CHAPTER 17

(1451 B.C.)

IMPERFECT SACRIFICES

¹You shall not sacrifice unto the LORD your God any bullock, or sheep, wherein is blemish, or any evilfavouredness: for that is an abomination unto the LORD your God (the Sacrifices were meant to be Types of Christ; as such, they had to be perfect; otherwise, they were an insult to God, as would be obvious).

DEATH PENALTY

²If there be found among you, within any of your gates which the LORD your God gives you, man or woman, who has wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD your God, in transgressing His Covenant,

³And has gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded;

⁴And it be told you, and you have heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel:

⁵Then shall you bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto your gates, even that man or that woman, and shall stone them with stones, till they die (the land must be kept free from all idolatry; regrettably, Israel ultimately succumbed to this travesty).

⁶At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he who is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death (one eyewitness was not enough evidence, at least regarding the Law of Moses, to condemn a person to death; there must be two or three witnesses; an extremely high value was placed by the Lord on life).

⁷The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death (the two or three witnesses were to throw the first stones), and afterward the hands of all the people. So you shall put the evil away from among you.

SUPREME COURT

⁸If there arise 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 shall you arise, and get you up into the place which the LORD your God shall choose;

⁹And you shall come unto the Priests the Levites, and unto the Judge who shall be in those days, and enquire; and they shall show you the sentence of judgment (a declaration of what was legally right):

¹⁰And you shall do according to the sentence, which they of that place which the LORD shall choose shall show you; and you shall observe to do according to all that they inform you (matters of controversy were not to be decided independently of God, but, on the contrary, in direct connection with Him):

¹¹According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach you, and according to the judgment which they shall tell you, you shall do: you shall not decline from the sentence which they shall show you, to the right hand, nor to the left (the law is to be observed).

DEATH FOR IRREVERENCE

¹²And the man who will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the Priest who stands to minister there before the LORD your God, or unto the Judge, even that man shall die: and you shall put away the evil from Israel (no one must take the law into their own hands).

¹³And all the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously.

CHOICE OF A KING

¹⁴When you are come unto the land which the LORD your God gives you, and shall possess it, and shall dwell therein, and shall say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me;

¹⁵You shall in any wise set him king over you, whom the LORD your God shall choose (the Lord must choose the king, not the people): one from among your brethren shall you set king over you: you may not set a stranger over you, which is not your brother (no one but a Jew could be king over Israel).

¹⁶But he shall not multiply horses to himself (in other words, the strength of the army of Israel was to be the Lord and not horses and chariots), nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses (dont look to Egypt, but look to the Lord): forasmuch as the LORD has said unto you, You shall henceforth return no more that way (this was at least one of the great sins of Israel, which occasioned their defeat at the hands of the Babylonians; they trusted in Egypt instead of the Lord [Jer. 37:5-10]).

¹⁷Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away (evidently, Solomon did not heed these words): neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold (men who have great sums of money, or even nations, tend to trust in the money instead of God).

¹⁸And it shall be, when he sits upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this Law in a book out of that which is before the Priests the Levites (should Israel desire a king, he was to obey the instructions of Verses 14-20; he was, with his own hand, to write a copy of the Bible; he was to read it every day; he was to obey it; he was not to deviate from it in any particular):

¹⁹And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this Law and these Statutes, to do them (the modern Christian should heed these words, as well, making the Bible a part of his everyday life and study):

²⁰That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the Commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel.