, purport of the word]3 which they of that place which the Lord shall choose shall shew thee; and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee: 11According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do: thou shalt not decline from the sentence [word] which they shall shew thee, to the right hand, nor to the left. 12And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not [not to] hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the Lord thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die: and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel. 13And all the people [the whole people] shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously. 14When thou art come unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me; 15Thou shalt in any wise [So shalt thou only set him]4 set him king over thee whom the Lord thy God shall choose: one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a 16stranger over thee [give over thee a stranger] which is not thy brother. But [Only] he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch [since]5 as the Lord hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way. 17Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. 18And it shall be when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which Isaiah 19 before the priests the Levites. And it [the law] shall be with him, and he shall read therein [in the book] all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them: 20That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left: to the end that he may prolong 21his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel.
Deu 18:1-22.The priests the Levites, and all the tribe [the whole tribe] of Levi, shall have no part nor inheritance with Israel: they shall eat the offerings of the Lord made by fire, and his inheritance. 2Therefore shall they have no inheritance among their brethren: the Lord is their inheritance, as he hath said unto [promised] them. 3And this shall be the priests due [right] from the people, from them that offer a sacrifice, whether it be ox or sheep; and they shall give unto 4the priest the shoulder, and the two cheeks, and the maw. The first-fruit also of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the first of the fleece of thy sheep, shalt thou give him. 5For the Lord thy God hath chosen him out of all thy tribes, to stand to minister in the name of the Lord, him and his sons for eDeut Deu 16:6 And if a Levite come from any of thy gates out of all Israel, where he sojourned [where he was lodging, stranger] and come with all the desire of his mind unto the place which the 7Lord shall choose; Then [And] he shall minister in the name of the Lord his God, as all his brethren the Levites do, which stand there before the Lord. 8They shall have like portions to eat [part as part shall they eat] beside that which cometh of the sale of his patrimony.6 9When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. 10There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth [practiseth]7 divination, or an observer of times [a seer] or an enchanter, or a witch, 11Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. 12For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee. 13Thou shalt be perfect [whole, entire] with the Lord thy God. 14For these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners: but as for thee, the Lord thy God hath not suffered thee [given to thee] so to do. 15The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken. 16According to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again [not will I hear further, continue to hear] the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not. 17And the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken. 18I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put [give] my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. 19And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I 20will require it of him. But [Only] the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or [and] that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. 21And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? 22When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing [word] follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing [word] which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously [arrogantly]: thou shalt not be afraid of him.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Deu 16:18 to Deu 17:8 . If Moses will now explain and apply the fifth command in the same manner he has hitherto used, comprehending the whole people, thus according to the end of Deuteronomy, and at the same time out of its fundamental purpose, which as its author he ever follows, he has an appropriate transition to it in the demands which he has made already, Deu 4:9-10, still more, Deu 6:7; Deu 6:20 sq.; Deu 11:19, upon parents, and the elder class generally, as the nearest objects of the fifth command. The doctrine of the law for the home life, is the practice of the law for the popular life in reference to justice and injustice. The thought, therefore, of presenting it as a sacred people of Jehovah even in its political relations, (Keil), does not introduce the transition to what follows, although it is true that the civil order rests upon the conscientious fostering of justice, by virtue of judiciously arranged courts, and an impartial administration of justice. Schultz, in the derivation from the same idea, refers better to the leader and instructor who, armed with peculiar power, knowledge of the law, or revelation, puts rightly Israels departures over against his piety, and lays claim to his docility. [Moses as the inspired leader and guide with his subordinate judges, met all the necessities of the people, but now, when he was about to leave them, and they were to enter upon entirely different circumstances, he provides for the new exigencies. The whole section accords with the spirit and design of Deuteronomy.A. G.]. Deu 16:18. Comp. upon Deu 1:15-16; Deu 1:13, and the Doct. and Eth. remark 2. Now, judges in all the cities, on account of the altered relations in Canaan. But even now the institution proceeds from the peopleonly confidence, as is natural, can establish a position even similar to the parental. Thus the Israel addressed, judges itself best, by means of those chosen from and out of itself. Deu 16:19 gives three negative instructions for the administration of the judicial office, each one reaching more widely to that which might lead to what was previously forbidden, Schultz. Comp. Exo 23:6; Deu 27:19; Deu 1:17; Deu 10:17; Deu 27:25; Exo 23:8. The reason brings into view first the power of judgment, then the word of judgment. From the righteous judges, what they should be, we pass in Deu 16:20, to the positive qualities of righteousness, made more emphatic through the repetition (1Ti 6:11; Php 3:12; Php 3:14). The promise is similar to that of the fifth command. The examples now following the judicial section, according to the connection, preserve the inward thread of the first table, which the fifth command closes. Deu 16:21-22. Comp. upon Deu 7:5; Deu 12:31
Deu 17:1. Comp. Deu 15:21. excludes any and every evil, defects of any kind whatever. Deu 17:2 generalizes concisely the three cases. Comp. Deu 13:13; Deu 4:25; Deu 4:13; Deu 4:23. Deu 17:3. As Deu 4:19, (Deu 13:7; Deu 13:14) which service, sq. Israel is not set right through prohibition alone. Deu 17:4. Comp. Deu 13:15, 16, 19, sq., here the judicial investigation, the proceeding of the court. Deu 17:5. That man or, sq. There is no sparing even of the weaker sex in such a case. Hence it is emphatically repeated. which was announced to thee. Unto thy gates, out before the city, as hitherto before the camp, Lev 24:14; Num 15:35 sq.; (Act 7:58; Heb 13:12). Symbolizing the removing of the evil out of the midst of Israel. Comp. further Deu 13:11. Deu 17:6. Num 35:30 (Mat 18:16; Joh 8:17; 2Co 13:1; Heb 10:28). the dying (Gen 20:3) thus beyond rescue, because he was in a certain sense already dead, (Num 19:11). , the mouth condemns the man. Job 15:6; Luk 19:22. Deu 17:7 is as Deu 13:10; Deu 13:6. Does this at the same time express the entire certainty of the witnesses (Knobel), their conviction of the guilt (Schultz)? In any case it symbolized the individual and general readiness to eradicate the evil from the midst of Israel. [It was calculated to ensure their sincerity and truthfulness, and to deter from false witness.A. G.].
2. Deu 17:8-13. A supplementary carrying out of Deu 1:17 (Exo 18:26; Exo 18:19) with reference to Canaan, and because Moses was not to be there. Deu 17:8. If there arise a matter too hard for thee. The people is represented as judging itself through the local courts, Deu 16:18 Too hardone which the judge in the case could not or would not decide. He particularizes: blood and blood, as to the killing, whether wilful or unintentional, and hence what is right in the case and what not; ( is the judgment); according to what law it must be decided; (Herxheimer, in money matters). is the injury resulting from a blow, thus here of bodily wounds (Exo 21:18 sq.), and not of leprosy. Matters of controversynot, as Keil, Schultz, cases of quarrels, but as Knobel, legal cases, about which there may be controversy, as to whose decision different opinions may be given. , if it means to ascend, is explained from the great importance, not from the position, and hence not from the location of Jerusalem. (Act 15:2). According to Meier the word signifies primarily to press in, draw near. Comp. Gen 46:31; Gen 46:29. Deu 17:9. The priests the LevitesSee Intro., 4, I. 22. [Great stress is laid upon this phrase in contrast with that used in the earlier books, the priests, the sons of Aaron, by those who oppose the Mosaic authorship. The lapse of time, and the events which had occurred between the earlier books and Deuteronomy, afford an easy and natural explanation of the difference. The position of the priests was now established. No Levite would question the fact that the priesthood attached to the family of Aaron. It was more important now, and more in accordance with the popular character of Deuteronomy, to bring out their popular tribal relations. The Levites, too, were in a sense a priestly tribe. They had in important respects a priestly position, and had priestly functions. They stood between the people and God. There may have been, too, a design on the part of Moses in selecting this phrase, as Wordsworth suggests, to appease any jealousies between the priests and the Levites; to remind the priests that the Levites were their brethren, and to remind the Levites that they shared in the honor and dignities of the priests. In any case, however, the explanation of this diversity is much easier upon the supposition that Moses wrote Deuteronomy, than upon that of a later writer, who still assumed to write as Moses. For it is incredible that any one who may have wished to palm off his work as that of Moses, should either have been ignorant of the terms of the earlier books, or should have carelessly neglected them, and thus have drawn attention to his imposture.A. G.]. The phrase is general, and includes the high-priests. , co-ordinating those who declare the law, the teacher, (Deu 17:11, Lev 10:11), and the literal actual judge. The former precedes here, because in difficult cases like these in Deu 17:8, their activity is first laid under requisition. But the latter receives not the second place (Knobel), but his official position. Comp. Deu 19:17; Deu 26:3. The passage 2Ch 19:8-11, connects itself with this only in the most general way. Whoever has this later supreme court before his mind will not be so unprejudiced, nor distinguish so naturally from the personal position of Moses, the simple outlines of a superior competent court. He speaks freely for the future, but not from a more definite and precise present. The judge holds nearly the position of Moses over against the priesthood. That he probably, as a superior judge, as the president of the wider circle of judges (Deu 19:17), acted with the priests as a bench or college, upon the questions, the suits, from the local city courts, may be inferred from the words, and they shall show thee, sq. Hiph. to bring near, to point out, to inform. Deu 17:10. Not the litigating Israelite (Knobel, Schultz) since it is the execution of the sentence obtained, which is here treated of, but the lower court, which should see that it was done. (Keil). This injunction was truly in place, where there was a natural feeling of relative independence in the local courts, and to enforce upon every Israelite a more exemplary obedience to the supreme court appointed by God. The place which. Comp. Deu 19:17, which gives the relief and explanation. If the judgment of any judge is to be regarded (Deu 1:17) as of God, so pre-eminently that before the Lord. (Schultz). The mouth (sound) of the word, is the judicial sentence, which announces the instruction in the case in question, which must be retained as final. Deu 17:11. The sentence is particularized at first as the sound (mouth) of the law with reference to the priestly teacher of the law, because all depends upon the law of God, and then first as judgment with reference to the judge, upon whom rests the obligation of saying what is right, of pronouncing judgment. Observe the the earlier law, e.g., Exodus 21; not as Deu 17:18, the deuteronomic. (Intro., 2). (Mat 23:2 sq.). Comp. further Deu 5:29. Deu 17:12 closes with the application to every man. The malicious disposition can scarcely be treated otherwise. Comp. Deu 1:43. There also they would not hear. (1Pe 5:5). It is not men whom they would not hear, but God. Therefore: the priest, which is to be understood not of the High-priest only, if even especially of him (Heb 8:1), since it is only the official character of the priest generally which is here spoken of, and which presents the disobedience as against Jehovah. The same thing is self-evident from the judge, since he in the place of God speaks in the name of God (Deu 1:17). That standeth, sq.Intro., 4, I. 22. said, as Keil correctly remarks upon the distinction of the priests from the Levites, somewhat more specifically than . Comp. Gen 5:22; Gen 5:24; Gen 6:9; 1Sa 2:11; 1Sa 3:1; Mal 2:6, to wit, for the more intimate, more confidential converse, their nearness in society, (Gesenius). The priests served in the holy place, and through the High-priest their representative and head in the most holy. The rest here, as in Deu 17:7. Upon Deu 17:13 comp. Deu 13:12. (1Ti 5:20). [There is little room under the theocracy for the distinction between ecclesiastical and civil causes. The priests were no doubt the expounders and judges of the law, but the lay judges were not added to the court, to be judges of the facts in distinction from the law in the case, but in part out of existing and long-continued usage, probably reaching back to the patriarchal times, and partly, as a recognition of the right of the people as such, to be represented in the administration of justice. We do not know how the choice was made. There were probably different methods in use at different times. But the judge seems to have been a representative of the people.A. G.].
3. Deu 17:14-20. The transition is natural from the judge to the kingdom (1Sa 8:5; 2Sa 15:4 sq.). Intro., 4, I. 16. Deu 17:14. Two things are presupposed in this case, settled relations after the entrance into Canaan, and its occupation, then the self-determination of the people, and thus its inward development to the kingdom. As all the nations (heathen).Not precisely an aberration, but still neither a mere thoughtless conformity. Comp. Deu 6:14; Deu 13:8, where the same expression occurs. (Intro., 4, I. 16). After such a permission in the case, Deu 17:15 emphasizes the command ( ), omnino non alium, quam quem, sq. (H. Michaelis) in order to prevent any possible clashing with the sovereignty of Jehovah. How the people should set the king over them is left open. Perhaps through their elders. How the divine choice should be manifested, whether by Urim, or the prophets, or by some clear fundamental leading is also undetermined. From among, sq., states what must be true under all circumstances, and is therefore once more negatively repeated. A stranger would never be the choice of Jehovah. The earlier restriction respects him who is above, the latter those below. (The historical criticism might with this go down even to Joh 19:15! 2Ki 15:19 sq.; Deu 16:7, do not indeed belong here (Knobel). As the last repeated determination with a certain sacred simplicity, sounds strangely, so also the first direction for the king in Israel. Deu 17:16. He shall have no fondness for horses, and that indeed not so much from any opposition to a warlike lust of conquest (which was not the case even, 1Ki 10:28 sq., where it occurs with reference to a royal pageant) as in opposition to the pride relying upon horses. Psa 20:7; Psa 33:16 sq.; Psa 147:10. (Isa 31:1). But this opposition restores in a genuinely Mosaic way the well-remembered historical event, Exo 14:15; Exo 19:21. It is the opposition between Israel and Egypt, expressed in a form which is intelligible only at the time of Moses, when the people on the slightest occasion expressed its desire for Egypt, its purpose to return thither (Exo 14:11; Num 11:5 sq., 20; Deu 21:5), a reunion of the just sundered bands did not seem impossible. Hengstenberg. Comp. Oehler in HerzogsEncycl. The forbidden return to Egypt is thus placed as the very end of the multiplication of horses. Moses feared that the king would seek the Egyptian lowlands (Deu 11:10-11) which were so much better fitted for the rearing of horses, instead of the mountainous Palestine. They must remain externally far off, that they may preserve the internal separation entire (Lev 18:3). Schultz. Comp. Jos 11:6; Jos 11:9; Jdg 5:10; 2Sa 8:4. Solomon, even on account of the Mosaic relations, which he only considered, might have regarded the direction as antiquated. [And yet Solomons experience shows that the multiplication of horses could not be secured without intercourse with the Egyptians, which Moses saw it was important to prevent.A. G.]. Nothing is said here against the continual going to and from Egypt, as e.g., Jer 2:18; Jer 2:36. Knobel.As the Lord hath said (Deu 28:68), does not occur literally in the pentateuch, but Moses appeals to what was said, although not written, since this is so understood in the very leading out of Israel especially into Canaan. [Egypt was the principal source whence the nations of Western Asia drew their supply of horses. It stands also everywhere in Scripture as the antithesis to the theocratic covenant and kingdom on earth. To cause the people to return to Egypt, which the multiplication of horses would naturally do, would be to reverse the great and beneficent work of God, which inaugurated the Mosaic covenant, the deliverance from the bondage of Egypt. Hence the prohibition. Bib. Com.A. G.]. The second direction (Deu 17:17) lies against another strong passion of oriental rulers. As the passion for horses would lead back to Egypt, so the multiplication of wives would draw them away from the Lord; the lust itself, indeed, much more if the wives were from the heathen (1Ki 11:3 sq.) Comp. Deu 11:16. [The restriction however does not forbid polygamy absolutely, but the excessive polygamy, such as was found in Solomon.A. G.]. The third prohibition concerns excessive luxury. (1Ki 10:14; 1Ki 10:27). Great wealth begets effeminacy and luxury, as well as pride and oppression. J. H. Michaelis. Deu 17:18 gives the counter-means and way to good against all lust of the eye, lust of the flesh, and pride. Upon the throne. On the summit of human greatness, where all is wont to move according to his will, then he must have the will of the Most High for his aim and standard. He shall write him, if not with his own hand, yet cause to be written, Intro., 2. Deu 17:19. (his vade mecum) in his possession, in his mind, thought, and will. Comp. Intro., 2; Deu 4:10; Deu 5:26; Deu 6:2; Deu 14:23. Deu 17:20. Comp. Deu 8:14; Deu 5:29. An hereditary kingdom. [While permission is given to the chosen people to be like the other nations in this respect, still their king is not to be like other kings. He must be approved by God, from among his brethren, restricted in all indulgences, and bound by the laws and institutions of the nation. The monarchy was allowed but guarded in the most careful way. A copy of this law. Sept. and Vulg., he shall write for himself the Deuteronomy. But this law includes the whole pentateuch, or rather its legal portions. See Deu 31:9; Deu 31:11; Deu 31:26. This passage which has been urged so strenuously as a proof of the later origin of Deuteronomy, contains really a strong proof of its Mosaic authorship. For it is not only conceivable that Moses should have provided for the contingency of the kingdom, such as he saw everywhere around him, and to which allusions had been made in the earlier books, Gen 17:16; Gen 36:31; but is entirely natural. The request of the people when they came to Samuel for a king, is couched in terms like these used here. Comp. 1Sa 8:5, with Deu 17:14. Samuel also evidently has this passage in his mind. 1Sa 10:24; 1Sa 12:14. Samuel does not reprove the people simply because they desired a king, but because their desire originated in wrong motives, and was pressed under circumstances which should have prevented it, and in the face of the remonstrances of the prophet. It was sinful because in the circumstances it indicated a sinful alienation of heart on the part of the people, from Jehovah, and the institutions He had established. A careful study of the passage 1 Samuel 8-12, will show in what respects the people sinned, and that there is no opposition between that passage and Deu 17:14-20. But the passage may not only be vindicated from objections which have been urged against it. It bears upon its face the marks of its Mosaic origin. The direction that the king should be taken from among thy brethren would have been out of place after the establishment of the kingdom in the line of David; the reference to Egypt and the return thither, are, as above remarked, intelligible only upon the assumption of the Mosaic authorship; the restrictions under which the king was placed are in full agreement with the whole spirit and tone of the Mosaic legislation, so much so that their absence would have been noticeable as a great omission; the direction as to the copy of this law, carries with it the implication that Moses is speaking, who was then expounding the law, and could not well have been inserted at a later time; in short every feature of the passage is in favor of its Mosaic origin. See also Hengstenberg, Authen., Keil, Introd., Havernick, Einleit., Bib. Com.A. G.].
