Deuteronomy 17:9

And 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 of judgment:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Deuteronomy 17:9. Unto the priests — That is, unto the great council, which consisted chiefly of the priests and Levites, as being the best expositors of the laws of God, by which all those controversies were to be decided. And the high-priest was commonly one of that number, comprehended here under the priests, whereof he was the chief. By judges, here, seems to be meant those supreme judges of the nation, whom God raised up when the Israelites were oppressed by their enemies, such as Gideon, Jephthah, Samson, Samuel, &c. Such judges were, by their office, invested with the highest authority, civil as well as military; for to judge Israel was to administer justice, as well as to command armies. Moses seems to intimate, that the Hebrew commonwealth was to retain, after his death, the same form as it had now when he was alive; for he himself was the supreme judge, or administrator of justice, to whom the more difficult causes were to be referred, Deuteronomy 1:17. So Joshua was judge after him, and many other.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

17:8-13 Courts of judgment were to be set up in every city. Though their judgment had not the Divine authority of an oracle, it was the judgment of wise, prudent, experienced men, and had the advantage of a Divine promise.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The cases in question are such as the inferior judges did not feel able to decide satisfactorily, and which accordingly they remitted to their superiors (compare Exodus 18:23-27).

The Supreme court Deuteronomy 17:9 is referred to in very general terms as sitting at the sanctuary Deuteronomy 17:8. "The judge" would no doubt usually be a layman, and thus the court would contain both an ecclesiastical and a civil element. Jehoshaphat 2 Chronicles 19:4-11 organized his judicial system very closely upon the lines here laid down.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

De 17:8-13. The Priests and Judges to Determine Controversies.

8-13. If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment—In all civil or criminal cases, where there was any doubt or difficulty in giving a decision, the local magistrates were to submit them by reference to the tribunal of the Sanhedrim—the supreme council, which was composed partly of civil and partly of ecclesiastical persons. "The priests and Levites," should rather be "the priests—the Levites"; that is, the Levitical priests, including the high priest, who were members of the legislative assembly; and who, as forming one body, are called "the judge." Their sittings were held in the neighborhood of the sanctuary because in great emergencies the high priest had to consult God by Urim (Nu 27:21). From their judgment there was no appeal; and if a person were so perverse and refractory as to refuse obedience to their sentences, his conduct, as inconsistent with the maintenance of order and good government, was then to be regarded and punished as a capital crime.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Unto the priests the Levites, i.e. unto the great council, which it is here denominated from, because it consisted chiefly of the priests and Levites, as being the best expositors of the laws of God, by which all those controversies mentioned Deu 17:8 were to be decided. And the high priest was commonly one of that number, and may seem to be understood here under the priests, whereof he was the chief.

Unto the judge: this judge here is either,

1. The supreme civil magistrate, who was made by God the keeper of both tables, and was by his office to take care of the right administration both of justice and of religion, who was to determine causes and suits by his own skill and authority in civil matters, and by the priests’ direction in spiritual or sacred causes. But this seems obnoxious to some difficulties, because,

1. This judge was obliged to dwell in the place of God’s worship, which the civil magistrate was not, and ofttimes did not.

2. This judge was one whose office it was to expound and teach others the law of God, as it here follows, Deu 17:11, therefore not the civil magistrate. Or,

2. The high priest, who was obliged to live in this place, to whom it belonged to determine some at least of those controversies mentioned Deu 17:8, and to teach and expound the law of God. And he may be distinctly named, though he be one of the priests, partly because of his eminency and superiority over the rest of them, as after

all David’s enemies Saul is particularly mentioned, Psalm 18:1; and partly to show that amongst the priests he especially was to be consulted in such cases. But this also seems liable to objections.

1. That he seems to be included under that general expression of the

priests and Levites.

2. That the high priest is never in all the Scripture called simply the judge, but generally called the priest, or the high priest, or chief priest, or the like; and it is most probable if Moses had meant him here, he would have expressed him by some of his usual names and titles, and not by a strange title which was not likely to be understood.

3. That divers controversies between blood and blood, plea and plea, stroke and stroke, were not to be determined by the high priest, but by other persons, as appears by Exodus 18:22 Deu 1:16,17. Or,

