Scripture Daily

Context No. 1430 of 4322 · Deuteronomy

Context · Reflection

Deuteronomy 19:14-21: in context

14You shall not remove your neighbor’s landmark, which they of old time have set, in your inheritance which you shall inherit, in the land that the LORD your God gives you to possess. 15One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin that he sins. At the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall a matter be established. 16If an unrighteous witness rises up against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing, 17then both the men, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who shall be in those days; 18and the judges shall make diligent inquisition; and behold, if the witness is a false witness, and has testified falsely against his brother, 19then you shall do to him as he had thought to do to his brother. So you shall remove the evil from among you. 20Those who remain shall hear, and fear, and will never again commit any such evil among you. 21Your eyes shall not pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

This law protects the innocent against the lie that could destroy them. A single witness is not enough to convict; a matter must be established by two or three. And if a malicious witness accuses someone falsely, the two parties are to stand before the priests and judges, who must investigate diligently; and if the witness is found to have testified falsely, then whatever he intended to do to his brother is to be done to him. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and the rest will hear and fear. The passage guards the truth of testimony with utmost seriousness.

The heart of this law is the destructive power of the false witness and God's determination to guard against it. A lie told under oath, an accusation intended to destroy an innocent person, is treated here as a grave offense, and the penalty is exact: the false witness receives precisely what he schemed to inflict on his brother. The malicious lie recoils on the one who told it. Behind the law lies a recognition of just how much damage a false word can do, how a lie in the mouth of an accuser can strip an innocent person of life, freedom, or reputation, and how essential it is to a just community that the truth of what we say about one another be guarded. There is a searching word in this for the way we speak of others. We may never stand in a court, but the false or careless word about another person still carries the reach to harm, and God takes the truth of our testimony about each other seriously. The accusation we pass along without verifying, the damaging story we repeat, the slant we put on another's actions to make them look worse, all trade in the same currency as the false witness, and all can do real harm to the innocent. This law's severity is a measure of how much God cares that we speak truthfully about one another, and of how much a lie can destroy. To guard our words about others, to refuse the false or unverified accusation, is to honor what this law protects.

Do I guard the truth of what I say about others, refusing the accusation I have not verified and the story that slants another's actions to harm them, taking as seriously as God does the destructive power a false word can have on the innocent?

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