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.