4. Deu 18:1-8. After the transition from the supreme court, especially from the judge to the king, the priests the Levites come into view; at first, indeed, generally, then the priests particularly, and lastly the Levites. Deu 18:1. The addition, all the tribe of Levi, shows that the Levitical priests were not the whole of Levi, that besides these there were Levites simply, and thus that there was a distinction between the two from the beginning. Comp. Num 18:20; Num 18:23 sq.; Deu 14:27; Deu 14:29; Deu 12:12; Deu 10:9. (Lev 1:9), i.e., all that was sacrificed upon the altar by fire; as Lev 24:9 of the show bread, so here of the priests portion of the sacrifice.And his inheritance, whatever beside belonged to Jehovah, and through Him to the tribe of Levi, priests and Levites, as the tithes, firstborn, first fruits. (Lev 7:4; Numbers 18) [These were Gods portion of the substance of Israel, and as the Levites were His portion of the persons of Israel, it was fitting that the Levites should be sustained from these. Bib. Com.A. G.]. The prominent thought that Jehovah is his inheritance, expressly stated in Deu 18:2, (Deu 10:9) leads to the detailed supplementary statement in Deu 18:3, which thus presupposes what in general belongs to Levi, on the part of Jehovah, and now details what on the part of the people is the particular due or right of the priests, (Deu 4:1; 1Sa 8:9 sq.; 1Sa 10:25) which must be conceded to them by every judge or ruler. Intro., 4, I. 20. A new assignment, not precisely to those, offering the sacrifies (Num 18:18; Exo 29:27; Lev 7:34) but to the priests in general. as Deu 12:15; Deu 12:21, to which kind of slaying the article may indicate. Knobel understands it of sacrificial victims (comp. 1Sa 2:13 sq.) in which case there would be required from the people in this class of sacrifices not only the wave-breast and heave-leg, (shoulder) but also the foreleg (Num 6:19) the two cheeks, and the maw (the so-called fourth stomach of the ruminants). Something good from each of the three chief parts of the animal (Keil regards the slaying as connected with the sacrificial feasts in the wider sense, and not as any of the three kinds of expiatory sacrifices). [The portions here assigned to the priests are in addition to those given to them in Leviticus. It seems to be a provision to meet the altered circumstances when the people were located in Canaan, and all the animals could no longer be slain at the door of the tabernacle. It is a more generous rather than a scantier provision.A. G.]. Deu 18:4 contains also, with reference to the first-fruits, on the part of the people, a supplementary direction, beside that well-known in (Num 18:12 sq.) even the first of the fleece which as resulting from the care and nurture of men is the proper gift of the people. Deu 18:5 gives the ground or reason for this direction, altogether in the style of the time of Moses, for him, the priest, hath God chosen, him as Aaron and his sons (Lev 7:34); to minister in the name of Jehovah, a more general expression than in Deu 17:12 (comp. Deu 5:7) but the special distinction appears clearly in Deu 21:5. The priest in the strict sense, hence it is said he officiates in charge, stands to minister, in the name of the Lord, at all events in the full power of that mediatorial position assigned him by God. Deu 18:6. Allusion is now made peculiarly to the Levites. In itself the clause here as Deu 27:14; Deu 31:25, might be understood of the priests, but both the expression and the whole statement of the case and the connection, lie against this view of Baumgarten. Intro., 4, I. 22. The situation implied is that of Deu 12:12; Deu 14:27. Intro., 4, I. 21. Herxheimer: Where he has officiated as judge, or from one of the Levitical cities. [The Levite would naturally be called in his official duties to other cities than those assigned him.A. G.]. With all the desire, sq. (Deu 12:15) because he so wishes, and has liberty to do so, and shows such piety, since no other interest impels him, than to share in the services at the sanctuary. [Wordsworth: Not from love of change, or from a restless passion for excitement, or from an ambitious craving for self-display and popular applause in a great and populous city.A. G.]. The place of Jehovah is his peculiar home, and all desires for this are a spiritual homesickness. The Levitical service is, also, in the name of the Lord, and although in a subordinate sense, still not less truly nor with any less right Comp. Intro., 4, I. 22. In the charge of the Lord, in any case in the position assigned by Him (Num 1:53; Num 3:7; Num 8:9-19; chap. 18), they represent the whole people, minister the service of Israel. The expression is the general one for the servant of Jehovah, including both the higher and the lower. With this agrees the purpose in the exposition of the fifth command, to give the Levites a parental character, in accordance with the condensed statement, Deu 18:1-2, (as Deu 10:8-9) and this all the more since they were commended to the same love, to guard, preserve the priestly dignity of their tribe. As all his brethren. By itself this (even more than Deu 18:6) might include the priests as Levites, and allude to the whole service at the place of the Sanctuary, but the connection favors the limitation to the Levites simply. There were, as it appears, Levites settled at the sanctuary, or for the time engaged there, placed over against the Levite drawn from his city, perhaps at one of the three feasts, to the sanctuary. Comp. still further Intro., 4, I. 22. The conclusion, as already prepared for in Deu 18:6-7, now follows in Deu 18:8. With a similarity in service and dignity, there must be also a like enjoyment. The portions (they had no other Deu 18:1), which were then given them to eat belonged equally to the one coming from afar, as to those found there. Keil understands the living from the incoming of the tithes, the portions of the sacrifices, the free-will gifts prescribed by the earlier law, which were not exclusively assigned to the priests. Schultz more in accordance with the connection, and more reasonably, places it as parallel with Deu 18:3 sq., and regards it as referring to the tithe, firstborn, and other sacrificial meals arranged at the place of the sanctuary (Deu 12:6 sq.; 17 sq.; Deu 14:22 sq.; Deu 15:19) and the enjoined invitation of the Levites to them. What follows is difficult. Not so much the text; for it comes essentially to the same thing, whether we read with Knobel and point, ( perhaps the required sale) or take for and point: from () the sale, that sold, or to be sold. The difficulty lies in the sense of the words: . The most obvious sense is by or upon the fathers, i.e., whatever was saleable of his, or belonged to him, (the removed Levite) was laid upon the family fathers at home, to ascertain and offer for sale. In any case, it is not private or personal property which is here regarded. Keil, Knobel, take for (Exo 6:25; Num 2:34) and understand the clause of the private income as a member of the family, through the sale of his family possessions or the profits of them, thus; beside his sales, the net proceeds of them according to the house of the fathers, i.e., determined according to the degree of his genealogy, or his relationship. Not as Schultz and the Sept.: . Comp. Lev 25:33 sq. The Levite could sell his house, or could draw the rent for it. [The text is difficult, but the sense is perfectly clear. The Levite who came from a distance to the sanctuary to engage in its service, whatever might be his resources from other quarters, was not to be deprived of his equal share with those who were in attendance at the sanctuary. Part as part they shall eat.A. G.].
5. Deu 18:9-22. Finally, as a conclusion, partly supplementary to the previous official personages and arrangements, partly controlling them, at the same time completing the compensation for the departing Moses, is the prophetic institution, and indeed growing out of the necessity for an authentic revelation of God, against the varied heathen superstitions and apostasy. Deu 18:9. Comp. Deu 17:14. Thou shalt not learn(Deu 5:1; Deu 14:23; Deu 17:19). There will be teachers enough of the falsehood (Deuteronomy 13). The abominations are set over against the holy service. Herxheimer. Comp. Deu 12:30 sq.; Deu 7:25. Deu 18:10 refers at once to the Moloch-worship, (Lev 18:21; Lev 20:2 sq.), as Schultz remarks, because all the following individual dark arts arise out of the demonized cultus which represents the destructive potencies of nature through Moloch, as witchcraft goes hand in hand with the devil among the old Germans. Knobel holds that the Moloch-worship is placed here at the very beginning of this enumeration as the worst kind of idolatry, out of which these dark arts are born. The descriptive term chosen, Hiph., reminds us significantly of the venerable national name Hebrews, (Deu 15:12) and may at the outset call attention to the opposition between all such conduct and the national consciousness. The act was purificatory (a consecration). See Art. Moloch, Herz.Enc., IX., p. 717. [But also SmithsBib. Dict., Art. Moloch, in which the expiatory nature of the rite is defended.A. G.]. Comp. Keil upon Lev 18:21. The general designation for soothsayer is , to divide, decide, give an oracle; a pun upon liar, Eze 13:6. Comp. Jos 13:22. Observeraccording to Meier to cover, hence of secret discourses; the whispering magician. According to others (Schultz) from thick cloud: cloud interpreter, or from (eye) either one who fascinates through an evil eye, or one who observes signs, an Augur (Lev 19:26) Enchanter agrees well with serpent, as significant of its movements. The serpent is from its thrusting, piercing bite, according to the primitive signification of the verb, which is not as Keil, to hiss, but to press, to seize, and hence inwardly to forebode, conceive, to understand by signs, Gen 44:5; Num 24:1; Num 23:23. Hence well used here for sign interpreter. Comp. Hengst.Balaam, p. 122 sq. Witch to divide, unveil, (Meier), the adjurer. Deu 18:11. Charmerbinding or making fast through magic, without, however, thinking of magic knots (Keil); as fascinare, . is the spirit ghost, not as turning back, but as drawing back, returning, shade (Sept.: Ventriloquist from the hollow tone [bottle]). One who possesses a kind of power over spirits, so that he needs only to ask or inquire. Lev 19:31; Lev 20:6; Lev 20:27; 1Sa 28:7 sq. Wizard, a prudent, cunning man (as the wise woman). Lastly, one who seeks from the dead, i.e., cites, adjures them. Deu 18:12. Comp. Lev 18:24 sq.; Lev 20:23. A resumption of Deu 18:9. Deu 18:13. As the abomination from to retire, withdraw, so from to shut up, bring together; thus as opposed to each other. God must withdraw Himself from that, and Israel should cleave together with Jehovah. The perfect, entire dependence upon Him distinguishes the people of God from the heathen. Deu 18:14; Deu 9:1. Comp. upon Deu 18:10. Not so does Israel hearken, should it hearken, or need to hearken. Upon the gift rests the duty; that granted, this is conceded. Deu 18:15 carries out perfectly that already given, through that which is now first to be given, and indeed in a parallel manner (Deu 18:18) with the king, Deu 17:15 : from the midst of thee, by which also in opposition to Deu 18:9 it is said, that Israel would have no occasion to stray into heathenism, and would not need any Balaam. For Comp. Doct. and Eth., Deu 13:1. As in Deu 17:14 the discourse is of the kingdom, so here of the prophetic order as it ever and always through a prophet (not one only) corresponds to the necessity made so clear at Sinai, and to the desire of the people. Of thy brethren, connected with thee in the closest manner; thy duty his, and thy sorrow his sorrow, etc. Like unto me. This is not explained by from the midst of thee, scarcely to fix the limits towards the heathen divination, but becomes clear through what follows, from which it is clear also, that the comparison is not as to the peculiar personality of Moses in the individuality of his revelation, (Deu 34:10), but only as to what he had done and had been at Sinai at the request of Israel (As I am one such), Lange, Pos. Dog., p. 609. It is the promise of a line of prophets, which is embraced in the prophet, who is the counterpart of Moses. Typical and Messianic, Joh 1:45; Joh 6:14; Joh 4:25; Joh 5:44 sq.; Act 3:22; Act 7:37; Luk 24:19. See Doctrinal and Ethical.Will raise up, with reference to Deu 13:2. Also: Unto him ye shall hearken, in allusion to Deu 13:4 and Deu 18:14 (Mat 17:5). Deu 18:16. God through this promise granted the desire of the people, which, after the departure of Moses, would become a necessity. Comp. upon Deu 5:20 sq.; Deu 9:10; Deu 10:4. Deu 18:17. Comp. Deu 5:25. Deu 18:18. Moses already at that time received the promise, but announces it here first, because, in its personal reference to Moses (Introd. 4, I. 16), the right point of time was now first reached with his approaching departure, and thus in Deuteronomy. The import of the as me, Deu 18:15, gives now the explanation of as thee, 1) the mediated word of God, as through Moses, God no longer speaking directly to the people: thus far the preparation (the divine inspiration, Num 23:5); 2) the unconditional certainty of the word: thus now the legitimation, the official character. To the office so legitimated a corresponding conduct is due on the part of Israel, Deu 18:19, which indeed follows already from the fact that Israel had asked such a mediation at Sinai (Deu 18:16). Moses thus shows how the true prophet will speak the words of Jehovah given into his mouth, namely, simply give them again, not perhaps to conceal the threatening by the promise, but speak all that is given him by the Lord. , literally, to reclaim, as out of the hand of the doer (Gen 9:5), thus here , de chez-lui. With regard to the prophetic order promised, something is given over to Israel, and indeed to every individual, which he has with him, of which he is conscious, and as to which Jehovah demands the proper use, the fitting honor or obedience, but in case this fails, then calls to account, demands restitution and satisfaction through punishment, and in this way reclaims that which was given from the disobedient.[See Act 3:23, in which the apostle brings out more fully than even the Sept.: I will take vengeance, the full meaning of these words. It is equivalent to the highest theocratical punishment, that of excision from the chosen people. See Alexanderin loco.A. G.]But still the prophet must be legitimated according to Deu 18:18, and hence the resumption, Deu 18:20, of the words in question, and (Deu 17:12-13) the declared penalty on account of the flagrant offence in two cases. Finally we have the criterion of the false prophet in the first case. Deu 18:21-22. In a prophet of false gods, the thing announced (Deu 13:3) may happen; in the false prophet of Jehovah, the first case, Deu 5:20, tho non-occurrence gives the criterion. Fear, horror, hence forbearance, were possible on account of the name of Jehovah, in which the prophet spake.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Comp. Doct. and Eth. 2, upon Deu 1:6 to Deu 4:40.
2. The necessity for a king is the necessity for a head, who embracing the entire external, natural and civil community in his person, might be able to defend and regulate. As soon as Israel, from its beginnings fixed by God, had grown into an actual nation, it so developed itself, that it must have a natural head, and thus preserve its perfectly free organic form (Gen 17:6; Gen 17:16; Gen 35:11; Gen 36:31; Num 23:21; Num 24:7; Num 24:17). The king is the natural manifestation of the perfectly free and independent man. Is there a true king in Israel, then Israel must be perfectly free and independent; for it lies in the very nature of the king that his perfection is not for himself; he must permit his whole fulness to flow out over his people. Hence the true king is the completion of the freedom, and generally of the history of Israel. Baumgarten.
3. The kingdom and the prophetic order are parallel developments of the future in Israel, as they appear also in this section. They represent the two extreme points of the Israelitish national life, the most external and inward sides of that life, which have their reconciliation in the high-priesthood. The distinction between the kingly and prophetic order, growing into an opposition, is a tragic element in the future history of Israel. It must be so that the Scripture may be fulfilled, although first of all the bare variance of the offices which circumscribe the nationality of Israel, kindles the ever-burning desire after that which should unite them all and the whole Israelitish nationality in itself.