3. The sanhedrim or supreme council, which, as was said before, consisted partly of priests, and partly of wise and learned persons of other tribes, as is confessed by all the Jewish and most other writers. And so this is added by way of explication, partly to show that the priests and Levites here mentioned, as the persons to whom all hard controversies are to be referred, are not all the priests and Levites which should reside in Jerusalem, but only such of them as were or should be members of that great council by whom, together with their fellow-members of other tribes, these causes were to be decided; partly to intimate that that great council, which had the chief and final determination of all the above-said controversies, was a mixed assembly, consisting of wise and good men, some ecclesiastical, and some secular; as it was most meet it should be, because many of the causes which were brought unto them were mixed causes. As for the conjunctive particle and, that may be taken either disjunctively for or, as it is Exodus 21:15,17, compared with Matthew 15:4; and Numbers 35:5,6, compared with Matthew 12:37 Leviticus 6:3,5 2 Samuel 2:19,21; or exegetically, for that is, or to wit, as Judges 7:24 1 Samuel 17:40 1 Samuel 28:3 2 Chronicles 35:14; and so the sense may be, the priests, the Levites, or the judge, as it is Deu 17:12; or, the priests, the Levites, that is, the judge, or the judges appointed for this work. And though the word judge be in the singular number, and may seem to denote one person, yet it is only an enallage, or change of the number, the singular for the plural, judges, which is most frequent, as Genesis 3:2,7 49:6 1 Samuel 31:1 1 Kings 10:22 2 Kings 11:10, compared with 2 Chronicles 9:21 23:9 and in the Hebrew, 1 Chronicles 4:42, where divers officers are called one head. And so it is most probably here,

1. Because the following words Which belong to this run altogether in the plural number, they, they, they, &c., here and Deu 17:10,11.

2. Because here is the same enallage in the other branch, the same person or persons being called the priests here, and the priest Deu 17:12.

3. Because for the judge here is put the judges, Deu 19:17, where we have the same phrase used upon the same or a like occasion, the men between whom the controversy is shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges, which shall be in those days. Nor is it strange, but very fit and reasonable, that so many persons being all united in one body, and to give judgment or sentence by the consent of all, or the greatest part, should be here called by the name of one judge, as indeed they were; and for that reason the priests are spoken of in the plural number, because they were many, as also the other members of that assembly were, and the judge in the singular number, because they all constituted but one judge. The sentence of judgment, Heb. the word or matter of judgment, i.e. the true state and right of the cause, and what judgment or sentence ought to be given in it.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Thou shalt come unto the priests, the Levites,.... The priests that are of the tribe of Levi, as the Targum of Jonathan, and so Jarchi; for Aben Ezra says there are priests that are not of the genealogy of Levi; such there were indeed in Jeroboam's time, 1 Kings 12:31. Maimonides (f) observes, that it is ordered that there should be in the great sanhedrim priests and Levites, as it is said: "and thou shalt come unto the priests, and the judge that shall be in those days, and inquire"; judge is here put for judges, of which the great court consisted, being priests, Levites, and Israelites; See Gill on Deuteronomy 16:18, though others think that only a single person is meant, such as Othniel, Ehud, Gideon, Samson, &c. but then as there was not always such an one in being, I should rather think that the judge here, if a single person, is the president or prince of the great sanhedrim, who succeeded Moses, and sat in his place; and of him and his court, the priests, and Levites and Israelites that composed it, inquiry was to be made:

and they shall show thee the sentence of judgment; give their judgment in the difficult case proposed, and declare what is right to be done, and what sentence is to be pronounced.

(f) Hilchot Sanhedrin, c. 2. sect. 2.

Geneva Study Bible

And thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites, and unto the {f} judge that shall be in those days, and enquire; and they shall shew thee the sentence of judgment:

(f) Who will sentence as the priests counsel him by the Law of God.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9. unto the priests the Levites] See on Deuteronomy 10:8, Deuteronomy 18:1. The omission of these words by LXX B is due to careless copying, and in no way supports Steuernagel’s analysis of the text into two laws (see introd. note).

unto the judge that shall be in those days] That is of course either the King, as in 2 Samuel 14:3; 2 Samuel 15:2 ff., 1 Kings 3:16 ff., or some official or officials appointed by him, 2 Samuel 15:3, and Jeremiah 26, according to which Jeremiah was tried, on the complaint of the priests, by the sarim, lay officers or princes, under the King. The plur. is thus used in Deuteronomy 19:17 : the priests and the judges which shall be in those days.

inquire] darash as in Deuteronomy 13:14, q.v.

shew] Heb. declare to or announce to.

sentence] Heb. word.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 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. Deuteronomy 17:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The Higher Judicial Court at the Place of the Sanctuary. - Just as the judges appointed at Sinai were to bring to Moses whatever cases were too difficult for them to decide, that he might judge them according to the decision of God (Exodus 18:26 and Exodus 18:19); so in the future the judges of the different towns were to bring all difficult cases, which they were unable to decide, before the Levitical priests and judges at the place of the sanctuary, that a final decision might be given there.

