7<\/strong>. The hand of the witnesses shall be first<\/em>, etc.] Cp. Deu 13:9<\/span> (10): so they would feel more seriously the responsibility of their testimony!<\/p>\n so thou shalt put away the evil<\/em>) burn out<\/strong>. See on Deu 13:5<\/span> (6).<\/p>\n Shall be first upon him; <\/B>either laid upon his head to design the person, or stretched out to throw the first stone at him. God thus ordered it, partly for the caution of witnesses, that if they had through malice or wrath accused him falsely, they might now be afraid to imbrue their hands in innocent blood; partly for the security and satisfaction of the people in the execution of this punishment. <\/P> The hand of all the people, <\/B>who, being all highly and particularly obliged to God, are bound to express their zeal for his honour and service, and their detestation of all persons and things so highly dishonourable and abominable to him. <\/P> <\/p>\n The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death<\/strong>,…. Of everyone of them, as Aben Ezra; they were to cast the first stone at him, which would be a further trial and confirmation of their testimony; for if they readily and without reluctance first began the stoning of the idolater, it would not only show their zeal for the honour of the divine Being, but an unconsciousness of guilt in their testimony, and be an encouragement to others to proceed with safety:<\/p>\n and afterwards the hands of all the people<\/strong>; should be employed in taking up stones, and casting at him until he was dead:<\/p>\n so thou shall put the evil away from among you<\/strong>; both the evil man and the evil committed by him, which by this means would be prevented from spreading, seeing by his death others would be deterred from following his example; as well as the evil of punishment, which otherwise would have come upon the nation, had they connived at so gross an iniquity.<\/p>\n 7. The hands of the witnesses shall be first. It was not without reason that God would have criminals put to death by the hand of those by whose testimony they were condemned. The ancient people did not employ public executioners, that there might be more solemnity, modesty, and reverence in the infliction of punishments. This office he peculiarly enjoins upon the witnesses, because the tongue of many is too hasty, not to say worse of it, so that they do not hesitate to stab people verbally, when they would not dare to lay a finger upon them. This, then, was an excellent remedy for the repression of light accusations, not to admit the testimony of any, whose hand was not prepared to execute the sentence. Stoning was indeed a sad and horrible kind of punishment; but it is probable that God made choice of it because it required the application of many hands. If hanging had not been in use, God would have commanded in vain that the corpse of a man who had been hanged should be taken down from the tree before sunset. (Deu 21:23<\/span>.) There were, therefore, other kinds of capital punishment; but when the land was to be purged, as by a propitiation, by the death of the sinner, he was to be stoned by the hands of the whole people, since it would have been cruel for him to be slain by a lingering death, which would have been the case if they had stoned him one after another. The reason why the people were commanded to cast the stones with one consent was, that they might give proof of their zeal, and manifest their great indignation that God’s worship had been violated. <\/p>\n Ver. <\/em><\/strong>7. <\/strong>The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him<\/em><\/strong><\/strong> As this was an important matter in which life and death were concerned, the clearest and fullest evidence possible is required; at least two or three credible witnesses: and, that these witnesses might have the greater awe upon them, it is commanded, that their hands should be first upon the person whom they accused; thus to confirm the truth of their testimony, by being the first executioners of the sentence, and that the blood of the condemned person, if innocent, might lie at their door. See Goodwin’s Antiq. p. 201. Under a theocratic government, where the laws of religion were the laws of the state, every idolatrous Israelite was guilty of high-treason, and consequently deserved to die. A citizen of a republic, who recognised for his king him whom he adored as his God, could not offend capitally that God, so as to apostatize to idolatry, without offending his royal majesty, and at the same time rendering himself worthy of the punishment which rebels and traitors merit. It would be a gross abuse to pretend, that in virtue of the command to put to death those Israelites who were guilty of idolatry, and to extirpate idolaters from the land of Canaan, we may now maltreat heretics, and persecute to death such of them as disgrace the Christian religion by their idolatry. The case of idolaters, in respect of the Jewish commonwealth, falls under a double consideration. The first, <\/em>Of those who, being initiated in the Mosaical rites, afterwards apostatized from the worship of the God of Israel. These were proceeded against as traitors and rebels, guilty of no less