4. The prophetic order is not made superfluous or unnecessary through the revelation of the law; but the path for it is thus opened. Schullz. Moses foresaw that Israel through disobedience, thus through the great deep of dissolution, would break through all the strength of the ordinances established by the law. Baumgarten. For the insufficiency of the judges and king, the priests and Levites, Schultz appeals to that transition to more settled relations now in prospect, according to Deu 17:14, to the elders of the people (Deu 4:25), to the approaching error and apostacy (chap. 31), the threatened seducing through the false prophets (Deu 13:2; Deu 18:20), the restoration according to Deu 4:29; Deu 30:1 sq. It becomes the pure, fundamental spiritual power of the word (Baumgarten), and indeed of the authentic word, which the Lord speaks, to lead over, preserve, and help, and heal. But to these representatives of God, who keep the revelation of God continually present and living, for the special necessities of the time, and indeed in intelligible words, who thus literally deserve the name of parental teachers, a fitting, natural reverence shown through obedience, is due, which is no more to be rendered upon the mere authority derived from the revelation of the law, but upon the original force of the continuously efficient word (Schultz).
5. As nature preserves its consecration to the divine service and its sacred functions for the existence of the divine kingdom in the cultus, so history in the promise (Beck, Christl. Lehrn. I. 398). The gradually unfolding and organically united promises marking the secret advance of the history of salvation which should come from the Jews, down to its consummation, are the building-stones of the temple in which humanity shall worship the Father, as they, the promises, form the mystical body of the Messiah before the Word was made flesh. Comp. Langes Pos. Dogm., the thoughtful, 67, and upon Gen., p. 247 sq. The promise of salvation in the progress of the centuries from its general, human, real character, arrives in Abraham and Isaac at the cradle of the people, advances to the popular national character of its organs in Jacob from whom the tribes spring, to its tribal distinction in Moses, the prophet-prince, representing the whole economy of God, in whom thus centres, not as in the seed of Eve the simple idea of the human race, nor as in the patriarchs the idea of the people, nor as in Judah the idea of the tribe, but the idea of the divine civil officer (Heb 3:5), appears here in the divine civil service, centralizing itself in the personality of Moses as the bearer of the future salvation. Beck.
6. As to the Messianic character of the passage, Deu 18:15; Deu 18:18, as the promise of God is mediated and introduced through the condition and character of men, it is the fore-announcement of the future as it is contained in the germ of the present (Lange). The constellation of the present does not proclaim the necessity for a second Moses. For without regarding the general historical law, according to which so comprehensive a genius does not soon repeat itself, only an Elisha follows an Elijah, the stand-point of the law rules still in Deuteronomy, fixes the institution, determines the arrangement, ordains the officers (Intro. 4, I. 16), for the peculiar historical, national development of Israel in Canaan, in which individual personalities must first form and mould themselves. Joshua is the personal deputy of Moses truly, but in limited, specific labors. For the present there was no need for the individual further, but for the condition in which the essential mediation of Moses, the prophetic, might be sown by God as a fruitful seed which should ever put forth personalities until the last, whom they all together typify, and who fulfils them perfectly in himself (1Pe 1:11). With this agrees the singular form of the promise here, and the express comparison with Moses as it is actually and historically explained, Deu 18:16 sq. The latter explanation especially, which must give the limitation to the as I, as thee, opposes every exposition which emphasizes the peculiar method of Moses in a wider (Havernick8) (Hofmann9), or a narrower sense (Kurtz,10 Auberlen, Tholuck. The typico-Messianic interpretation agrees best, both with the letter, and with the development of the Old Testament promise of the Messiah generally, and with the Mosaic time especially. In the latter reference Lange calls attention to the completion of the prophecy of Moses through that of Balaam. as Melchisedec appears by the side of Abraham. Balaam (Num 24:17) predicts the glory and the power of the kingdom out of JacobIsrael. Thus the earlier (3) hinted distinction between the kingdom and the prophetic order is characteristically personified in the two prophets. The typical priesthood, as it is contained in the priestly royal Israel (Exo 19:6) comes first into view, Deuteronomy 33. A direct reference to the Messiah must moreover lead beyond the likeness to Moses, indeed to an opposition with him, into which even Kurtz and Schultz fall (Isaiah 42, 49, 50, 61). [See also and with reference to these same passages, Alexander on Isa., Vol. II., Introduction. While it is true that the promise runs parallel with the history in its progress, and is more or less determined by the condition and circumstances of men, this does not lie against the direct Messianic interpretation of this passage. It is not Messianic only in its germ-like character, unfolding itself through the long line of prophets until it reaches perfection in him who is the prophet. It has evidently from the connection in which it stands, on the one hand, opposed to the magic arts which the people were to shun, and on the other to the false prophets; and from the necessities of the people of God, after the departure of Moses, a distinct reference to that line of prophets, who were all like unto Moses so far as this, that God put his words into their mouth. But its main reference is to Christ. The New Testament constantly so represents it, Act 3:22-23; Act 7:37; Joh 1:19; Joh 4:25; Luk 11:50-51; Mat 17:5. The earlier Jewish expositors all applied the passage to the Messiah, and the great body of Christian commentators so explain it; only they do not make this its exclusive meaning. The question whether Moses understood his prophecy as thus pointing out the person of the Messiah has nothing to do with its interpretation. The prophets sometimes uttered what they did not fully understand, and they were often perhaps more distinctly conscious of the scope and meaning of the prophecies than we are disposed to admit. But it is clear that this question, whatever view may be held in regard to it, has no real bearing upon the exegesis. That must be settled upon other grounds. Nor is it of any weight against the direct Messianic interpretation, that Christ is in so many respects unlike Moses, greater than Moses, or even provided he is like unto him in this, that as a prophet he stands between men and God, and speaks the words of God, Joh 8:28. But if there is nothing in the person who speaks this prophecy, nor in the time at which it was uttered, nor in the immediate connection in which it stands, nor in its general relation to the whole progressive unfolding of the promise of salvation, inconsistent with the direct reference to the Messiah, if all these are much more in favor of that reference, as might be shown, then the passages in the New Testament which expressly apply it to Christ would seem to leave no room to doubt that this is the correct view.A. G.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Deu 16:18 sq. Luther: Thou seest here that God Himself administers His own law, ordains judges, etc. Thou seest also what a disposition a judge must have, viz. that he must overcome all lusts and the enticements of fear, love, favor, compassion, of avarice, expectation, reputation, life and death, and prefer simply the simplest truth and righteous judgment. How will he look to God alone, if the heart has not been made strong by faith? A very difficult, rare and exalted thing, is a single and righteous eye in a judge, and men without avarice are rare birds, rarer than a black swan. [Still they are found. Luthers experience led him to a severe judgment. But it is sad to think that there is so much ground for the severity.A. G.]
Deu 17:1. Starke: In collections we should give good and not uncurrent coin. Deu 17:2. Luther: He well says: wickedness in the sight of the Lord, for nothing is fairer, better, more sacred in the sight of men, than idolatry, godlessness, dissimulation, and a careful appearance of reverence. Deu 17:4. Berl. Bib.: No connivance, but also no reception of every accusation as true, without investigation. Deu 17:12. Richter: How strictly God requires obedience to rulers and overseers. Deu 17:15. Piscator: The great virtues of a Christian ruler: he must be a brother, care for the common good, have a compassionate heart, and thus not cause the severe punishments and service of a foreign ruler; he must not hold too splendid a court, nor use too great expense, not rely upon his power, strength, wealth, etc., and thus without the utmost need, from pride and haughtiness cause war; he must not be hindered in his administration by pleasure, idleness, and the like; he must not from avarice burden his subjects, and occasion sin in the magistrates: above all he must diligently read the word of God for himself, that he may not be led away from the light by unchristian theologians, study humility as a man among men, direct his whole administration by the will of God. Baumgarten: It was the last stubborn act of the Egyptian king, that he with his chariots pursued the defenceless Israel (Exo 14:6 sq.; 23), but even in this his pride, with his chariots and riders, sank in the depths of the sea (Exo 14:25 sq.; Deu 15:2; Deu 15:4; Deu 15:18) and thus completed the separation between Israel and Egypt. Starke: Kings and lords are for the people, not the reverse. Deu 17:16. Wurth. Bib.: Great lords have also their laws. Starke: He is the richest king who has the richest subjects. The Bible the best glass for rulersJudgment and dominion have their roots in righteousness (Deu 16:12) and faithfulness (Deu 17:16 sq.).
Deu 18:1 sq. Baumgarten: Not merely in the arrangement of the camp, but in the abode in the promised land, Levi appears as the innermost and spiritual Israel, since Levi has no inheritance in the land, but as if a quickening spirit is scattered through all the tribes in his cities. Schultz: As they lose their position they gain in the Lord ideally the possession of the whole. Starke: Christians, for the sake of Christ, must cheerfully forego all temporal things lying against their eternal inheritance in heaven. Piscator: The servants of the church and school should not be burdened with care for their support. [Wordsworth: A memento for the priesthood in every age of the Church, that they be not entangled with the affairs of this life.A. G.]. Deu 18:6. Piscator: The way should not be barred to any one, but whoever desired to serve the Lord, to study the law, and learn the will of God, should be permitted to do so, should be helped on his way, and be provided with everything necessary. Deu 18:9. Starke: A Christian at a godless place should not follow the people there in wickedness, 1Pe 4:1 sq. Deu 18:10-14. Berl. Bib.: The believer should seek after the wisdom which is from above. Jam 3:17. (Col 2:8). Baumgarten: In the general uncertainty and perplexity of life, and the shortsightedness of men, even the heathen desires a divine word. Thus they turn in various ways to the spirits of nature, but which make themselves known as the gods of the dead, and are an abomination in the eyes of the living and good God. [The intense desire to know what is future or unseen leads men now to resort to these modes of divination. Wordsw.: These abominable sins have even found an entrance, and a welcome, into the saloons of the cities of Christendom, comp. Rev 21:8.A. G.]. Deu 18:15. Luther: This is the most renowned passage of this book, and Moses introduces it here in the most fitting way when he was speaking of the priesthood, the authorities, and of all the servants of God. Baumgarten: Israel was to receive the divine word in extraordinary cases in a purely human and historical way. The mediation of Moses, the type of the prophets of Israel, to whom he attributes the same originality. Even the dead synagogue had such an idea of the originality and independence of the prophetic word, that it is a sentence of the Talmud, (Maimonides on the Mischna). In all that the prophet says to thee you should hearken to him, even if he oversteps the law, the service of idols excepted. Piscator: A glorious testimony by Moses to Christ, the chief of all the prophets. Rissler: Moses a type of Christ in the circumstance of his life, and his pre-eminence in his office. Moses at his birth in great danger of being destroyed, as the other children, at the command of the king; the child Jesus was to be killed soon after His birth, with the other children, at the command of Herod. Moses through his foster-mother kept in life; Jesus rescued from the danger of death through His foster-father. When Moses came to the help of his oppressed brethren they thrust him from them (Act 7:25); Jesus came to His own, but they received Him not, Joh 1:11. Moses was, notwithstanding, the redeemer of his people; Jesus has redeemed men from the service of Satan and sin, and brought His spiritual Israel into the liberty of the children of God. Heb 2:14 sq.; Joh 8:36. Moses was the mediator of the Old Covenant, Jesus of the New Testament. Heb 8:5 sq.; Deu 9:15 sq. Moses with his zeal, placed himself in the breach for his people. Exo 32:22 sq.; Jesus was actually cut off from the land of the living. Isa 53:8. Moses is the only person who united in himself, as long as he lived, the prophetic, priestly, and kingly offices; Jesus is the only teacher, high-priest, and King of His Church eternally. Moses was faithful in all his house as a servant; Jesus as a Son over His own house. Even the contrast between the office of the two is emphasized in 2 Corinthians 3. [Wordsworth abounds in similar analogies,A. G.]. Berl. Bib.: As in the first four books there are four glorious types of the priestly office and work of Christ; Isaac, the passover lamb, the goat on the day of atonement, and the brazen serpent; so now of his prophetic office. Piscator: The distinction between Moses and Christ: 1) In person: Moses a poor sinful man; Christ a true man without sin. 2) In doctrine: Moses taught the law which no man can bear; Christ preaches the Gospel to troubled hearts. Joh 1:18. 3) In their benefits: Moses an earthly ruler could not destroy sin and death; Christ is the true Mediator. 1Ti 2:5. [See also Henry, Scott, Calvin, for further practical hints.A. G.].
Footnotes:
*[Deu 16:21. Lit., Thou shalt not plant thee as an Asherah any tree. The Asherah was an image of Astarte.A. G.].
[1][Deu 17:1. ,Sept. Christ is , 1Pe 1:19. Wordsworth.A. G.].
[2][Deu 17:5. Lit., And they shall die.A. G.].
[3][Deu 17:10. Lit., The mouth of the word which they shall declare to thee from that place, etc.A. G.].
[4][Deu 17:15. Lit., Setting thou shalt set over thee a king of whom Jehovah thy God shall choose him.A. G.]
[5][Deu 17:16. Lit., And Jehovah.A. G.].
[6][Deu 18:8. Schroeder: As the margin, his sales (i.e., his saleable or sold possession) by the fathers.A. G.].
[7][Deu 18:10. The Kosem. The word is connected with the idea of cutting, and probably means an astrologer. The Meonen, one who uses hidden arts. The Menachesh, a serpent charmer. The Mecashaphim, from a root to reveal, and thus a fortune-tellera revealer of secrets. The Chober, one who binds, fascinates, and thus a charmer. The Shoel-Ob, probably ventriloquists, who used these arts in the pretended conversations with their familiars. See further on the significance of these names, Farrar, in Smiths Bib. Dict. art Divination. Thomson, Land and Book, I., pp. 214, 215. A. G.].
[8]Theol. of the O. T., p. Deu 130: The essential identity of the contents of prophecy and the law.
[9]Schrift. II. 1 ff. Deu 139: The human mediation of the revelation of God in opposition to the overwhelming manifestation of God Himself.
[10]Gesh. des A. B. II., p. Deu 522: One entrusted with the whole house of Jehovah, conversing with God face to face. Num 12:6 sq.; Deu 34:10; Hebrews 3.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
The subject of the divine laws is continued through this Chapter. Moses under GOD’S authority, points out the unblemished state required of the animals to be offered in sacrifice; of the punishment of idolaters: of controversies in judgment: of the election of a king; and of special duties required of him.
Deu 17:1
I hope the Reader will not overlook, in the frequent notice which he must have made in the several parts of Moses’ writings, concerning the unblemished state of the animals to be offered in sacrifice, how exceedingly concerned the HOLY GHOST was, to direct the view of Israel to JESUS, the Lamb without blemish and without spot. For as all the sacrifices of the Jews were types of him, nothing can be more pointed than this one feature. Oh my soul, may it be never thy lot, to offer the blind and the lame in sacrifice! Mal 1:8 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
True Worship
Deu 17
This makes our relation to God very definite. There is to be no intermediate worship. Closeness almost visible closeness is to be the rule and standard of our communion with God. Nothing must stand between. We are permitted to come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. There must be no intervening system of priests, or officers of any kind, or angels of any degree: every soul must have right of way to God, and must not stop on the road, but go straight up as it were to the presence-chamber of the king. This honour have all the saints; this delight is the portion of all broken hearts and contrite spirits. The publican may stand with eyes down-cast and breast smitten as if in reproach, and say, “God be merciful to me a sinner!” Only two parties are named in the covenant God and the sinner himself. Observe the definiteness of God’s command. There is to be no counterfeit; there is to be no pretence. Even the sun is not to be worshipped, nor the fair moon, nor any of the stars that make night rich. The temptation is very strong. If anything visible might be worshipped, surely it would be the sun, at any point of what we call his career in the whitening east, in the dazzling noontide, in the solemn westering of that day-making glory. God foresaw this. It was dangerous to make a sun: it looks so like a God. Other spirits might find in the soft moon somewhat of motherliness and gentleness, and condescending interest in the affairs of men a sweet, sweet light that has come out in the darkness, that is never seen in the mid-day glory; a seeking mother, a solicitous sister, a gentle friend that may and dare come out in the night; who could fail to fall down and say, Bless thee, thou spirit of light, thou art at least a symbol of the living God? And some of the stars seem to speak: they glitter so; their sparkling is so vivid; their appeal so direct, as if we must answer such voices. God has said, Sun, moon, and the host of heaven are not to be worshipped. So much for nature-homage; so much for the altar of the universe, as represented by things bright and beautiful and most alluring in their tenderness. All altars, but one, are thrown down. Those who believe the Bible have, therefore, no alternative. They hear poems about nature, about sunlight and moon-light, and babbling brooks, and sparkling dew, and bending corn, and birds trilling out their very throats in song; and they say, If the Bible had not spoken so definitely, we might have been persuaded to halt and build a tabernacle and worship the host of heaven and the singing tenants of the air and all the beauty of the bespangled carpet under our feet; but the Bible is emphatic and definite: we are not to stop at the creature, but to go up to the Creator; we are not to uncover our heads in the presence of the lamps at his gate, but are to pass on that we may find himself, and in prostration of heart worship only his living Majesty. It comes to this, then: Is the Bible our guide? Are we intelligent and resolute believers in a divine revelation, which is now given to us in our own tongue, and the substance of which we can all understand? We must take care how we defraud God of his rights. God will make up to us for any loss we may sustain in obeying his commandments. The green field is alluring: where the sunshine plays surely there must be a ladder the head of which reaches unto heaven; but if we have honestly said, We leave all these things and betake ourselves to the appointed place, and worship in the appointed way, God will make up to us for all the green fields we have forfeited, and as for the light of the sun, a light above its noontide brightness shall delight the vision of the soul.
“Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die” ( Deu 17:5 ).
The letter has passed. He who lives in the letter lives in the shell or in the bark, as the old Roman law has said. We must live in the spirit, and not in the letter, so though all physical pain and penalty have disappeared, death is still and ever must be the result of false worship. He who worships the wrong deity does not worship. That is a suggestion which has risen into a fact by reason of multiplied and even immeasurable observation and experience. It is not the body that dies: it is the soul that pines, withers, decays, and gradually sinks away, a notable truth, a profound thought indeed, most solemn, and one which can be tested. The meaning simply is this: Lose touch of God, and you cannot live. “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me… Without me ye can do nothing.” The thought, therefore, is not extraordinary as to its claim upon our attention or arbitrary in its authority: it simply means: Leave hold of God, and you must wither; abandon the centre of life, and though you may go forward for a moment or two by reason of the impulse derived from the original contact, you must halt and die. It is so intellectually, it is so morally, it is so socially; in all these departments there are living centres, recognised authorities, and if we neglect or despise them, the result is seen in intellectual, moral, and social feebleness, pollution, and death. We are not made to invent our own gods, and be as healthy and robust of intellect as if we were worshipping at the true altar. We are seeking by foolish worship to establish a lie: we are endeavouring to show that being mortal we can become immortal; that being fallible we can find out and worship infallibility without going to the living God; that being ignorant we can write for ourselves a law and constitute for ourselves a light and guide. The man who has no Bible may talk so, and he forfeits nothing of consistency; but the man who holds to the Bible must hold to the true God, the one altar, the only Priest, the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness. We cannot have a Bible, and yet live as if we had it not; to have seen it is to have incurred a responsibility; to have read one of its living chapters is to separate by an infinite distance our souls from all the ignorance and bondage of the past. Although, therefore, physical death is no longer to be inflicted and outward stoning is happily unknown, there remains the eternal truth that false worship is death, misconceived worship is loss of soul, and right worship is daily sustenance and the continual enhancement of highest strength.
In the fourteenth verse we have an instance of God’s deep reading of the human heart. It is a verse full of forecast; it is, indeed, charged with surprise, and must have come upon the people startlingly:
“When thou art come unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me.” ( Deu 17:14 )
This opens up a marvellous sphere of divine operation in the affairs of men. It would seem as if God himself had almost suggested the evil that has been committed. Take the instance of our first parents in the days of their innocence. God said unto them, “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” And here God indicates a rising in the mind of his people of a rebellious spirit against himself, expressing its purpose in a desire for a king. The thought had not occurred to the people at this moment; no such idea had ever touched the minds of the people to whom these words were addressed. Here, then, we are called upon to distinguish between foreknowledge and predestination. That there is foreknowledge in God is a necessity of his being God: without foreknowledge he is without Godhead; but when he predestinates he predestinates to caution, to vigilance: he calls men to be upon their guard, and to pray with increasing energy and precision of meaning, that they may be saved from false issues and from criminal acts. To fore-know is not to fore-determine. The eating of the fruit of the tree was not an act of predestination, nor was the call for a king in Israel to be traced to the decree of God; in both instances there was warning and there was a call to vigilance, and to certain lines of policy and conduct in the case of the choosing of a king.
Very beautiful is the portrait of a king that is given by God himself. God will have a king of his own creation:
“Thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose” ( Deu 17:15 ).
Royalty must be created by divinity. This is the same principle that we have laid down in regard to worship. We must have God at the head, the Creator upon the throne; there must be no settlement with intermediate causes and influences: in all things we must have direct communication with the living Creator, the eternal Sovereign of the universe. Have a king, says God, but have one of my choosing. In other words: If you will insist upon having a monarch, call upon me to name him. A marvellous condescension in the one case and a complete submission in the other. There cannot be two Gods, equal in authority and power, ruling over the human mind. The Lord reigneth; all kings are his subjects: he is Lord of lords; the crown is God’s creation, if a crown of righteousness, justice, purity, and charity.
The Lord is pleased to go into detail about this possibly coming king that should reign over his people. He was to be fraternal:
“One from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee” ( Deu 17:15 ).
The basis was a basis of equality: there was to be no idea of a heavenly descent or a coming from some other and invisible world with superhuman and impossible claims. There are such kings, and there always must be such kings, in every republic, in all time and in all space. Republics do not destroy kings; only they indicate and worship with loyalty the right kind of king. There will always be larger men, elder men, wiser men; men in whom there is a greater quantity of manhood than in others; far-seeing men; men whose hands combine the grasp of strength with the caress of gentleness. God will, therefore, have the fraternal principle asserted. We live in brotherhood: otherwise we live in bondage and in fear and in distressing humiliation.
But the king must be guarded: he will have his temptations. Against two of those temptations God guards his people. The king shall not be a vain man:
“He shall not multiply horses to himself” ( Deu 17:16 ).
Horses were the symbols of power. To have many horses was to be a right royal king, according to conventional construction of the situation. The horse was supposed to be the image of power, the seal of great might and glory. God cautions the king that is to reign over his people against trusting in horses against the whole strength and genius of worldly vanity: being a king, he must not be foolish; being royal, he must not be unwise; his very greatness should make him ambitious to be greater still in moral qualities in fraternal solicitude and in beneficent action.
Not only was he cautioned against vanity, but against self-indulgence:
“Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold” ( Deu 17:17 ).
These are the temptations of the great ones of the earth to have many horses, to gratify every appetite, and to have all that money can buy, and to boast themselves that they can purchase what they wish to possess. All these impulses must be kept down; the whole desire of the man must be chastened. The king must know himself to be the vicegerent of God, the messenger of Heaven, the errand-bearer of the eternal covenant. How is this to be brought about? Only by the inculcation of great principles, by the spread of spiritual knowledge, by a truer estimate of the scope and function of law.
But all this is cautionary, and may be described as largely negative. What more must take place in the history and government of the true king? He must be a student:
“And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites: and it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them: that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel” ( Deu 17:18-20 ).
The law is divinely given. Any laws we may make, if they are to be righteous and beneficent, must be of the quality of law which has been already revealed from heaven. Whatever is not of that quality must go down. False worship leads to death; false legislation leads to social dissolution. The Book has been written; everything that human life can need is in the Bible: there is no law touching human life, property, interest past, present, future which is not to be found in the Book of God. This is not a claim set up on behalf of the Book: it is the record of the worlds profoundest reading; it is the testimony of the world’s amplest and purest experience. We must make laws for momentary purposes that we may direct into proper channels certain actions and relationships; but all the law which we make must be of the nature of the law which is revealed. That being so, we must study the revealed law: we must read it by the dazzling noontide light, and read it by the lamps which men have made to dispel the darkness. The law must be read in all lights, day and night, from beginning to end, in all its varieties, relationships, and issues; and he who reads the law so will instantly discern the spirit of all human law, and be able to say with authority, This is right; this is just; this is true. Or, This is unrighteous, unjust, untrue, and must, as such, be done away. Great Bible readers are great reformers. We cannot have any profoundly beneficent change in social life, custom, and usage, except we have it through the inspired revelation. Spread the Bible; make all men read the Bible so that they may understand it; spare no expense in circulating the Book; those who can explain it, devote yourselves to it day and night: turn the Book of God into the language of the people, and thus create in them, under the blessing of Heaven, a true spirit, a keen discernment, a sure touch that knows in the darkness as in the light what it is that claims attention and confidence.
We are called to true worship. “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” “For the Father seeketh such to worship him.” True worship inspires and ennobles character. No man can pray well and live badly. He may pray well in a literary sense: the structure of his sentences may be perfect: the flow of his poetry may be as the running of a river; but to pray well, with sense of divine nearness, with all the trembling pathos of self-accusation and self-conviction, is to live well. We must never own it to be possible that a man can worship truly and live iniquitously. He may direct his eyes to the right heavens, he may name the name of the right God, he may be found in recognised and honoured sanctuaries; but his worship the inner action of the soul is wrong: otherwise it would be possible to construct a perfect hypocrisy, by pleasing God at one end of life and outwitting him at the other. Where the true worship is the true life must be not the perfect life, not the ideal life; but the life that would be right the life inspired by noble purpose directed to the highest ends, the life that longs to be like the God it adores. To such worship we are called. We lose when we do not worship; we go down in the volume and quality of our being when we cease to pray. To pray is to multiply life; to pray to the right God, to bend before the appointed throne, to cling to the one Cross in which alone there is virtue, is to increase the volume of life, intellectual capacity, moral emotion, and every attribute that gives purity and dignity to man. For this reason we uphold the sanctuary, we open the book of revelation; and we must not be allured from the altar where we renew our youth, and where we daily read the record that can alone make wise.
Selected Note
“He shall not multiply horses to himself” ( Deu 17:16 ). It appears to be substantiated that the horse was derived from High Asia, and was not indigenous in Arabia, Syria, or Egypt. They are not mentioned among the presents which Pharaoh bestowed upon Abraham, and occur in Scripture for the first time when the patriarch Joseph receives them from the Egyptians in exchange for bread ( Gen 47:17 ) evidently as valuable animals, disposed of singly, and not in droves or flocks like cattle and asses. They were still sufficiently important to be expressly mentioned in the funeral procession which accompanied the body of Jacob to his sepulchre in Canaan ( Gen 1:9 ); and, for centuries after, it does not appear that, under the domestic management of the Egyptians, unless the murrain had greatly reduced them, horses had multiplied as they would have done in a land more congenial to their habits, since only six hundred chariots appear to have pursued Israel ( Exo 14:7 ) even admitting that there were other chariots and horsemen not included in that number. In the sculptured battle-scenes which are believed to represent victories of Sesostris, or Thothmes II. and III., over nations of Central Asia, it is evident that the enemy’s armies, as well as the foreign allies of Egypt, are abundantly supplied with horses, both for chariots and for riders; and in triumphal processions they are shown as presents or tribute proving that they were portions of the national wealth of conquered states sufficiently valuable to be prized in Egypt. At a later period, the books of Deuteronomy (Deu 17:16 , for the future kings of Israel are forbidden to possess many) and Joshua ( Jos 11:4 ) furnish similar evidence of abundance of horses in the plains of Syria; and in Job occurs a description of a perfect war-horse, couched in the bold, figurative language of inspiration, such as remains unequalled by any other poet, ancient or modern.
Prayer
Oh that we might do thy will, thou loving Father of us all! Not our will but thine be done; thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven. It is not the will of our Father in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. Thou hast no pleasure in death; thou art the God of life and immortality: thou dost live for ever, and thou hast offered us life eternal in Jesus Christ thy Son. This is life eternal: to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. Give us such knowledge of thyself as we are able to receive. May we know thee by thy love, thy tenderness, thy daily compassion; may we feel thy nearness and answer thy touch, and return thy whispered love in many a vow of consecration. Thou hast been very kind to us, and merciful even unto tenderness; thy kindness has been lovingkindness; thy mercy has been tender mercy. Thou hast caused us to invent new words to meet the beauty of thy revelations; so we speak of thy lovingkindness and thy tender mercy, and say that thy mercy endureth for ever. May we realise this; may we answer this; may our whole life show that this is no mere assent to what we do not understand, but the utterance of a soul that has tested its own faith. We bless thee for all thy care: thine arms are round about us. The old man’s journey is not yet concluded, because thou hast more light on earth for him to see; the little child is nursed and caressed and comforted that he may become strong in moral quality and noble in moral temper; the man of business is still taught that life is not in the ground but in the sky, and thou art offering to descend from above and make him live. Our houses are precious to thee: thou dost send the sunshine upon them; thou dost surround them by protection; and we are here today in thy house in a common language and with a common feeling blessing the one Father of the race. Thou hast raised up a Prophet for us: thou hast sent a Teacher from thyself to teach us. We know that Jesus has come from God, for no man could do the miracles which he did except God were with him; and we say to him every time we draw near to his feet, Rabbi, we know that thou art a Teacher sent from God. May the hearer meet the Teacher in a right spirit, in a sweet temper, in an expectant mood of soul; and between the Teacher and the taught may there be a bond of vital sympathy; and may we all sit together at thy table, and eat and drink abundantly according to the terms of thy welcome. Amen.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
(See the Deuteronomy Book Comments for Introductory content and Homiletic suggestions).
XIII
SECOND GREAT ORATION, PART 2
Deuteronomy 12-26
This section is on the second part of the second great oration of Moses, as embodied in Deuteronomy 12-26 inclusive, of the book of Deuteronomy. If you have carefully read all this section, it will be easier for me to emphasize in the brief limits of this chapter the most salient points and easier for you to grasp and retain them. By the grouping of correlated matters under specific heads, the important distinction between many statutes and the constitutional principle from which they are logically derived will become manifest. A constitution is a relatively brief document of great principles, but legislative enactments developing and enlarging them become a library, which continually enlarges, as new conditions require new statement and application.
Yet again you must note that while one discussion arranges in order many statutes, it necessarily leaves out much of the homiletical value of each special statute. Each one of them may be made a text for a profitable sermon. Indeed these fifteen chapters constitute a gold mine of texts for the attentive preacher.
First of all, it should be noted that Moses is speaking here to the whole people as a national unit and concerning the future national life in the Promised Land which they are about to occupy. He carefully puts before them the national ideal of a people belonging to Jehovah separated from other nations and devoted to a special mission. Because addressing the whole people he recalls the history and law in Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers much more particularly than the special legislation of Leviticus relating mainly to the official duties of a single tribe.
Secondly, when he touches the tribe of Levi in Deuteronomy, it is as a part of the nation rather than about their specific duties as priests and Levites. On this account Deuteronomy is called the people’s code and Leviticus the priest’s code. This fact will help us much to understand tithing in Deuteronomy when compared with tithing in the preceding books. Note carefully this point.
While it is difficult to classify satisfactorily such a multitude of topics and laws, we may profitably group the whole section under the following heads:
I. Unity in the Place of National Worship, Deu 12:5
In their pilgrimage history the cloud and the ark, shifting from place to place according to the exigency of travel, designated day by day the central place of worship. But the people are here admonished that when they conquer the land and become a settled people, God himself will designate one fixed locality as the center of national unity and one permanent place of national worship. In Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and I Samuel, when we get to those books, we shall find only a temporary central place, and occasionally, more than one at the same time, the land not yet all conquered, the people not yet all settled, but in David’s time everything prescribed about the central place of worship is fulfilled, Jerusalem is the place thenceforward throughout their history until Jesus, that prophet like unto Moses, comes and says to the woman of Samaria, “Believe me, the hour cometh when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father. Ye worship that which ye know not; we worship that which we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and Truth.”
To this place, that is, the central place of worship, three times a year must the tribes come in national assembly to keep the great festivals of the Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, and as a nation they must observe the great day of atonement. In this connection observe particularly that the tithing in Deuteronomy, to which we have before referred, is not the first tithe of the other books, which was the Lord’s inheritance and devoted to the general support of the great festivals, in which indeed the Levites share as a part of the people. Hence the Levites’ share of this tithe does not correspond to their title to the whole of the first tithe, and hence the third year’s provision in Deuteronomy for the poor is unlike any provision of the first tithe. If you have that point fixed in your minds, you are able to answer one of the gravest objections ever brought against Deuteronomy, that is, that it contradicts, on the question of tithes, what had been previously said in other books.
The marvelous effect of this one fixed place of national worship, and of these great festivals, on national unity, on the preservation of a pure worship, appears in all their subsequent history and becomes the theme of psalm, song, and elegy. When we get over into the Psalms and the Lamentations of Jeremiah, we will see backward references to this central place of worship. It is in the light of this law that we discover the sin in the later migration of the Danites and their setting up a new place of worship (Jdg 18 , particularly verses Jdg 18:27-31 ); the sin of Jeroboam (1Ki 12:26-33 ); the sin of the Samaritans later, and the sin of a temple in Egypt. That is the first thought, the unity in national worship. For an account of the Samaritan Temple see Josephus, “Antiquities,” Book XI, chapter 8, and for the Egyptian Temple see “Antiquities,” Book XIII, chapter 3.
2. Unity in the Object of Worship
The second thought in this oration is unity in the object of worship, the exclusive worship of Jehovah. Under this head the section prescribes the death penalty on the following:
(1) The false prophet, who however attested by signs and wonders, shall seek to divert the people to the worship of some other god.
