Wednesday Bible Study: Three things

As it is so often, the division into chapters is fairly arbitrary. Deuteronomy 17 has four pieces, the first of which is just a fragment repeating for the 14th time that sacrificial animals must be unblemished. Why this is so important to the Big Guy, who knows?

The second calls yet again for the execution of apostates. You know what I think of that, I and all my friends would be dead. Fortunately, this law is no longer in effect. I don't know if the Rabbis addressed this at all in the Talmud, or if it just quietly faded away. 

 

The third is about jurisprudence, but it's awfully vague. It first refers to "your courts," which are evidently local institutions but it doesn't say anything about them or how they work. If a case is "too difficult" for them to judge you're to take it to the appellate court, as it were, which is associated with the Temple. But again, no information about how the judge is appointed or what the judicial procedures may be.

The fourth is interesting. It basically says the King's head shouldn't get too big for his crown. Not too many wives, not too many horses, not too much gelt. Although this pretends to be a command for the future, since this was written at the beginning of the Second Temple period, there had in fact been many kings already. One has to wonder if it isn't a reaction to actual history. BTW, apparently Egypt is where you go to get horses. Not sure why they Israelites couldn't breed them.

7 Do not sacrifice to the Lord your God an ox or a sheep that has any defect or flaw in it, for that would be detestable to him.

² If a man or woman living among you in one of the towns the Lord gives you is found doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God in violation of his covenant, ³ and contrary to my command has worshiped other gods, bowing down to them or to the sun or the moon or the stars in the sky, ⁴ and this has been brought to your attention, then you must investigate it thoroughly. If it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, ⁵ take the man or woman who has done this evil deed to your city gate and stone that person to death. ⁶ On the testimony of two or three witnesses a person is to be put to death, but no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness. ⁷ The hands of the witnesses must be the first in putting that person to death, and then the hands of all the people. You must purge the evil from among you.

Law Courts

⁸ If cases come before your courts that are too difficult for you to judge—whether bloodshed, lawsuits or assaults—take them to the place the Lord your God will choose. ⁹ Go to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in office at that time. Inquire of them and they will give you the verdict. ¹⁰ You must act according to the decisions they give you at the place the Lord will choose. Be careful to do everything they instruct you to do. ¹¹ Act according to whatever they teach you and the decisions they give you. Do not turn aside from what they tell you, to the right or to the left. ¹² Anyone who shows contempt for the judge or for the priest who stands ministering there to the Lord your God is to be put to death. You must purge the evil from Israel. ¹³ All the people will hear and be afraid, and will not be contemptuous again.

The King

¹⁴ When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,” ¹⁵ be sure to appoint over you a king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite. ¹⁶ The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, “You are not to go back that way again.” ¹⁷ He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.

¹⁸ When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. ¹⁹ It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees ²⁰ and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.