Deuteronomy 17:9

9 then you shall go to the priests and the Levites and to the judge who will be [in office] in those days, and you shall enquire, and they shall announce to you {the verdict}.

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 The hand of the witnesses shall be first against the person to kill the person, and afterward the hands [of] all the people, and [so] you shall purge the evil from your midst.
8 "{If a matter is too difficult for you}, [for example disputes] between blood and blood, between legal claim and legal claim and between assault and assault [and between] matters of discernment in your {towns}, then you shall get up and you shall go to the place that Yahweh your God will choose;
9 then you shall go to the priests and the Levites and to the judge who will be [in office] in those days, and you shall enquire, and they shall announce to you {the verdict}.
10 "And {you shall carry out exactly the decision} that they announced to you from that place that Yahweh will choose, and {you shall diligently observe} according to all that they instruct you.
11 [And so] according to {the instruction of the law} that they teach you and according to the decisions that they say to you, you shall do; you shall not turn from the word that they tell you to the right or [to the] left.

Footnotes 1

  • [a]. Literally "the word of the decision"
Scripture quotations marked (LEB) are from the Lexham English Bible. Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software. Lexham is a registered trademark of Logos Bible Software.