(2) Any member of a family, however near and dear the tie of kindred, who sought to induce the rest of the family to turn away from the worship of Jehovah to worship another god, that member of the family had to die.
(3) Any city that turned aside as a municipality to other worship, that city must be placed under the ban and blotted out. If you have been much of a student of classic literature, you must have noticed how each city stresses the worship of some particular patron divinity, as Minerva at Athens, Diana in the City of Ephesus and Venus at Corinth. Now, this law teaches that any city, in its municipal life, turning aside from the worship of Jehovah to worship a false god for local advantage shall be blotted off the face of the map. The underlying principle here is of immense importance in our times. Cities are tempted continually to sacrifice the paramount spiritual and moral interests of the community in order to promote material interests. So in their annual fairs which bring local advantage in commercial affairs, they lose sight of God and handicap what is commendable in these enterprises by overloading them with poisonous and corrupting attachments, and count any man an enemy to his home place, however much he may approve the good, if he protest against the bad. See the striking examples and illustrations in the cases at Philippi and Ephesus (Act 16:19 ).
(4) To show more emphatically that Jehovah alone is God and must be worshiped, the death penalty was assessed on any necromancer, soothsayer or wizard who sought by illicit ways to understand and interpret the future. To Jehovah alone must the people come to know secret things. What he chose to reveal was for them and their children. What he withheld must remain hidden. All prurient curiosity into Jehovah’s domain of revelation must be rebuked; all seeking unto the dead, all fortunetelling and divinations were mortal sins and punishable by death in every case.
(5) All persons guilty of crimes against nature; the nature of the subject forbids me to specify. They were such outrageous violations of the dignity of man made in God’s image, and indicated such disregard for Jehovah that capital punishment alone would meet the requirements of the case.
(6) Every breaker of the covenant must be put to death. If any had knowledge that another had violated the covenant, it became his duty to investigate the case and bring the attention of the magistrates to it. There is a reference to that in the letter to the Hebrews, where it is said, “He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God [offense against the Father], and hath counted the blood of the everlasting covenant an unholy thing [sin against the Son], and hath done despite unto the Spirit of Grace [sin against the Holy Spirit, and an unpardonable sin]?” (Heb 10:28-29 ).
(7) To impress still more this thought of the exclusive worship of Jehovah: There must be no borrowing from other religions in bewailing the dead; Jehovah’s law alone was the one exclusive standard. The custom of cutting themselves, and disfiguring themselves in the days of their mourning as practiced in other religions, finds here a positive prohibition. I stop to say, Oh, what a pity that so soon after apostolic times, in the great apostasy which Paul predicted and which took place in the Roman Catholic development, there was borrowing old robes of every religion in the world.
3. All Administrations of Law Subject to Jehovah
Whether ceremonial law, moral or civil and criminal law, all administration of law was subject to Jehovah. The government was a theocracy pure and simple, no matter whether it remained a republic or became a kingdom, as it did in the days of Saul, it was a theocracy, God was the only real King and governed all officers himself, whether executive, judicial, or religious.
(1) They were representatives of Jehovah and must first of all consider his honor, justice, and mercy. This fact determined the prescribed character and qualifications of every prince, ruler, elder, judge, sheriff and scribe. These officers must be God-fearing men, hating covetousness, impartial and fearing not the face of any man.
(2) They must in judging hear all evidence fairly.
(3) They must not convict except upon adequate testimony.
(4) It took two good witnesses to prove any point.
(5) They must justify the innocent and condemn the guilty without any regard for age, sex, social position, or financial position. Even and exact justice must be administered to all.
(6) Decision when given must be enforced speedily.
(7) If the case was too hard for them, they must appeal to Jehovah and no other for light. A provision was made by which Jehovah would give the right answer in every such case of appeal. What a pity we have not that kind of a supreme court!
(8) The conduct of all their wars must be under the laws prescribed by Jehovah. War must not be declared against any nation except upon his direction. Their later history furnishes many examples of referring the declaration of war to Jehovah, and it furnishes many examples of disaster befalling them when they went to war in their own wisdom and strength. The regulations touching war covered all material points, such as sanitary measures in camp, treatment of prisoners, conducting sieges, and sparing fruit trees when besieging a city. The boasted progress of modern civilization falls far short of the Mosaic code in ameliorating the sufferings and horrors of war. A great Federal general of the War Between the States well said, in view of his own practice in conducting it, “War is hell!”
(9) On account of this subordination to Jehovah, note the remarkable paragraph Deu 21:1-9 , touching civic responsibility in a case of murder where the offender is unknown. In my prohibition speech in the last prohibition contest in Waco, I used that paragraph as a principle upon which prohibition is based. If you will look at the passage in your Bible and mark it, you will notice that the case is this: A man is found murdered and it is not known who killed him; the nearest city thereto is determined by measurement and must purge itself of responsibility for the crime. The municipal officers in that city must come in the presence of that dead body, hold up their hands before God and swear that they are innocent of the blood.
In my speech I recalled the case of the County Attorney of Tarrant County who was shot down on the streets of Fort Worth, his murderer also being killed; nobody could be held directly responsible for the murder. I said, “Suppose the mayor, the city council, and all the other city officers had been required to place their hands on that dead body and swear that no negligence on their part was resposnible for that murder. They could not have taken the oath. Every one would have been convicted, because they were responsible for the conditions that not only made that particular murder possible, but made murder in some cases certain.”
(10) The numerous statutes concerning charities, mercy, and humanity constrain the people to imitate Jehovah himself in dealing with the poor and with the unfortunate. Indeed some of the most beautiful and pathetic of these laws relating to treatment of the lower creatures embody principles capable of application in a wider range of higher things. They reprobate all cruelty and the infliction of all unnecessary suffering as hateful to Jehovah, for example: “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn”; and “Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk.”
Once in Waco a young man whom I had known when he was a little fellow came to me bringing a letter purporting to be from his father, commending this young man to me and asking me to help him in any way I could. When he next came and asked me to endorse a paper for thirty dollars, I endorsed it. When it matured, I had to pay it. I wrote to the father about it and he replied that his son had forged that letter, and that is was only one case out of many. That son had broken him up. The boy was arrested on a similar case at Corsicana and sent to the penitentiary. When it was suggested that I testify against him, I would not, because of this scripture, “Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.” The only way I could help to convict that boy would be to submit his father’s testimony to prove that he was a forger.
(11) In like manner all laws regulating business, such as weights and measures. Once I called upon a man whose name I will not give, and asked him why, when he bought goods, he weighed on one scale and when he sold goods he sold by another. He said. “They are all right.” I said, “No, sir, you have loaded the one you sell by and whoever buys from you does not get full weight.” All laws touching business, such as weights and measures, the restraints on exacting pledges for debt, the withholding of wages for day laborers which they have fairly earned, the limitations on usury and the like are but expressions of divine mercy and justice and tended to build up an honest and righteous people, not forgetful of mercy.
(12) The social laws concerning marriage, slavery, parental power over children, while far from the highest expression of God’s will, do yet in every particular prohibit many current evils freely practiced in other nations. Our Lord himself explains that on account of their hardness of heart and low order of development imperfect laws were suffered. “The people but recently were a nation of slaves, with much more of the slave spirit remaining. It cannot be denied that even the civil and criminal codes on these points were far superior to the codes of other nations. The sanctity of human life, the sanctity of the home, and the sanctity of the family are marvelously safeguarded in these laws. And wherever this code touched an evil custom, it never approved the evil but limited the power and scope of the evil, as far as the unprepared people were able to bear it.
(13) Restrictions on entering the covenant, Deu 23:1-7 , constitute a paragraph very few people understand. This applied to proselytes from other nations. The body politic must not be corrupted by alien additions that could not be easily assimilated. On that line our own nation is gravely troubled by loose naturalization laws that permit the scum and offscourings of other nations to be absorbed into our national life and so fearfully endanger the perpetuity of free institutions and make our great cities cesspools of iniquity. An orator once prayed, “O that an ocean of fire rolled between us and Europe!” The Pacific Slope seems also praying ,”O that an ocean of fire rolled between us and the Orient!”
(14) The governing Jehovah idea appears in an emphatic way in the paragraph Deu 24:1-11 , where by an offering of a basket of firstfruits the Israelite must confess Jehovah’s absolute ownership over his products and his own unworthy derivation. The oration concludes with his general result: “Thou hast avouched Jehovah this day to be thy God, and that thou wouldest walk in his ways and keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his ordinances, and hearken unto his voice: and Jehovah hath avouched thee this day to be a people for his own possession, as he hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments, etc.”
QUESTIONS
1. What the importance of grouping correlated matters under specific needs and what is a constitution?
2. What the homiletic value of these fifteen chapters?
3. What two things especially noted concerning the second part of Oration Two?
4. Under what three heads does the author group all the material of these fifteen chapters?
5. Under the first head, when was the central place of worship to be established; when, where and by whom actually established; how long continued?
6. How often and at what festivals must the nation assemble at this central place of worship?
7. What bearing has this fact on the tithing question of Deuteronomy?
8. What the marvelous effects of this one fixed place of national worship?
9. Give examples of the violation of this law, and what their particular sin?
10. Under the second head, what cases of violation called for capital punishment?
11. What underlying principle governing the cities is of great importance in our times? Illustrate.
12. What reference to the covenant breaker in the New Testament, and what the threefold sin therein described?
13. Which of these prohibitions are Romanists most guilty of violating?
14. Under the third head (1) What must be the qualifications of all officers? (2) What their several duties? (3) If the case was too hard for them what were they to do? What the provision for Jehovah’s answer? (4) What prescriptions concerning war? (5) How determine civic responsibility in the case of murder where the murderer was unknown? Present day application and illustrate. (6) What laws relating to the poor and to lower animals? (7) What laws regulating business? (8) What social laws? (9) What the restrictions on entering the covenant and the present day application? (10) How does the governing Jehovah idea appear emphatically
15. How does the oration conclude?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Deu 17:1 Thou shalt not sacrifice unto the LORD thy God [any] bullock, or sheep, wherein is blemish, [or] any evilfavouredness: for that [is] an abomination unto the LORD thy God.
Ver. 1. Thou shalt not sacrifice. ] See Trapp on “ Lev 22:20 “
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Deu 17:1
1You shall not sacrifice to the LORD your God an ox or a sheep which has a blemish or any defect, for that is a detestable thing to the LORD your God.
Deu 17:1 blemish or any defect This verse is contextually related to Deu 16:21-22, which also deals with appropriate places and types of sacrifices. In the OT blemish (BDB 548) refers to any kind of physical defect (cf. Deu 15:21; Lev 22:20-25). Mal 1:6-8 records an example of Israel giving God less than the best.
NASBa detestable thing
NKJVan abomination
NRSVabhorrent
TEVthe LORD hates this
NJBdetestable
This term (BDB 1072) is discussed at Deu 14:3.
the LORD your God This is the common covenantal phrase using YHWH and Elohim. See Special Topic: NAMES FOR DEITY .
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
the LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.
God. Hebrew. Elohim. App-4.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
As you’ve discovered by now the book of Deuteronomy is sort of a review of the law. The word itself indicates the second law. It is a review by Moses for the people. Really a final review because Moses will be dying in just a few days and Joshua will be taking over and leading the children of Israel into the Promised Land. So he is continuing his instructions, his final instructions to them.
And in the 17th chapter, again, at the beginning he lets them know that what they give to God should never be castoffs. Never give a sacrifice that has blemishes. God really isn’t honored when we give to Him the castoffs, that which has no value to us. The Lord is really honored when we give to Him a sacrifice that really costs something.
When David wanted to buy the threshing floor of Ornan in order that he might offer to God a sacrifice there, because it was at that point that the angel was stayed and the plague that was upon Israel was stopped. Ornan says, “I’ll give it to you. And here you can have the cattle to offer as a sacrifice”. And David said, “No, I’ll not give unto God that which costs me nothing”( 1Ch 21:23-24 ). Now David was called a man after God’s own heart. And I think that God is honored when we do give to Him; we give that which costs us something, otherwise it really isn’t a gift.
Jesus watching the people putting their money into the treasury, when he saw the widow woman threw in her mite He said, “She’s given enough. That’s true giving”( Mar 12:43 ). The rest of them were all giving out of their abundance. She was giving out of her sustenance, out of her livelihood. And so, when we give unto God, not to cast off.
And so you’re not to sacrifice unto the LORD any bullock, or sheep, with blemishes or evilfavouredness: that’s an abomination unto the LORD ( Deu 17:1 ).
Then they were very strict within the law. God was seeking to preserve the nation. He knew that by allowing certain things within the land that it-they would have within them incumbent seeds of destruction. As you look at history, you’ll find that the majority of the nations that were once great were not really conquered by outside forces but deteriorated by the rotten politics within the nation itself. Nations, after a period of time, have a tendency to become corrupted. Nations are built upon certain pillars of righteousness, justice, equity; solid pillars upon which a nation is built, but when these pillars begin to rot, then the nation is in a dangerous condition and will soon fall.
One of the rotten plagues that God was seeking to guard against was that of idolatrous worship. And therefore the penalty that God ordered for anyone who would enter into idolatrous worship, the worship of other gods, the worshipping of gods in unprescribed ways, the penalty was to be that of stoning.
He’s wrought wickedness within Israel. And he’s served other gods, worshipped them, the sun, the moon, the host of heaven, which I have not commanded [God said] ( Deu 17:2-3 );
Now you’re to inquire diligently to see if the story is true and if two or three people will witness against that person of the truth of the charges, then he is to be stoned by the congregation of Israel. However, the death penalty was not to be evoked if there were only one witness against the person. Now, if the matters were brought to the judges and it was really too hard for them to determine just how to rule in the case, then they were to bring those matters before the priest.
And the Levites shall inquire of the Lord; and give the sentence of judgment ( Deu 17:9 ):
And again God speaks of the place that He will choose of the land, which will be the place where men will meet God and worship God.
Now in the fourteenth verse it is interesting, as God now anticipates a future deterioration of the land. You see, God intended that the nation Israel be a Theocracy, that it be a nation that was governed by God. They were to have the most unusual form of government of any nation of the world. Where other nations may have had monarchies or dictatorships or democracies or other forms of government, theirs was to be unique because they were to be a Theocracy: A nation that was ruled over by God, not as Iran is today. Khomeini sort of tries to give an aura of divine approval or, you know, God’s government, but surely what he has installed is far from God’s government.
But God knew that one day these people would insist upon a king. And therefore, even though at this point there was not to be any king ruling over them by God’s divine ideal, yet knowing that the day would come when they would no longer adhere to God’s ideal plan for them as a nation and would insist upon a king God.
Therefore, in the law gave certain rules when a king would rise to rule over them, then he gave rules for the kings here in the laws. Though it was to be four hundred years or so before they would have a king, yet God already anticipating the demand for a king is now giving the rules when a king does rise to rule over them. And so, to me it is interesting that God, in anticipation of their future demand for a king, throws in here even in the law, certain rules to govern a king when they ultimately have a king. And the very reason that they would give for having a king is anticipated by God, when you want to have a king like the other nations.
When the people came to Samuel they said, “Set up a king over us like the other nations”. And they demanded that they have a king. And so God anticipating this demand to the people:
When it comes to pass, here in the land which the LORD gives you, you’re dwelling there, and you shall say, I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are about me; Thou shalt in any wise, set him king over thee, whom the LORD thy God shall choose: one from among your brothers shall thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over you, which is not your brother ( Deu 17:14-15 ).
Now, here are the rules for the king. First of all he’s not to multiply horses to himself or to go down to Egypt in order to trade for horses. The second was that he was not to multiply wives unto himself. And the reason for this was given: “lest his wives turn his heart away from God”.
Now it is interesting when Solomon became king he failed on all three counts. First of all Solomon began to multiply horses unto himself and the stables of Solomon are still to be found throughout Israel. Not only did he multiply horses but he went down to Egypt in order to do horse trading, the second disobedience. And finally he multiplied wives unto himself. Now it is interesting that God said, “You’re not to multiply wives lest their hearts-lest they turn your heart away from me” and Solomon’s wives turned his heart away from the Lord and brought the failure to Solomon. So God anticipated the evil. He anticipated the results of the evil. He warned about it. And yet Solomon disregarded the warnings of God, did exactly what God said He should not do and exactly what God said would happen did happen.
In other words, God knows what He’s talking about. We so often feel that we know better, “Well, that doesn’t apply to me. Well, I can do it and get by with it. Oh, that will never change me. Wives can never change my attitude towards God and that may apply to some others but that really doesn’t apply to me”. And we think that somehow we have some private exclusion from the rules or the laws that God establishes. Not so. God has set the rules. He has set the punishment or the things that would transpire if the rules are violated.
You think you can get by with it; you can’t. You can be sure that even as God has stated, so shall it be and you can be sure that God doesn’t warn you about anything needlessly. Whatever God warned you about is the thing that you’re in danger of violating or doing. So God was warning concerning the king Solomon, disregarded the warning and even as God declared, so did it take place in Solomon’s life.
