NOTES for Deu 17:8-9

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⁸If 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 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 of judgment:

The book of Deuteronomy proposes a theocratic social order as optimal for the people of God. It allows secular, in particular royal, power, yet Deuteronomy noticeably limits the king's rights. The point is not that from the point of view of the Torah precisely hierocracy, the rule of the priesthood, is the only possible form of social order for the people of God: the legislation of Exodus, for example, does not insist on hierocracy.

The book of Deuteronomy was written quite late, perhaps around the middle of the ninth century BC, when traditionalism with its religious order had gone into the past forever, and society, particularly in the Kingdom of Israel where the book was written, was essentially pagan. The leaders of the prophetic movement of this era were sure that only strict centralization of worship and the authority of the priesthood could in such conditions protect the people from paganism. Their views found expression in Deuteronomy.

But besides this strictly historical aspect, there is in it something universal, independent of any historical specifics. Supreme judicial authority is entrusted to the temple priesthood not only because it, and also the prophetic communities, alone were in those days the guardians of pure Yahwism, without any pagan influences or additions.

It is entrusted to them first of all because the temple priesthood in the era of the First Temple was the bearer of a more or less generally accepted value system. Judicial procedure is impossible without such a generally accepted value system, just as any legislation is impossible without it: a society whose value norms do not coincide with the laws in force cannot be forced to observe those laws.

Values, in turn, require an absolute spiritual foundation, an absolute source. No human community and no institution created by people can be such an absolute source: only God can put every dot on every i when it comes to spiritual and moral values. It is not accidental that the history of the Torah at Sinai begins with its being given to Moses as a prophet of God.

In the age of Moses, Joshua, and the Judges, God's people were the chief interpreters of this God-given Torah, and the people, seeing them as people of God, listened to their words. In the era of the First Temple the people likewise listened to the words of the Levitical priests.

It is not surprising that Deuteronomy, in new and changed conditions, entrusts the highest judicial authority to them: now they become the interpreters of the Torah. But the system of spiritual and moral values remains the same. And the logic of the Torah as active legislation also remains the same: the expression and embodiment in law of this system of values, so that the Torah may become an instrument for organizing the life not only of an individual person, but also of a whole people in its social and state life.

Other notes

For Deu 17:1-20

¹Thou 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.

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 the sun, or moon, or any of the 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, and the thing 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.

⁶At 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.

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.

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 of judgment:

¹⁰And thou shalt do according to the sentence, 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 which they shall shew thee, to the right hand, nor to the left.

¹²And 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.

¹³And all the 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 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.

¹⁶But 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.

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 is before the priests the Levites:

¹⁹And 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:

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 his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel.

Judging by the laws the Book of Deuteronomy offers us, its author's social ideal is hierocracy. Here there is a clear concession, a refusal of the theocracy so dear to the hearts of the early prophets, even though Deuteronomy appeared in the milieu of the early prophets, in the early prophetic communities of the Northern Kingdom.

The early prophets were always closer to theocracy, the rule of a charismatic leader appointed by God, who led the people after him in God's name and for God's sake. Hierocracy, however, meant the authority of the priesthood, of the priestly community, the community of the Jerusalem Temple, which precisely at the time Deuteronomy was being written was gaining its first experience of participation in political life, not in the North, of course, but in the South, in the Kingdom of Judah.

The logic of the book's author was understandable: it was important to him to preserve the purity of the Torah, including as state law, and for this it was necessary to find people who, possessing power and authority, would at the same time be faithful to the Torah. The author of Deuteronomy found such people in the members of the temple community: the priesthood of Jerusalem possessed both power and spiritual authority in its country, and the priests naturally did not think of themselves apart from the Torah. If anyone could help the Torah be accepted and spread in all its fullness and purity as state law, it was precisely the priesthood of Jerusalem. The matter was complicated, to be sure, by the fact that relations between the two Hebrew states at the time the book was written were, to put it mildly, very tense. But the sacred writer was little concerned by them, since he himself was an obvious opponent of secular authority in the form in which it existed in the North.

Judah, however, was also a kingdom, and the author of the book understands this: pure Yahwism can be combined with royal authority, but on one condition, that the king strictly follows the Torah, turning aside from it neither to the right nor to the left. This requirement that earthly authority follow God's law can be considered quite universal; it is given for all times. Forms of government and social order may change, but the basic principle remains unchanged: in God's eyes, only authority whose representatives follow the Torah, at least not violating the commandments given by God, has the right to exist.