Scripture Daily

Context No. 447 of 4322 · Deuteronomy

Context · Reflection

Deuteronomy 17:8-13: in context

8If there arises a matter too hard for you in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within your gates, then you shall arise, and go up to the place which the LORD your God chooses. 9You shall come to the priests who are Levites and to the judge who shall be in those days. You shall inquire, and they shall give you the verdict. 10You shall do according to the decisions of the verdict which they shall give you from that place which the LORD chooses. You shall observe to do according to all that they shall teach you. 11According to the decisions of the law which they shall teach you, and according to the judgment which they shall tell you, you shall do. You shall not turn away from the sentence which they announce to you, to the right hand, nor to the left. 12The man who does presumptuously in not listening to the priest who stands to minister there before the LORD your God, or to the judge, even that man shall die. You shall put away the evil from Israel. 13All the people shall hear and fear, and do no more presumptuously.

This passage sets up a court of appeal for ancient Israel. When a legal case arises that is too hard for the local elders, a difficult matter of bloodshed, a disputed claim, an assault where the facts are tangled, the people are to take it up to the central sanctuary, to the priests and the judge appointed in that day, and receive their verdict. And then comes the striking part. You shall do according to the decision they give you, the law says, and you shall be careful to do all that they instruct; you shall not turn aside from the verdict they announce, to the right hand or to the left. The ruling is binding, and you submit to it even if you would have decided differently.

There is a humility built into this that runs hard against the grain of how we live now. The law assumes, first, that some matters are genuinely too hard for me, beyond my competence to settle on my own, and that the wise response is not to render my own verdict but to bring the matter to those with more wisdom and legitimate authority. And second, it assumes that once a legitimate ruling is given, I actually submit to it, rather than accepting only the verdicts I already agree with and turning aside from the rest. The law is severe about the opposite, the person who acts presumptuously, refusing to listen to the priest or the judge, treating his own judgment as the final word. That person, it says, is a danger to the whole community, because a people in which everyone is a law unto himself cannot hold together. All the people shall hear and fear.

That is a searching word in an age where each of us is quietly our own supreme court, submitting to no ruling we did not already like. There is a humility in admitting that some things are beyond me and require me to bring them to wiser or legitimate authority, and then to accept the verdict even when it is not the one I wanted. Where am I insisting on being my own final judge on matters that are genuinely too hard for me, turning aside from any ruling I dislike, when the health of the community, and my own, might depend on the humility to submit?

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