Now the king actually was to make his own copy of the law and he was to read it daily. Now how marvelous that would be if you had a president who would have to write his own copy of the word of God. Because in writing it, you’re really into it all the time and then have to read it daily. When Moses turned the charge over to Joshua, he gave to him the law and he said, “Now thou shalt diligently consider the law. Thou shalt meditate in it and thus shalt thou make thy way prosperous and thus thou shalt have good success.”
David spoke of his own delight in the law of the Lord which he meditated in day and night. He was a man after God’s own heart because of the respect that he gave to God’s word as a king. David was the kind of king that God wanted. God wanted a shepherd king. God always wants shepherds to rule. He wants all of the rulers to have the hearts of a shepherd, and David had the heart of a shepherd for God’s people: nurturing them, caring for them, loving them, concerned with their needs. And so the requirement that the king write his own copy of the scriptures and read it.
“
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Continuing the discourse commenced in the previous chapter, we find insistence on the fact that no false sacrifices must be offered and no false worshipers permitted to approach. For dealing with such, a method was minutely laid down. First there must be careful inquiry and for condemnation there must be three, or at the least two, witnesses. Where cases of peculiar difficulty arose they must be remitted to the priests and to the supreme judge, that is, to the religious and civil court.
Then followed a revelation of the threefold medium through which the government of God must be interpreted the king, the priest, and the prophet. In dealing with the king the words of Moses were those of prophetic foresight. He saw what would happen in the history of the people after they had come into the land. Therefore the principles of appointment were declared. The king must be chosen of God and be of the people’s own nation. He was not to multiply horses, wives, silver, or gold. All these things were characteristic of the kings of the nations round about them, and it was provided that Israel’s king must live a simpler life for the fulfillment of a higher ideal, Moreover, he must be a student and doer of the law.
This is a remarkable portrait of God’s ideal of kingship. It would be an interesting exercise to measure the kings of men throughout history by this ideal. Such a procedure would inevitably issue in a twofold consciousness. First, we would find that the measure in which the kings of men have conformed to the ideal is the measure in which they have contributed to the strength of national life; and, on the contrary, the measure by which they have violated these principles has been the measure of the disaster resulting from their rule.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Deu 17:16
It is not now necessary to trace the historical connection of this fragment of a verse. It forms an appropriate motto and admonition for the close of the year.
I. The close of a year is a most significant time for the taking of spiritual stock. It is well to have a clearing out, even if one is afraid he may be suffocated with the lifted dust Many a Christian man is hindered in growth by reason of his proud trying to retain an old experience, of which he can make nothing valuable, but which he thinks he is bound to defend for consistency’s sake.
II. This, again, is a good time for us to give over lackadaisical complainings about short chances in the past. You will not have to take the same chances again. “Ye shall henceforth return no more by that way” of youth. But does anybody really want to do that? Victor Hugo confessed to a friend that the most disagreeable advance in age to him had been from thirty-nine to forty. “But,” said his companion, “I should think it a great deal brighter to be forty than fifty.” “Not at all,” replied Hugo; “forty years is the old age of youth, while fifty is the youth of old age.”
III. It is well to keep a clear look-out for what is still ahead. The glory of every true life is in the time to come. God has not yet exhausted Himself in apocalypses of splendid radiance to His waiting people. There is that in the distance “which eye hath not seen nor ear heard.” And wise men may well think of readiness to make the great journey and meet the revelations.
IV. We ought to learn to estimate results and forget processes. It is not necessary to talk continually about faded flowers, and departed joys, and thwarted hopes. It is wiser to let the dead past bury its dead.
V. The close of the year is the time in which to inquire after unfinished work. We should bring our unfulfilled resolutions to God, and ask Him to grant us time to complete them.
C. S. Robinson, Sermons on Neglected Texts, p. 215.
References: Deu 17:16.-H. Batchelor, The Incarnation of God, p. 173; W. M. Taylor, Contrary Winds, p. 93; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 374. Deut 17-Parker, vol. iv., p. 264. Deu 18:9-19.-E. White, Congregationalist, vol. i., p. 161. Deu 18:13.-J. Van Oosterzee, Year of Salvation, vol. ii., p. 403.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
Exo 12:5, Lev 22:20-25, Mal 1:8, Mal 1:13, Mal 1:14, Heb 9:14, 1Pe 1:19
Thou shalt: Deu 15:21
sheep: or, goat, any evil favouredness, Gen 41:3, Gen 41:4, Gen 41:19
for that: Deu 23:18, Deu 24:4, Deu 25:16, Pro 6:16, Pro 11:1, Pro 15:8, Pro 20:10
Reciprocal: Deu 7:25 – an abomination
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
FURTHER CONDITIONS OF BLESSING
THE JUDGE AND THE KING (Deuteronomy 17)
In the preceding chapter, Deu 16:18, provision was made for judges and other officers of the civil law. They were to hold court in the gates of the cities, the place of ingress and egress, for the cities were walled. This idea of judges sitting in the gates still lingers in the Orient and gives significance to the Mohammedan terms Ottoman Porte and Sublime Porte.
Review the preceding chapter and observe the charge laid on these judges to be just, straight, impartial and of clean hands. Then compare Deu 17:2-13, and note the method of procedure in the courts.
What is the offense here treated of (Deu 17:2-3)? How should they guard against hasty judgment (Deu 17:11)? What was the punishment in such cases (Deu 17:5)? The extent of the testimony (Deu 17:6)? Who were the executioners of the penalty (Deu 17:7)? (Compare Act 7:58.) The object of this requirement was to deter the witnesses from rash charges and to give a public assurance that the crime had met its due punishment.
Deu 17:8-13 can be explained thus: In all cases where there was difficulty in deciding, the local magistrates were to submit them to the Sanhedrin the supreme council, composed partly of civil and partly of ecclesiastical persons. The priests and Levites should be the priests the Levites; and who, forming one body, are called the judge. Their sittings were near the sanctuary, because in emergencies the high priest had to consult God by Urim (Num 27:21). From their judgment there was no appeal. If a person refused to obey the council, his conduct was punished as a capital crime.
What prophecy is made in verse 14 (compare 1Sa 8:7)? What prohibition is laid on them in the matter (Deu 17:15)? What prohibitions are laid upon the king himself (Deu 17:16-17)? (Compare 2Sa 8:4; 1Ki 16:26; 2Ch 1:16; Isa 31:3.) Can you name a king who violated both these prohibitions? What command is laid upon the king and why (Deu 17:18-20)?
THE MESSIANIC PROPHECY (Deuteronomy 18)
This chapter is one of the most important in the Mosaic legislation. After touching on the Levitical dues elsewhere considered, abominations are dealt with which, under other names, are ripe in our own time exposing those under their influence to the divine curse.
Note the things warned against in Deu 18:10-11; the relation they bore to the cursing of Canaan, Deu 18:12; and the obligation resting upon Israel, and on us, to have nothing to do with them. (Compare the marginal references for former allusions to these matters.) The modern names of some of these are fortune telling, clairvoyance, astrology, mesmerism, palmistry, spiritualism and the like, all associated more or less with demonolatry, and although practiced sometimes by professing Christians, as much of an abomination unto God as they ever were. Deu 18:13 shows the reason. To be perfect [or sincere] with the Lord thy God, means to worship, and serve Him implicitly and without the intrusion of another god. But they who consult fortune tellers, mediums, etc., do so to be guided or comforted by what they reveal. And since that which they reveal, when it is fact and not fraud, comes through demoniac channels and from the powers of darkness, it is really worshipping and serving Satan when the lips are professing to worship and serve God.
The Israelites might plead that since Moses was to leave them before they entered Canaan, and they would be without a mediator between them and Jehovah, it might be necessary to cultivate these who were regarded as the gods of the land.
How is such a plea met before it could be advanced (Deu 18:15)? Had they ever sought a mediator (Deu 18:16-17)? How does this show that the successor to Moses, here referred to, was to have all his power and authority? What was the nature of that authority (Deu 18:18)? And power (Deu 18:19)? How might they be satisfied as to the divinity of such a prophet (Deu 18:21-22)? This prophet, the immediate successor of Moses, we know to have been Joshua, but it is evident from Joh 1:45, Act 3:22-23 and other places that ultimately it is Jesus Christ.
What a solemn obligation is thus placed upon all Christians to hearken to Jesus Christ, and how awful the consequences to those who confess Him in lip, but in heart and in life deny Him! (Compare Heb 10:28-31.)
LANDMARKS AND WARFARE (Deuteronomy 19-20)
The first part of chapter 19 deals with the cities of refuge which we considered in our concluding lesson in Numbers. The only other matter claiming special attention is that of landmarks (Deu 19:14). Palestine in this respect was the same then as now. Gardens and vineyards were surrounded by hedges or walls, but tilled fields were marked by a little trench or a simple stone placed at certain intervals, hence a dishonest person could easily fill the trench and remove the stones. Thus he would enlarge his own field by stealing part of his neighbors.
The oft repeated question, Is war ever justifiable? is answered in this chapter. In a world of sin war must needs be. It is one of Gods methods of punishing sin in the present time. As the theocratic King of Israel He expected war and made ample provision for it, a consideration which should aid us in determining another question about the future retribution of the sinner. Thoughtless and ignorant men say He is too good to punish. But the fact is that He punishes because He is so good. As long as sin exists punishment must exist, and since Jesus Christ teaches that there is such a thing as eternal sin (Mar 3:29 RV), we may expect, alas! eternal punishment.
What words of encouragement are to be addressed to the army and by what officials (Deu 19:1-4)? The presence of the priest in this case rather than an army officer is because in a theocratic government everything is done directly by God through His delegated ministers, the priests.
On what principles was the army to be sifted, or rather, what were the grounds of exemption from army service (Deu 19:5-8)? The answer is: (1) The dedication of a new house which, as in all Oriental countries still, was an important event, and celebrated by festive and religious ceremonies (Neh 12:27); in this case there was exemption for a year. (2) The planting of a vineyard. The fruit of the first three years being declared unfit for use, and the firstfruits being producible only on the fourth, the exemption in this case lasted at least four years. (3) The betrothal of a wife, which was a considerable time before marriage. It was deemed a hardship to leave a house unfinished, a new property half cultivated, and a recently contracted marriage; and the exemptions in these cases were founded on the principle that a mans heart being engrossed with something at a distance, he would not be enthusiastic in the public service. (4) Cowardice. From the composition of the Israelitish army, which was an irregular militia, all above twenty years being liable to serve, many, totally unfit for war, must have been called to the field; and it was therefore a prudent arrangement to rid the army of such unwarlike elements persons who could render no efficient service, and the contagion of whose craven spirit might lead to panic and defeat.
With the cities of those people which God doth give thee in Canaan, it was to be a war of utter extermination (Deu 19:17-18). But when on a just occasion they went against other nations, they were first to make a proclamation of peace, in which case, if followed by a surrender, the people would become dependent, and in the relation of tributaries. The conquered nations would then receive the highest blessings from alliance with the chosen people; they would be brought to the knowledge of Israels God and of Israels worship, as well as a participation of Israels privileges. But if the besieged city, or nation, refused to be taken, a massacre was to be made of the males, while the women and children were to be preserved and kindly treated (Deu 20:13-14). By this means a provision was made for a useful connection between the captors and the captives; and Israel, even through her conquest, would prove a blessing to the nation.
In a protracted siege, wood would be required, both for military work and for fuel, but fruit bearing trees were to be carefully spared. In countries like India, where the people live much more on fruit than we do, the destruction of a fruit tree is a sort of sacrilege.
QUESTIONS
1. What significance attaches to the Oriental use of the word Porte?
2. What was the later name of the Jewish Supreme Court, and of whom was it composed?
3. Give modern names to some of the abominations mentioned in chapter 18.
4. Explain Deu 13:18.
5. How can you prove the application of verses 15-22 to Jesus Christ?
6. Why the need of landmarks in Palestine?
7. What evidence of future retribution does the legislation concerning warfare suggest?
8. Name the grounds and give the reasons for exemption from army service.
9. How does this lesson magnify Gods attributes of righteousness and holiness?
10. Do you think God can ever overlook sin?
11. What provision has He made for satisfying Himself on the question of sin?
Fuente: James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary
Deu 17:1. Having spoken of the principal services and offerings prescribed in the law for preventing the Israelites from idolatrous practices, Moses interposes a caution against neglect or profaneness in their own worship of the true God; which might be committed by offering any beast to him that had a disease, blemish, or defect in it. See in Lev 1:3. Bullock or sheep Either greater or smaller sacrifices, all being comprehended under the two most eminent kinds. All that God receives he requires to be perfect.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Deu 17:3. Either sun or moon. This would be going back to Sabianism, which from the dispersion of Babel became the religion of Asia, as stated in Job 1:15.
Deu 17:8. A matter too hard for thee in judgment. In cases of capital crimes where evidence was deficient, or not sufficiently clear; as was the case of the two women brought before Solomon.
Deu 17:18. He shall write him a copy of this law in a book. Being the kings autograph, the leisure of the transcription would make it clear to his understanding, impress it on his memory, and conciliate his esteem for divine truth. So our Alfred employed his leisure.
REFLECTIONS.
Having already spoken of the punishments to be inflicted on the Israelites who should apostatize to idolatry, the first object which strikes us here is, the care that God took to purge his people from crimes where obscurity in the case might supersede justice. He provided seventy judges or rulers, the Urim and Thummim, besides the aid of extraordinary prophets, that no iniquity might be allowed among his people. And he who resisted the sentence, resisted God, and was accounted worthy of death: no nation, and no religious community can be happy, where judgment is not impartially administered.
Moses foresaw in the Spirit, that the age would come when Israel would ask a king, and therefore, in that case, he prescribes him laws of wisdom, temperance and moderation. The people were certainly happy in their theocracy. The interior of the country was regulated by the sanhedrim, and the exterior defended by Joshua and others in succession. But chasms occurred in which Israel had neither general, nor arms, nor force. At such times they became an easy prey to weaker nations, who often invaded their country. Great indeed are the blessings of a regular, wise, permanent government, where the king is beloved as the father of his people. They have protection in the throne; they glory in his glory; they enjoy the fruits of their labour without molestation and rapine. This prince, in whose happiness the happiness of the empire was involved, was not to assume regal dignity, by abusing the trusts of military command: he was to be nominated of God, anointed by the senior prophet, and sanctioned by the people. The prince so elected was the vicegerent of God, and the father of his people. He was to transcribe a copy of the law, and govern the country in conformity to it. A prince whose minority is distinguished by a religious education and religious virtues, is highly auspicious to a nation.The king was not to oppress his people by the accumulation of wealth, and by maintaining a vast force of cavalry. Every man of Israel, within a certain age, being liable to military duty, there was no need of marshal parade. Moses spake from experience, and supported his doctrine by example: and as to riches, the Israelites were liberal when called upon for supplies. A prince in the train of Cyrus expressed his surprise that he should distribute all his wealth, instead of hoarding it up like Crsus and the kings of the east. Cyrus, to convince the prince of his misguided policy, signified to his friends that he wanted a little money. The sums instantly offered were so abundant as to satisfy the strangers that all the riches of the east were at Cyruss command.The king of Israel was not to multiply wives. A crowd of jealous women filling his harem would effeminate his soul, and make him forgetful of every duty he owed to God and the people. The slight indulgences of the holy patriarchs in polygamy were derived from the prevalence of custom, and singular circumstances; assuredly not from the laws of God. And if polygamy was to be repressed in a prince, who had pleas of issue for the throne, it is altogether inadmissible in a private person; and Christ has said of divorce for a new marriage, From the beginning it was not so. Add to this, that the vengeance of God has often attended the issue of inordinate indulgence. Sixty nine of Jerubbaals sons were slain by their brother. Judges 9. And Ahabs seventy sons were slain by the elders of Samaria. 2 Kings 10. These are additional motives for the observance of every divine precept, and the fear of the Lord.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Deuteronomy 17
We must remember that the division of scripture into chapters and verses is entirely a human arrangement, often very convenient, no doubt, for reference; but not infrequently it is quite unwarrantable, and interferes with the connection. Thus we can see, at a glance, that the closing verses of chapter 16. are much more connected with what follows than with what goes before.
“Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, throughout thy tribes; and they shall judge the people with just judgement. Thou shalt not wrest judgement; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift; for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous. That which is altogether just shalt thou follow, that thou mayest live and inherit the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”
These words teach us a twofold lesson; in the first place, they set forth the even-handed justice and perfect truth which ever characterise the government of God. Every case is dealt with according to its own merits and on the ground of its own facts. The judgement is so plain that there is not a shadow of ground for a question; all dissension is absolutely closed, and if any murmur is raised, the murmurer is at once silenced by, “Friend, I do thee no wrong.” This holds good everywhere and at all times, in the holy government of God, and it makes us long for the time when that government shall be established from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth.
