Deuteronomy 17:11

11 According to his law; and thou shalt follow their sentence: neither shalt thou decline to the right hand nor to the left hand.

Deuteronomy 17:11 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 17:11

According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach
thee
For they were not to make any new law, but to teach the law of God, and so far as their sense and opinion of things agreed with that law they were to be regarded:

and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt
do;
what were law and justice, what were fit and right to be done, according to the will of God, which they should declare unto them, that was carefully to be done by them:

thou shalt not decline from the sentence they shall show thee, to the
right hand nor to the left;
by setting up after, all their own judgments against theirs to whom they had applied for information and direction, which to have done would have been very insolent and affronting; they were not to depart from the determination they made of the case, on pretence of knowing better, nor even in any minute circumstance to deviate from it, but strictly and closely to keep unto it; though not to follow them so implicitly as to receive from them and embrace things the most absurd and unreasonable, as Jarchi suggests; who says, that their sense was to be abided by, even if they should say that the right hand is the left, and the left hand the right.

Deuteronomy 17:11 In-Context

9 And thou shalt come to the priests of the Levitical race, and to the judge, that shall be at that time: and thou shalt ask of them, and they shall shew thee the truth of the judgment.
10 And thou shalt do whatsoever they shall say, that preside in the place, which the Lord shall choose, and what they shall teach thee,
11 According to his law; and thou shalt follow their sentence: neither shalt thou decline to the right hand nor to the left hand.
12 But he that will be proud, and refuse to obey the commandment of the priest, who ministereth at that time to the Lord thy God, and the decree of the judge, that man shall die, and thou shalt take away the evil from Israel:
13 And all the people hearing it shall fear, that no one afterwards swell with pride.
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