And all the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously.
Deuteronomy 17:13 belongs to Moses' repetition of the law spoken before Israel crossed the Jordan into the promised land, recalling what God had done for them during forty years of wandering in the wilderness, rehearsing the chief laws, and impressing the sacred import of God's holy law and the necessity of keeping it. It stands in a chapter of wonderful interest and intense practical instruction to be read with Deuteronomy 18, whose latter part foreshadows the coming kingdom in Israel and gives instruction about what the king ought to be. It belongs to a system in which difficult cases were referred from local officers to a higher body for final settlement.
It is part of the law governing a higher court's judgment in which the regular trial followed the elders' initial decision to admit a fugitive to a city of refuge, after witnesses had been summoned and the accusers could appear. When a matter too hard for judgment arises between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy, it must be taken up to the place the Lord chooses, to the priests the Levites and to the judge in those days, to learn the sentence of judgment and the sentence of the law. Judgment according to God's instruction rests in the hands of the appointed priests and judge, whose sentence must be done and observed without declining to the right hand or to the left. The man who acts presumptuously by refusing to hearken to the priest who stands to minister before the Lord or to the judge must die to put away evil from Israel, while the people carry out the prescribed penalty and execute the punishment.
The judgment against presumptuous disobedience is to be heard by all the people, so they will fear and do no more presumptuously. This same order continues in the New Testament, where the church enforces discipline in all cases of difficult matters that the people could not decide.
Deuteronomy 17:13 belongs to Moses' repetition of the law spoken before Israel crossed the Jordan into the promised land, recalling what God had done for them during forty years of wandering in the wilderness, rehearsing the chief laws, and impressing the sacred import of God's holy law and the necessity of keeping it. It stands in a chapter of wonderful interest and intense practical instruction to be read with Deuteronomy 18, whose latter part foreshadows the coming kingdom in Israel and gives instruction about what the king ought to be. It belongs to a system in which difficult cases were referred from local officers to a higher body for final settlement.
It is part of the law governing a higher court's judgment in which the regular trial followed the elders' initial decision to admit a fugitive to a city of refuge, after witnesses had been summoned and the accusers could appear. When a matter too hard for judgment arises between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy, it must be taken up to the place the Lord chooses, to the priests the Levites and to the judge in those days, to learn the sentence of judgment and the sentence of the law. Judgment according to God's instruction rests in the hands of the appointed priests and judge, whose sentence must be done and observed without declining to the right hand or to the left. The man who acts presumptuously by refusing to hearken to the priest who stands to minister before the Lord or to the judge must die to put away evil from Israel, while the people carry out the prescribed penalty and execute the punishment.
The judgment against presumptuous disobedience is to be heard by all the people, so they will fear and do no more presumptuously. This same order continues in the New Testament, where the church enforces discipline in all cases of difficult matters that the people could not decide.