But, on the other hand, we learn, from the lines just quoted, what man’s judgement is worth, if left to himself. It cannot be trusted, for a moment. Man is capable of “wresting judgement,” of “respecting persons,” of “taking a gift,” of attaching importance to a person because of his position and wealth. That he is capable of all this is evident from the fact of his being told not to do it. We must ever remember this. If God commands man not to steal, it is plain that man has theft in his nature.
Hence, therefore, human judgement and human government are liable to the grossest corruption. Judges and governors if left to themselves, if not under the direct sway of divine principle, are capable of perverting justice for filthy lucre’s sake, of favouring a wicked man because he is rich, and of condemning a righteous man because he is poor; of giving a judgement in flagrant opposition to the plainest facts because of some advantage to be gained, whether in the shape of money, or influence, or popularity, or power.
To prove this it is not necessary to point to such men as Pilate and Herod, and Felix and Festus; we have no need to go beyond the passage just quoted, in order to see what man is, even when clothed in the robes of official dignity, seated on the throne of government, or on the bench of justice.
Some, as they read these lines, may feel disposed to say, in the language of Hazael, “Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?” But let such reflect, for a moment, on the fact that the human heart is the seed plot of every sin, and of every vile and abominable and contemptible wickedness that ever was committed in this world; and the unanswerable proof of this is found in the enactments, commandments, and prohibitions which appear on the sacred page of inspiration.
And herein we have an uncommonly fine reply to the oft-repeated question, “What have we to do with many of the laws and institutions set forth in the Mosaic economy? Why are such things set down in the Bible? Can they possibly be inspired?” Yes; they are inspired, and they appear on the page of inspiration in order that we may see, as reflected in a divinely perfect mirror, the moral material of which we ourselves are made, the thoughts we are capable of thinking, the words we are capable of speaking, and the deeds we are capable of doing.
Is not this something? Is it not good and wholesome to find, for example, in some of the passages of this most profound and beautiful book of Deuteronomy, that human nature is capable, and hence we are capable of doing things that put us morally below the level of a beast? Assuredly it is, and well would it be for many a one who walks in Pharisaic pride and self-complacency, puffed up with false notions of his own dignity and high-toned morality, to learn this deeply humbling lesson.
But how morally lovely, how pure, how refined and elevated were the divine enactments for Israel! They were not to wrest judgement, but allow it to flow in its own straight and even channel, irrespective altogether of persons. The poor man in vile raiment was to have the same impartial justice, as the man with a gold ring and gay clothing. The decision of the judgement-seat was not to be warped by partiality or prejudice, or the robe of justice to be defiled by the stain of bribery.
Oh! what will it be for this oppressed and groaning earth to be governed by the admirable laws which are recorded in the inspired pages of the Pentateuch, when a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall decree justice! “Give the king thy judgements, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king’s son. He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment” – no wresting, no bribery, no partial judgements then – “The mountains [or higher dignities] shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills [or lesser dignities], by righteousness. He shall judge [or defend] the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations. He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass; as showers that water the earth. In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth…. He shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence; and precious shall their blood be in his sight.” (Ps. 72.)
Well may the heart long for the time – the bright and blessed time when all this shall be made good, when the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea; when the Lord Jesus shall take to Himself His great power and reign; when the church in the heavens shall reflect the beams of His glory upon the earth; when Israel’s twelve tribes shall repose beneath the vine and fig tree in their own promised land, and all the nations of the earth shall rejoice beneath the peaceful and beneficent rule of the Son of David. Thanks and praise be to our God, thus it shall be, ere long, as sure as His throne is in the heavens. A little while and all shall be made good, according to the eternal counsels and immutable promise of God. Till then, beloved Christian reader, be it ours to live in the constant, earnest, believing anticipation of this bright and blessed time, and to pass through this ungodly scene as thorough strangers and pilgrims, having no place or portion down here, but ever breathing forth the prayer, “Come, Lord Jesus!”
In the closing lines of chapter 16 Israel is warned against the most distant approach to the religious customs of the nations around. “Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the Lord thy God, which thou shalt make thee. Neither shalt thou set thee up any image which the Lord thy God hateth.” They were carefully to avoid everything which might lead them in the direction of the dark and abominable idolatries of the heathen nations around. The altar of God was to stand out in distinct and unmistakable separation from those groves and shady places where false gods were worshipped, and things were done which are not to be named.* In a word, everything was to be most carefully avoided which might, in any way, draw the heart away from the one living and true God.
{*It may interest the reader to know that the Holy Ghost, in speaking of the altar of God, in the New Testament, does not apply to it the word used to express a heathen altar, but has a comparatively new word – a word unknown in the world’s classics. The heathen altar is bomon. (Acts 17. 23.) The altar of God is thusiasterion. The former occurs but once; the latter twenty-three times. So jealously is the worship of the only true God guarded and preserved from the defiling touch of heathen idolatry. Men may feel disposed to inquire why this should be? or how could the altar of God be affected by a name? We reply, the Holy Ghost is wiser than we are; and although the heathen word was before Him – a short and convenient word, too – He refuses to apply it to the altar of the one true and living God. See Trench’s “Synonyms of the New Testament”.}
Nor this only; it was not enough to maintain a correct outward form; images and groves might be abolished, and the nation might profess the dogma of the unity of the Godhead, and, all the while, there might be an utter want of heart and genuine devotedness in the worship rendered. Hence we read, “Thou shalt not sacrifice unto the Lord thy God any bullock, or sheep, wherein is blemish, or any evil-favouredness; for that is an abomination unto the Lord.”
That which was absolutely perfect could alone suit the altar and answer to the heart of God. To offer a blemished thing to Him was simply to prove the absence of all true sense of what became Him, and of all real heart for Him. To attempt to offer an imperfect sacrifice was tantamount to the horrible blasphemy of saying that anything was good enough for Him.
Let us hearken to the indignant pleadings of the Spirit of God, by the mouth of the prophet Malachi. “Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of the Lord is contemptible. And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the Lord of hosts. And now, I pray you, beseech God that he will be gracious unto us; this hath been by your means; will he regard your persons? saith the Lord of hosts. Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nought? neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand. For from the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering; for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye have profaned it, in that ye say, The table of the Lord is polluted; and the fruit thereof, even his meat is contemptible. Ye said also Behold, what a weariness is it! and ye have snuffed at it, saith the Lord of hosts: and ye brought that which was torn, and the lame and the sick; thus ye brought an offering; should I accept this of your hand? saith the Lord. But cursed be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing; for I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen” (Mal. 1: 7-14.)
Has all this no voice for the professing church? Has it no voice for the writer and the reader of these lines? Assuredly it has. Is there not, in our private and public worship a deplorable lack of heart, of real devotedness, deep-toned earnestness, holy energy, and integrity of purpose? Is there not much that answers to the offering of the lame and the sick, the blemished and the evil-favoured? Is there not a deplorable amount of cold formality and dead routine in our seasons of worship both in the closet and in the assembly? Have we not to judge ourselves for barrenness, distraction and wandering even at the very table of our Lord? How often are our bodies at the table, while our vagrant hearts and volatile minds are at the ends of the earth! How often do our lips utter words which are not the true expression of our whole moral being! We express far more than we feel. We sing beyond our experience.
And then, when we are favoured with the blessed opportunity of dropping our offerings into our Lord’s treasury what heartless formality! What an absence loving, earnest, hearty devotedness! What little reference to the apostolic rule, “as God hath prospered us” What detestable niggardliness! How little of the whole-heartedness of the poor widow who, having but two mites in the world, and having the option of at least keeping one for her living, willingly cast in both – cast in her all! Pounds may be spent on ourselves, perhaps on superfluities during the week, but when the claims of the Lord’s work, His poor, and His cause in general, are brought before us, how meagre is the response!
Christian reader, let us consider these things. Let us look at the whole subject of worship and devotedness in the divine presence, and in the presence of the grace that has saved us from everlasting burnings. Let us calmly reflect upon the precious and powerful claims of Christ upon us. We are not our own; we are bought with a price. It is not merely our best, but our all we owe to that blessed One who gave Himself for us. Do we not fully own it? Do not our hearts own it? Then may our lives express it! May we more distinctly declare whose we are and whom we serve! May the heart, the head, the hands, the feet, the whole man be dedicated, in unreserved devotedness, to Him, in the power of the Holy Ghost, and according to the direct teaching of holy scripture. God grant it may be so, with us and with all His beloved people!
A very weighty and practical subject now claims our attention. We feel it right to adhere, as much as possible, to the custom of quoting, at full length, the passages for the reader; we believe it to be profitable to give the very word of God itself; and, moreover, it is convenient to the great majority of readers to be saved the trouble of laying aside the volume and turning to the Bible in Order to find the passages for themselves.
“If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the Lord thy God, in transgressing his covenant, and hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; and it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and inquired diligently, behold, it be true and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel – something the whole nation – “Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or woman, and shalt stone them with stones till they die. At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not put to death. The hands of the witnesses shall first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hands of all the people. So thou shalt put the evil away from among you)’ (Ver. 2-7.)
We have already had occasion to refer to the great principle laid down in the foregoing passage. It is one of immense importance, namely, the absolute necessity of having competent testimony ere forming a judgement in any case. It meets us constantly in scripture, indeed it is the invariable rule, in the divine government, and therefore it claims our attention. We may be sure it is a safe and wholesome rule, the neglect of which must always lead us astray. We should never allow ourselves to form, much less to express and act upon a judgement without the testimony of two or three witnesses. However trustworthy and morally reliable any one witness may be, it is not a sufficient basis for a conclusion. We may feel convinced in our minds that the thing is true because affirmed by one in whom we have confidence; but God is wiser than we. It may be that the one witness is thoroughly upright truthful, that he would not, for worlds, tell an untruth or bear false witness against any one; all this may be true, but we must adhere to the divine rule, “In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.”
Would that this were more diligently attended to in the church of God! Its value in all cases of discipline, and in all cases affecting the character or reputation of any one is simply incalculable. Ere ever an assembly reaches a conclusion or acts on a judgement, in any given case, it should insist on adequate evidence. If this be not forthcoming, let all wait on God, wait patiently and confidingly, and He will surely supply what is needed.
For instance, if there be moral evil or doctrinal error in an assembly of Christians, but it is only known to one; that one is perfectly certain, and thoroughly convinced of the fact. What is be done? Wait on God for further witness. To act without this, is to infringe a divine principle laid down with all possible clearness, again and again, in the word of God. Is the one witness to feel aggrieved or insulted because his testimony is not acted upon? Assuredly not; indeed he ought not to expect such a thing, yea he ought not to come forward as a witness until he can corroborate his testimony by the evidence of one or two more. Is the assembly to be deemed indifferent or supine because it refuses to act on the testimony of a solitary witness? Nay, it would be flying in the face of a divine command were it to do so.
And be it remembered, that this great practical principle is not confined in its application to cases of discipline, or questions connected with an assembly of the Lord’s people; it is of universal application. We should never allow ourselves to form a judgement or come to a conclusion without the divinely appointed -measure of evidence; if that be not forthcoming, it is our plain duty to wait, and if it be needful for us judge in the case, God will, in due time, furnish needed evidence. We have known a case in which a man was falsely accused because the accuser based his charge upon the evidence of one of his senses; had he taken the trouble of getting the evidence of one or two more of his senses, he would have made the charge.
Thus the entire subject of evidence claims the attention of the reader, let his position be what it may. We are all prone to rush to hasty conclusions to take up impressions, to give place to baseless surmisings, and allow our minds to be warped and carried away by prejudice. All these have to be most carefully guarded against. We need more calmness, seriousness and cool deliberation in forming and expressing our judgement about men and things. But specially about men, inasmuch as we may inflict a grievous wrong upon a friend, a brother, or a neighbour, by giving utterance to a false impression or a baseless charge. We may allow ourselves to be the vehicle of an utterly groundless accusation, whereby the character of another may be seriously damaged. This is very sinful in the sight Of God, and should be most jealously watched against in ourselves, and sternly rebuked in others, whenever it comes before us. Whenever any one brings a charge against another behind his back, we should insist upon his proving or withdrawing his statement. Were this plan adopted, we should be delivered from a vast amount of evil speaking which is not only most unprofitable, but positively wicked, and not to be tolerated.
Before turning from the subject of evidence, we may just remark that inspired history supplies with more than one instance in which a man has been condemned with an appearance of attention to Deuteronomy 17: 6, 7. Witness the case of Naboth in 1 Kings 21; and the case of Stephen in Acts 6 and 7 and, above all, the case of the only perfect Man that ever trod this earth. Alas! men can, at times, put on the appearance wonderful attention to the letter of scripture when it suits their own ungodly ends; they can quote its sacred words in defence of the most flagrant unrighteousness and shocking immorality. Two witnesses accused Naboth of blaspheming God and the king, and that faithful Israelite was deprived of his inheritance and of his life on the testimony of two liars hired by the direction of a godless cruel woman. Stephen, a man full of the Holy Ghost, was stoned to death for blasphemy, on the testimony of false witnesses received and acted upon by the great religious leaders of the day who could, doubtless, quote Deuteronomy 17 as their authority.
But all this, while it so sadly and forcibly illustrates what man is, and what mere human religiousness without conscience is, leaves wholly untouched the moral rule laid down for our guidance, in the opening lines of our chapter. Religion, without conscience or the fear of God, is the most degrading, demoralising, hardening thing beneath the canopy of heaven; and one of its most terrible features is seen in this, that men under its influence are not ashamed or afraid to make use of the letter of holy scripture as a cloak wherewith to cover the most horrible wickedness.
But, thanks and praise to our God, His word stands forth before the vision of our souls, in all its heavenly purity, divine virtue, and holy morality, and flings back in the face of the enemy his every attempt to draw from its sacred pages a plea for ought that is not true, venerable, just, pure, lovely and of good report.
We shall now proceed to quote for the reader the second paragraph of our chapter in which we shall find instruction of great moral value, and much needed in this day of self-will and independence.
“If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgement, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates; then shalt thou arise, and get thee up into the place which the Lord thy God shall choose; and thou shalt come unto the priests, the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and inquire; and they shall show thee the sentence of judgement. And thou shalt do according to the sentence, which they of that place which the Lord shall choose shall show thee; and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee; according to the sentence of the law which they teach thee, and according to the judgement they shall tell thee, thou shalt do; thou shalt decline from the sentence which they shall show thee, to the right hand, nor to the left. And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the Lord thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die; and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel. And all the people shall hear and fear, and do no more presumptuously.” (Vers. 8-13)
Here we have divine provision made for the perfect settlement of all questions which might arise throughout the congregation of Israel. They were to be settled in the divine presence, at the divinely appointed centre, by the divinely appointed authority, Thus self-will and presumption were effectually guarded against. All matters of controversy were to be definitively settled by the judgement of God as expressed by the priest or the judge appointed God for the purpose.
In a word, it was absolutely and entirely a matter of divine authority. It was not for one man to set himself up in self-will and presumption against another. This would never do in the assembly of God. Each one had to submit his cause to a divine tribunal, and bow implicitly to its decision. There was to be no appeal, inasmuch as there was no higher court The divinely appointed priest or judge spoke as the oracle of God, and both plaintiff and defendant had to bow, without a demur, to the decision.
Now, it must be very evident to the reader that no member of the congregation of Israel would ever have thought of bringing his case before a Gentile tribunal for judgement. This, we may feel assured, would have been utterly foreign to the thoughts and feelings of every true Israelite. It would have involved a positive insult to Jehovah Himself who was in their midst to give judgement in every case which might arise. Surely He was sufficient. He knew the ins and outs, the pros and cons, the roots and issues of every controversy however involved or difficult. All were to look to Him, and to bring their causes to the place which He had chosen, and nowhere else. The idea of two members of the assembly of God appearing before a tribunal of the uncircumcised for judgement would not have been tolerated for a moment. It would be as much as to say that there was a defect in the divine arrangement for the congregation.
Has this any voice for us? How are Christians to have their questions and their controversies settled? Are they to betake themselves to the world for judgement? Is there no provision in the assembly of God for the proper settlement of cases which may arise? Hear what the inspired apostle says on the point, to the assembly at Corinth, and “to all that in every Place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both theirs and ours,” and therefore to all true Christians, now.
