Deuteronomy 17:12

12 And the man whosoever shall act in haughtiness, so as not to hearken to the priest who stands to minister in the name of the Lord thy God, or the judge who shall preside in those days, that man shall die, and thou shalt remove the evil one out of Israel.

Deuteronomy 17:12 Meaning and Commentary

Ver. 12 And the man that will do presumptuously
The judge of the country court that makes his application to that at Jerusalem for information and direction; if, after all, he is conceited in his own opinion, and rejects theirs, and is obstinate, and will not be guided and directed, but will take his own way, and pursue his own sense of things, and act according to that:

and will not hearken to the priest that standeth to minister there
before the Lord thy God;
the priests of the tribe of Levi, of whom the court generally consisted, ( Deuteronomy 17:9 ) , priest for priests; though some think the high priest is meant, to whom the character very well agrees; but he was not always at the head of the sanhedrim, nor indeed a member of it, unless he had the proper qualifications; see ( Deuteronomy 18:18 )

or unto the judge; or judges; (See Gill on Deuteronomy 17:9). L'Empereur ^F7 thinks, that the supreme senate, or grand sanhedrim, was twofold, according to the diversity of ecclesiastic and political matters; since where it treats of the supreme senators, or chief persons in the court, the priest is manifestly distinguished from the judge (i.e. priests or judges); now the man that has asked advice of them, and will not be directed by it, but takes his own way, this being so great a contempt of, and insult upon, the great senate of the nation:

even that man shall die;
and this was by strangling, for so the rebellious older, as such an one is called, was to die according to the Misnah ^F8; and it is said ^F9, that the death spoken of in the law absolutely (without specifying what kind of death) is strangling:

and thou shall put away the evil from Israel;
the evil man that is rebellious against the supreme legislature of the nation, and the evil of contumacy he is guilty of, deterring others from it by his death.

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FOOTNOTES:

F7 In Misn. Middoth, c. 5. sect. 3.
F8 Sanhedrin, c. 10. sect. 2.
F9 Maimon. Issure Biah, c. 1. sect. 6.

Deuteronomy 17:12 In-Context

10 And thou shalt act according to the thing which they shall report to thee out of the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, and thou shalt observe to do all whatsoever shall have been by law appointed to thee.

11 Thou shalt do according to the law and to the judgment which they shall declare to thee: thou shalt not swerve to the right hand or to the left from any sentence which they shall report to thee.

12 And the man whosoever shall act in haughtiness, so as not to hearken to the priest who stands to minister in the name of the Lord thy God, or the judge who shall preside in those days, that man shall die, and thou shalt remove the evil one out of Israel.

13 And all the people shall hear and fear, and shall no more commit impiety.

14 And when thou shalt enter into the land which the Lord thy God gives thee, and shalt inherit it and dwell in it, and shalt say, I will set a ruler over me, as also the other nations round about me;