Deuteronomy 17:9

9 Go to the levitical priests and to the head judge in office at that time and look into things there. They will announce to you the correct ruling.

Deuteronomy 17:9 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 17:9

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 ) ( 13:33 ) . Maimonides F6 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 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.


FOOTNOTES:

F6 Hilchot Sanhedrin, c. 2. sect. 2.

Deuteronomy 17:9 In-Context

7 In the execution, the hands of the witnesses must be against the guilty person from the start; the hand of all the people will be involved at the end. Remove such evil from your community!
8 If some legal dispute in your cities is too difficult for you to decide—say, between different kinds of bloodshed, different kinds of legal ruling, or different kinds of injury—then take it to the location the LORD your God selects.
9 Go to the levitical priests and to the head judge in office at that time and look into things there. They will announce to you the correct ruling.
10 You must then act according to the ruling they announced to you from that location, the one the LORD selects. You must follow very carefully everything they instruct you to do.
11 Act precisely according to the instruction they give you and the ruling they announce to you. Don't deviate even a bit from the word they announce.
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