“Dare any of you, having a matter against another; go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? And if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life? If then ye have judgements of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church. I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren? But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers. Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather be defrauded? Nay ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived.” (1 Cor. 6: 1-9)
Here, then, we have the divine instruction for church of God, in all ages. We must never, for a moment, lose sight of the fact that the Bible a is Book for every stage of the church’s earthly career. True it is, alas! the church is not as it was when the above lines were penned by the inspired apostle; a vast change has taken place in the church’s practical condition There was no difficulty, in early days, in distinguishing between the church and the world, between “the saints” and “unbelievers;” between “those within” and “those without.” The line of demarcation was broad, distinct, and unmistakable, in those days. Any one who looked at the face of society, in a religious point of view, would see three things, namely, Paganism, Judaism and Christianity the Gentile, the Jew and the church of God – the temple, the synagogue, and the assembly of God. There was no confounding these things. The Christian assembly stood out in vivid contrast with all beside. Christianity was strongly and clearly pronounced in those primitive times. It was neither a national, provincial nor parochial affair, but a personal, practical, living reality. It was not a mere nominal, national, professional creed, but a divinely wrought faith, a living power in the heart flowing out in the life.
But now things are totally changed. The church and the world are so mixed up, that the vast majority of professors could hardly understand the real force and proper application of the passage which we have just quoted. Were we to speak to them about “the saints” going to law “before the unbelievers,” it would seem like a foreign tongue. Indeed the term “saint” is hardly heard in the professing church save when used with a sneer, or as applied to such as have been canonised by a superstitious reverence.
But has any change come over the word of God, or over the grand truths which that word unfolds to our souls? Has any change come over the thoughts of God in reference to what His church is, or what the world is, or as to the proper relation of the one to the other Does He not know who are “saints” and who are “unbelievers”? Has it ceased to be “a fault” for “brother to go to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers”? In a word, has holy scripture lost its power, its point, its divine application? Is it no longer our guide, our authority, our one perfect rule and unerring standard? Has the marked change that has come over the church’s moral condition deprived the word of God of all power of application to us – “to all that in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”? Has our Father’s most precious Revelation become, in any one particular, a dead letter – a piece of obsolete writing – a document pertaining to days long gone by? Has our altered condition robbed the word of God of a single one of its moral glories?
Reader, what answer does your heart return these questions? Let us, most earnestly, entreat you to weigh them honestly, humbly and prayerfully in the presence of your Lord. We believe your answer will be a wonderfully correct index of your real position and moral state. Do you not clearly see and fully admit that scripture can never lose its power? Can the principles of 1 Cor 6 ever cease to be binding on the church of God. It is fully admitted – for who can deny that things are sadly changed? – but “scripture cannot be broken and therefore what was “a fault” in the first century cannot be right in the nineteenth; there may be more difficulty in carrying out divine principles, but we must never consent to surrender them, or to act on any lower ground. If once we admit the idea that because the whole professing church has gone wrong, it is impossible for us to do right, the whole principle of Christian obedience is surrendered. It is as wrong for “brother to go to law with brother, before the unbelievers” today, as it was when the apostle wrote his epistle to the assembly at Corinth* True, the church’s visible unity is gone; she is shorn of many gifts, she has departed from her normal condition; but the principles of the word of God can no more lose their power than the blood of Christ can lose its virtue, or His Priesthood lose its efficacy.
{*It is well for us to bear in mind that wherever there are “two or three” gathered to the Name of the Lord Jesus, in ever such weakness, there will be found, if only they are truly humble and dependent, spiritual ability to judge in any case that may arise between brethren. They can count on divine wisdom being supplied for the settlement of any question, plea or controversy, so that there need not be any reference to a worldly tribunal.
No doubt, worldly men would smile at such an idea; but we must adhere, with holy decision, to the guidance of scripture. Brother must not go to law with brother before the unbelievers. This is distinct and emphatic. There are resources available for the assembly in Christ the Head and Lord, for the settlement of every possible question.
Let the Lord’s people seriously apply their hearts to the consideration of this subject. Let them see that they are gathered on the true ground of the church of God; and then, though ever conscious that things are not as they once were, in the church, though sensible Of the greatest weakness, failure and shortcoming, they will, nevertheless, find the grace of Christ ever sufficient for them, and the word of God full of all needed instruction and authority, so that they need never betake themselves to the world for help, counsel or judgement. Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
This surely is enough for every exigency. Is there any question that our Lord Christ cannot settle? Do we want natural cleverness, worldly wisdom, longheadedness, great learning, keen sagacity, if we have Him? Surely not; indeed all such things can only prove like Saul’s armour to David. All we want is simply to use the resources which we have in Christ. We shall assuredly find, “in the place where his name is recorded,” priestly wisdom to judge in every case which may arise between brethren.
And, farther, let the Lord’s dear people remember, in all cases of local difficulty which might arise, that there is no need whatever for them to look for extraneous aid, to write to other places to get some wise men to come and help them. No doubt, if the Lord sends any of His beloved servants, at the moment, their sympathy, fellowship, counsel and help will be highly prized. We are not encouraging independence one another, but absolute and complete dependence upon Christ our Head and Lord.}
And, further, we must bear in mind that there are resources of wisdom, grace, power and spiritual gift treasured up for the church in Christ her Head, ever available for those who have faith to use them. We are not straitened in our blessed and adorable Head. We need never expect to see the body restored to its normal condition on the earth; but, for all that, it is our privilege to see what the true ground of the body is, and it is our duty to occupy that ground and no other.
Now, it is perfectly wonderful the change that takes place in our whole condition, in our view of things, in our thoughts of ourselves and our surroundings, the moment we plant our foot on the true ground of the church of God. Everything seems changed. The Bible seems a new book. We see everything in a new light. Portions of scripture which we have been reading for years without interest or profit now sparkle with divine light, and fill us with wonder, love and praise. We see every thing from a new stand-point; our whole range of vision is changed; we have made our escape from the murky atmosphere which enwraps the whole professing church, and can now look round and see things clearly in the heavenly light of scripture. In fact, it seems like a new conversion; and we find we can now read scripture intelligently, because we have the divine key. We see Christ to be the centre and object of all the thoughts, purposes and counsels of God from everlasting to everlasting, and hence we are conducted into that marvellous sphere of grace and glory which the Holy Ghost delights to unfold in the precious word of God.
May the reader be led into the thorough understanding of all this, by the direct and powerful ministry of the Holy Spirit! May he be enabled to give himself to the study of scripture, and to surrender himself, unreservedly to its teaching and authority! Let him not confer with flesh and blood, but cast himself, like a little child, on the Lord, and seek to be led on, in spiritual intelligence and practical conformity to the mind of Christ.
We must now look for a moment at the closing verses of our chapter in which we have a remarkable onlook into Israel’s future, anticipating the moment in which they should seek to set a king over them.
“When thou art come unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me; thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee whom the Lord thy God shall choose; one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee; thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother. But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses; forasmuch as the Lord hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away; neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold”
How very remarkable that the three things which the king was not to do, were just the very things which were done – and extensively done by the greatest and wisest of Israel’s monarchs. “King Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. And Hiram sent in the navy his servants, shipmen that had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon. And they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents [over two millions], and brought it to king Solomon.” “And Hiram sent to the king six-score talents of gold.” “And the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred three-score and six talents of gold. [Nearly three-and a-half millions.] Beside that he had of the merchantmen, and of the traffic of the spice merchants, and of all the kings of Arabia, and of the governors of the country.” Again, we read, “And the king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones…. And Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt…. But king Solomon loved many strange women…. And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart.” (1 Kings 10, 11.)
What a tale this tells! What a commentary it furnishes upon man in his very best and highest estate! Here was a man endowed with wisdom beyond all others, surrounded by unexampled blessings, dignities, honours and privileges; his earthly cup was full to the brim; there was nothing lacking which this world could supply to minister to human happiness. And not only so, but his remarkable prayer at the dedication of the temple might well lead us to cherish the brightest hopes respecting him, both personally and officially.
But, sad to say, he broke down, most deplorably, in every one of the particulars as to which the law of his God had spoken so definitely and so clearly. He was told not to multiply silver and gold, and yet he multiplied them. He was told not to return to Egypt to multiply horses, and yet to Egypt he went for horses. He was told not to multiply wives, and yet he had a thousand of them, and they turned away his heart! Such is man! Oh! how little is he to be counted upon! “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth away.” “Cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils, for wherein is he to be accounted of?”
But we may ask, how are we to account for Solomon’s signal, sorrowful and humiliating failure? What was the real secret of it? To answer this, we must quote for the reader the closing verses of our chapter.
“And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites; and it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of His life; that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them; that his. heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand or to the left; to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children, in the midst of Israel.” (Vers. 18-20.)
Had Solomon attended to these most precious and weighty words, his historian would have had a very different task to perform. But he did not. We hear nothing of his having made a copy of the law; and, most assuredly, if he did make a copy of it, he did not attend to it; yea, he turned his back upon it, and did the very things which he was told not to do. In a word, the cause of all the wreck and ruin that so rapidly followed the splendour of Solomon’s reign, was neglect of the plain word of God.
It is this which makes it all so solemn for us, in this our own day, and which leads us to call the earnest attention of the reader to it. We deeply feel the need of seeking to rouse the attention of the whole church of God to this great subject. Neglect of the word of God is the source of all the failure, all the sin, all the error, all the mischief and confusion, the heresies, sects and schisms that have ever been or are now in this world. And we may add, with equal confidence, that the only real sovereign remedy for our present lamentable condition will be found in returning, every one for himself and herself, to the simple but sadly neglected authority of the word of God. Let each one see his own departure, and that of the whole professing body, from the plain and positive teaching of the New Testament – the commandments of our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Let us humble ourselves under the mighty hand of our God, because of our common sin, and let us turn to Him in true self-judgment, and He will graciously restore, and heal, and bless us, and lead us in that most blessed path of obedience which lies open before every truly humble soul.
May God the Holy Ghost, in His own resistless power, bring home to the heart and conscience of every member of the body of Christ, on the face of the earth, the urgent need of an immediate and unreserved surrender to the authority of the word of God!
Fuente: Mackintosh’s Notes on the Pentateuch
Deu 16:21Deu 17:7. Laws Demanding Pure Worship and Suitable Sacrifices.This breaks the connexion; its proper place is probably between Deuteronomy 12 and Deuteronomy 13.
Deu 17:1. See Lev 22:17-25*.ox: Heb. means any head of large cattle, bull, cow, calf.sheep: Heb. means any head of small cattle, ram, ewe, lamb, goat, kid.
Deu 17:2-7 probably preceded ch. 13 with which it has close affinities.
Deu 17:2. within . . . gates: Deu 12:12*.covenant: Deu 4:13
Deu 17:6. two witnesses: Deu 19:15-21, Num 35:30.
Deu 17:8 to Deu 18:22. Officebearers.This continues Deu 16:18-20*.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
RIGHTEOUS GOVERNMENT
(This Continues the subject of)
(chap.16:13 to 17:11)
This continues the subject of righteous government. The guilt of offering a blemished sacrifice to the Lord must incur severe judgment (vs.1-2) for transgressing God’s covenant, as was true in the case of any who worship other gods, whether the sun or moon or the stars which may seem to men on such a high level that worshiping them would be permissible.
If a report came of any such abuses, then Israel was to inquire diligently to be absolutely certain that the report was true (v.4). When this was established without question, then the offender, whether man or woman, must be brought to the gates and stoned to death (v.5). In the present day idolatry is no less abhorrent to God, but in grace He is delaying His judgment until the future. Yet any such guilt on the part of one who professes to be a Christian requires us to firmly refuse him any fellowship (2Co 6:14-18; 2Ti 2:16-21).
However, the testimony of one witness would not be sufficient to pass a death sentence: there must be two or three witnesses (v.6). Also the witness would be required to be first in putting the offender to death (v.7). This would make people slow to witness if they were not persuaded fully of the guilt of the accused.
There may also be cases that were too involved to enable a prompt decision, cases too hard to discern. At the end of the dispensation of grace we are warned that the times would be difficult (2Ti 3:1). “Perilous times” (KJV) is rightly rendered “difficult times,” implying hard to bear with and hard to deal with. If such a case arose in Israel, the matter was to be taken to God’s center, Jerusalem (v.8) and submitted to the priests, Levites and to the judges in authority at the time, and their judgment of the case was to be final and binding (vs.10-11). In the Church of God today there is no such earthly center of human authority, but Christ is the Center, and His own presence alone will settle such things. We need concerted, united dependence upon Himself, for He is the one Judge we may depend on. The priests would answer today to those believers who act in genuine priestly capacity in intercession for the saints of God. In communion with the Lord (the Judge) they may then communicate His answer to the people. This will always be properly guarded by consulting and obeying the Word of God.
One might act presumptuously, asserting his own will as being superior to the decision of the judges, and such a person must be put to death. Sadly, there are many today who have this proud, self-assertive attitude which can work havoc among the saints of God. Though we cannot put them to death, we can and should publicly rebuke them (1Ti 5:20), that others also may fear, as Israel would fear in the death sentence passed on one of them. If the rebuke is not effective in restraining this haughty attitude, it may become necessary to refuse the offender all practical fellowship (Mat 18:17).
A KING MUST BE SUBJECT
(vs.14-20)
Though God knew that Israel would only aggravate their difficulties rather than solve them through having a king, yet He knew too that they were so self-willed that they would eventually demand a king “like all the nations” (v.14). Thus, God would allow them their way, just as He often allows us our way in order that we may learn the end results of our folly.
Yet God would not allow them to choose their own king, but rather accept one whom God chose (v.15). Government “for the people, of the people and by the people” was never God’s way. Nor was Israel to have a king from any foreign nation. In spite of this the Herod who ruled at the time of the Lord Jesus was an Edomite. Yet believers today are to submit to whatever government God sees fit to allow, to thank God for those in authority and to pray for them (1Ti 2:1-2). We are like those who are ambassadors in a foreign country (2Co 5:20), not interfering in their politics, but subject to their authority. “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Php 3:20).
But a warning is given to any king who might arise: he was not to multiply horses nor send his people to bring horses from Egypt (v.16). Of course war horses were considered necessary for the protection of the kingdom. Could faith not depend on God for such protection rather than on horses? See Psa 33:17; Hos 14:3. In spite of this warning, Solomon, wealthy king as he was, “had horses imported from Egypt.” as well as chariots (1Ki 10:28-29), So that it is reported he had 40,000 stalls of horses (1Ki 4:26). These did not protect the kingdom from division soon after the death of Solomon (1Ki 12:1-33). Depending on these things is not depending on God.
Nor was a king to “multiply wives for himself” (v.17), for this would turn away his heart from the Lord. In this also Solomon grossly disobeyed God, having 700 wives as well as 300 concubines, and “his wives turned his heart after other gods” (1Ki 11:4). Not only did this Scripture (Deu 17:1-20) warn him, but he reports himself that his mother warned him, “Do not give your strength to women, nor your ways to that which destroys kings” (Pro 31:1-3). His great wisdom did not preserve him from sin.
Also a king was not to “greatly multiply silver and gold for himself” (v.17). The Lord promised Solomon that He would give him “riches and wealth and honor” (2Ch 1:12), but this was not sufficient for Solomon, just as other wealthy men grasp after more and more. For Solomon fitted merchant ships to greatly increase his wealth (1Ki 10:22-23), and he laid heavy taxes on the people (1Ki 12:3-4; 1Ki 11:1-43). In fact, Solomon’s mother had also urged him to show kindness to the poor (Pro 31:8-9) but Solomon showed the opposite. Sad comment on the influences of prominence, wealth and wisdom!
Whether Solomon obeyed verse 18 and 19 may be a question, but it would seem that if he had written a copy of the law and had read it every day of his life, this might have preserved him from the sad failure and disobedience that caused him such grief in his later years. For the reading of God’s Word would have such effect that it might keep him from having his heart lifted above his brethren (v.20), for the pride that comes from prominence can work severe havoc with a king, as it sadly did with Solomon. In all of this we are taught that if one is to rule rightly, he must first learn to be fully subject to the rule of the Lord.
In beautiful contrast to Solomon, the Lord Jesus, in all His life on earth, has shown perfect subjection to God. Though He is God’s appointed King, yet in all His wondrous life of sorrow and love, He took no place of prominence, but displayed rather a perfect spirit of subjection as a Servant, not taking authority, but obeying the authority of God. This lowly subjection has qualified Him to eventually take the throne as King of kings and Lord of lords. What confidence too believers can have in Him, having seen Him tested in His lowly life of sorrow and obedience. He is the only One worthy to be given the place of supreme honor and dignity, for He has proven Himself in humiliation.
Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible
17:1 Thou shalt not sacrifice unto the LORD thy God [any] bullock, or sheep, wherein is {a} blemish, [or] any evilfavouredness: for that [is] an abomination unto the LORD thy God.
(a) You shall not serve God for selfish means as the hypocrites do.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
God specified the method of execution as stoning for idolaters as well as other capital offenders. Rocks were, and still are, present everywhere in Canaan. At least two and preferably three witnesses had to be willing to take the lead in stoning the convicted offender (Deu 17:6-7). These requirements were safeguards against injustice and perjury.
"The evidence must be adequate and credible; and anyone ready to make a serious accusation must be prepared to be executioner as well as witness." [Note: Payne, p. 104.]