Deuteronomy 17:9

9 then thou shalt arise and go up to the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, and thou shalt come to the priests the Levites, and to the judge who shall be in those days, and they shall search out and report the judgment to thee.

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.

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FOOTNOTES:

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

Deuteronomy 17:9 In-Context

7 And the hand of the witnesses shall be upon him among the first to put him to death, and the hand of the people at the last; so shalt thou remove the evil one from among yourselves.

8 And if a matter shall be too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, and between cause and cause, and between stroke and stroke, and between contradiction and contradiction, matters of judgment in your cities;

9 then thou shalt arise and go up to the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, and thou shalt come to the priests the Levites, and to the judge who shall be in those days, and they shall search out and report the judgment to thee.

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.