Deuteronomy 17:8-13: a reflection

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.

The law anticipates that some cases will be too hard to decide: disputes and questions beyond the ability of local judgment to resolve. For these, God provides a way: bring the matter to the priests and the appointed judge at the place God chooses, seek their verdict, and abide by the decision they give. God did not expect his people to figure out every hard matter on their own; he provided wise, appointed counsel for the cases beyond them, and called them to seek it and heed it.

Notice the humility built into this provision. It assumes that there are matters too hard for us, questions we cannot rightly settle by our own judgment alone, and it directs us not to muddle through in isolation but to seek out wise, godly counsel and submit to it. There is no shame in a matter being too hard for you; the shame would be in pridefully insisting on your own judgment when you needed help. The provision honors the wisdom of seeking counsel.

That is practical wisdom for our own hard decisions and disputes. When a matter is genuinely beyond us, too tangled, too weighty, too uncertain for us to settle rightly on our own, the wise and humble course is not to trust only our own judgment but to seek out wise, godly counsel, and to be willing to heed it. Pride says, I can figure this out myself; wisdom says, this is beyond me; I need counsel. When you face what is too hard for you, do not lean only on your own understanding. Seek wise counsel, and have the humility to heed it.

Lord, you provided for the cases too hard to decide by directing your people to seek wise, appointed counsel and heed it. When I face matters genuinely beyond me, too tangled or weighty for my own judgment, keep me from the pride that insists on figuring it all out alone. Give me the humility to seek wise, godly counsel and to be willing to heed it. Help me not to lean only on my own understanding, but to seek help when I need it.