Deuteronomy 17:12, commentary and pictures

Deuteronomy 17:12 does not enact law for the first time but belongs to the repetition of the law, the rehearsal of the wonderful things God had done for His people and of the chief laws connected with Israel. It was given by Moses before Israel crossed the Jordan into the promised land, after he had cared for them like a great and loving father through forty years of wilderness wandering despite their rebellion. Having yielded in a fit of impatience to hasty words in which he himself was glorified instead of God, he was barred from entering with them, yet before leaving them he solemnly brought to their remembrance the lessons of the forty years to impress the sacred import of God's holy law and the necessity of keeping it. It stands within the continued recounting of Israel's experiences and God's guidance in Deuteronomy 3 to 22, which appeals to Israel to serve the Lord, to turn away from the sins that wrecked other nations, and to exemplify Him as the ground of their greatness and continuance, developing the precepts of the law with gracious promises.

When a matter of controversy too hard for local judgment arises — between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke — it must be taken up to the place the Lord chooses, to the priests the Levites and to the judge in those days, to inquire and learn the sentence of judgment required by the law. When a case was too difficult for the people to judge, they were to seek the decision of the priest or judge, learn the sentence required by the law, and abide by that decision. Local officers handle matters within their own responsibility and refer cases they cannot resolve beyond the local officer to a higher body for final settlement. Difficult cases were thus referred from local officers to a higher body for final settlement, with this verse stating the consequence for defying that authority.

Judgment sat publicly in the city gate to prevent abuse of authority, with men attending night and day to receive and take charge of fugitives. The decision of the elders at the gate only admitted the slayer for protection, while the regular trial before a higher court came later, when witnesses had been summoned and accusers had time to appear. What the priests and judge teach from the law and tell as judgment must be done fully, without declining to the right hand or to the left. The people themselves carry out the punishment imposed under that sentence.

The man, even an officer, who acts presumptuously and will not hearken to the priest standing to minister there before the Lord thy God or to the judge must die, and evil must be put away from Israel so that all the people hear and fear and do no more presumptuously. The sentence of judgment shown by the priests and judge according to the law and judgment of God must be done without declining to the right hand or to the left, and willful refusal to obey that God-given decision is a capital offense against the covenant community. Presumptuous sin as deliberate refusal to heed God's appointed priest or judge is thus worthy of death, in contrast to sins committed in ignorance, for which atonement is provided. The verse concerns an Israelite's appeal to the ministering priest or judge for a decision in a case of justice and requires obedience to that decision, with its death penalty applying to one who presumptuously refuses to obey.

The verse was altered to make it appear to authorize sentencing to death anyone who rejected the high priest's decision, with the pope claimed as the high priest's successor. Charming, meaning magnetizing, enchanting, meaning mesmerizing, consulting with familiar spirits, meaning mediums, and necromancy, meaning pretending to communicate with the dead, are wicked sins. Churches that fellowship men guilty of them are fallen, so God calls His people out from them lest they partake of these sins and receive the last plagues.