than high-treason: for the republic of the Jews, different from all others, was an absolute theocracy; <\/em>nor was there, or could there be, any difference between that commonwealth and the church. The laws established in that nation respecting the worship of one true God, almighty and invisible, were the civil law of that people, and a part of their political government, in which God himself was their legislator. Now, if any one can shew where there is a commonwealth at this time constituted upon that foundation, I will acknowledge that the ecclesiastical laws do there unavoidably become a part of the civil; and that the subjects of that government both may and ought to be kept in strict conformity with that church by the civil power. But there is absolutely no such thing under the Gospel, as a Christian commonwealth: the many cities and kingdoms which have embraced Christianity have only retained their ancient form of government, with which the law of Christ hath not at all meddled. Content to point out to men the way to eternal life, he prescribed to his followers no form of government; nor put he the sword into any magistrate’s hand, whereby to force men to quit their former religion and receive his. Secondly, <\/em>Foreigners, who were not members of the commonwealth of Israel, were not compelled to observe the rites of the Mosaical law. On the contrary, in the very same place in Exodus, ch. Deu 22:20-21<\/span> where it is ordered, that an Israelite, who was an idolater, should be put to death, <\/em>it is forbidden to vex or oppress strangers. <\/em>‘Tis true, the seven nations who possessed the land were utterly to be cut off; but this was not singly because they were idolaters; for, if that had been the reason, why were the Moabites and other idolatrous nations to be spared? The reason then is this: God, being in a peculiar manner the king of the Jews, would not suffer the adoration of any other deity, which was properly an act of high-treason against himself, in the land of Canaan, his kingdom. Such a manifest revolt could no way consist with his dominion, which was political in that country: all idolatry, therefore, was to be rooted out, as it was an acknowledgment of another god, i.e. another king, contrary to the laws of empire.Every idolater, however, was not put to death. The whole family of Rahab, and the whole nation of the Gibeonites, were allowed by treaty; and there were many captives among the Jews, who were idolaters. David and Solomon subdued many countries without the confines of the Land of Promise, and carried their conquests as far as the Euphrates; and yet, among so many captives taken, and so many nations reduced to their obedience, we do not find one man forced into the Jewish religion, and the worship of the true God; or at all punished for idolatry, though all of them were certainly guilty of it. If any one indeed, becoming a proselyte, desired to be made a denizen of their commonwealth, he was obliged to submit to their laws; that is, to embrace their religion; but this he did willingly, not by constraint. He sought and solicited to shew his obedience, as for a privilege; and, as soon as he was admitted, became subject to the laws of the commonwealth, by which all idolatry was forbidden within the borders of the land of Canaan; but that law did not reach to any of those regions which were situated without the before-mentioned bounds. <\/p>\n Deu 17:7 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.<\/p>\n Ver. 9. And unto the judge,<\/strong> ] i.e., <\/em> The council of judges, the Synedrion, 2Ch 19:8 consisting partly of priests and partly of civil magistrates. Amongst the Turks at this day their judges are ever ecclesiastical persons; whereby both orders joined, give reputation one to another and maintenance; for these places of judicature are the only preferment of the priesthood. a<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n a<\/em> Blunt’s Voyage,<\/em> p. 89.<\/p>\n put the evil away. See note on Deu 13:5. <\/p>\n of the witnesses: Deu 13:9, Act 7:58, Act 7:59 <\/p>\n So thou: Deu 17:12, Deu 13:5, Deu 19:19, Deu 24:7, Jdg 20:13, 1Co 5:13 <\/p>\n Reciprocal: Lev 24:14 – all that Num 35:30 – General Deu 19:20 – General Deu 22:21 – shalt thou 1Sa 18:17 – Let not mine Heb 10:28 – under<\/p>\n Deu 17:7. First upon him God thus ordered it, for the caution of witnesses, that, if they had, through malice or wrath, accused him falsely, they might now be afraid to imbrue their hands in innocent blood; and for the security and satisfaction of the people in the execution of this punishment.<\/p>\n 17:7 The hands of the {d} witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the {e} people. So thou shalt put the evil away from among you.<\/p>\n (d) By which they declared that they testify the truth.<\/p>\n (e) To signify a common consent to maintain God’s honour and true religion.<\/p>\n 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. 7. The hand of the witnesses shall be first, etc.] Cp. Deu 13:9 (10): so they would feel more seriously the responsibility … Continue reading “Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Deuteronomy 17:7”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"