Deuteronomy 17:8-9

"If there is to thee a matter too marvellous for judgment (נפלא with מן, too wonderful, incomprehensible, or beyond carrying out, Genesis 18:14, i.e., too difficult to give a judicial decision upon), between blood and blood, plea and plea, stroke and stroke (i.e., too hard for you to decide according to what legal provisions a fatal blow, or dispute on some civil matter, or a bodily injury, is to be settled), disputes in thy gates (a loosely arranged apposition in this sense, dispute of different kinds, such as shall arise in thy towns); arise, and get thee to the place which Jehovah thy God shall choose; and go to the Levitical priest and the judge that shall be in those days, and inquire." Israel is addressed here as a nation, but the words are not to be supposed to be directed "first of all to the local courts (Deuteronomy 16:18), and lastly to the contending parties" (Knobel), nor "directly to the parties to the suit" (Schultz), but simply to the persons whose duty it was to administer justice in the nation, i.e., to the regular judges in the different towns and districts of the land. This is evident from the general fact, that the Mosaic law never recognises any appeal to higher courts by the different parties to a lawsuit, and that in this case also it is not assumed, since all that is enjoined is, that if the matter should be too difficult for the local judges to decide, they themselves were to carry it to the superior court. As Oehler has quite correctly observed in Herzog's Cyclopaedia, "this superior court was not a court of appeal; for it did not adjudicate after the local court had already given a verdict, but in cases in which the latter would not trust itself to give a verdict at all." And this is more especially evident from what is stated in Deuteronomy 17:10, with regard to the decisions of the superior court, namely, that they were to do whatever the superior judges taught, without deviating to the right hand or to the left. This is unquestionably far more applicable to the judges of the different towns, who were to carry out exactly the sentence of the higher tribunal, than to the parties to the suit, inasmuch as the latter, at all events those who were condemned for blood (i.e., for murder), could not possibly be in a position to alter the decision of the court at pleasure, since it did not rest with them, but with the authorities of their town, to carry out the sentence.

Moses did not directly institute a superior tribunal at the place of the sanctuary on this occasion, but rather assumed its existence; not however its existence at that time (as Riehm and other modern critics suppose), but its establishment and existence in the future. Just as he gives no minute directions concerning the organization of the different local courts, but leaves this to the natural development of the judicial institutions already in existence, so he also restricts himself, so far as the higher court is concerned, to general allusions, which might serve as a guide to the national rulers of a future day, to organize it according to the existing models. He had no disorganized mob before him, but a well-ordered nation, already in possession of civil institutions, with fruitful germs for further expansion and organization. In addition to its civil classification into tribes, families, fathers' houses, and family groups, which possessed at once their rulers in their own heads, the nation had received in the priesthood, with the high priest at the head, and the Levites as their assistants, a spiritual class, which mediated between the congregation and the Lord, and not only kept up the knowledge of right in the people as the guardian of the law, but by virtue of the high priest's office was able to lay the rights of the people before God, and in difficult cases could ask for His decision. Moreover, a leader had already been appointed for the nation, for the time immediately succeeding Moses' death; and in this nomination of Joshua, a pledge had been given that the Lord would never leave it without a supreme ruler of its civil affairs, but, along with the high priest, would also appoint a judge at the place of the central sanctuary, who would administer justice in the highest court in association with the priests. On the ground of these facts, sit was enough for the future to mention the Levitical priests and the judge who would be at the place of the sanctuary, as constituting the court by which the difficult questions were to be decided.

(Note: The simple fact, that the judicial court at the place of the national sanctuary is described in such general terms, furnishes a convincing proof that we have here the words of Moses, and not those of some later prophetic writer who had copied the superior court at Jerusalem of the times of the kings, as Riehm and the critics assume.)

For instance, the words themselves show distinctly enough, that by "the judge" we are not to understand the high priest, but the temporal judge or president of the superior court; and it is evident from the singular, "the priest that standeth to minister there before the Lord" (Deuteronomy 17:12), that the high priest is included among the priests. The expression "the priests the Levites" (Levitical priests), which also occurs in Deuteronomy 17:18; Deuteronomy 18:1; Deuteronomy 21:5; Deuteronomy 24:8; Deuteronomy 27:9; Deuteronomy 31:9, instead of "sons of Aaron," which we find in the middle books, is quite in harmony with the time and character of the book before us. As long as Aaron was living with his sons, the priesthood consisted only of himself and his sons, that is to say, of one family. Hence all the instructions in the middle books are addressed to them, and for the most part to Aaron personally (vid., Exodus 28 and 29; Leviticus 8-10; Numbers 18:1, etc.). This as all changed when Aaron died; henceforth the priesthood consisted simply of the descendants of Aaron and his sons, who were no longer one family, but formed a distinct class in the nation, the legitimacy of which arose from its connection with the tribe of Levi, to which Aaron himself had belonged. It was evidently more appropriate, therefore, to describe them as sons of Levi than as sons of Aaron, which had been the title formerly given to the priests, with the exception of the high priest, viz., Aaron himself. - In connection with the superior court, however, the priests are introduced rather as knowing and teaching the law (Leviticus 10:11), than as actual judges. For this reason appeal was to be made not only to them, but also to the judge, whose duty it was in any case to make the judicial inquiry and pronounce the sentence. - The object of the verb "inquire" (Deuteronomy 17:9) follows after "they shall show thee," viz., "the word of right," the judicial sentence which is sought (2 Chronicles 19:6).