To ponder:
Chapter 16 ends with the call to appoint impartial and
incorruptible judges to ensure justice. What follows stresses this is to
“purge” evil from the land, and so ensure Israel
continue to possess it, rather than lose it because of sin.
Alongside a
reaffirmation that sacrifices must be without defect, the call to pure worship
is stressed. And if idolatry is confirmed by “careful investigation” and the
testimony of at least two or three witnesses, the culprit must be stoned.
Requiring the witnesses to initiate this before the whole community is
involved, ensures they take responsibility for their testimony, and not make it
lightly. Patterned on this, elders oversee the discipline of the church against
those who deny the faith in belief or behaviour. Jesus taught two or three
witnesses should confirm the matter, before the whole church distances themselves
from the individual to stress his predicament and provoke repentance, but also
to ensure the sin doesn’t spread through the church (Matt 18v15-17, 1 Cor 5v5-8).
Order
within Israel
is now detailed with respect to judges, kings, priests and prophets. Difficult
cases are to be brought to a particular “judge” who governs Israel
and to the priests at God’s “place.” Again, as with elders (Heb 13v17), their
decision and teaching must be adhered to. Indeed, to hold it in contempt
warranted death.
Future kings must be Israelites,
and those God chooses. And they are not to accumulate horses or wealth, that
would encourage them to consider themselves better than others and so exempt
from Israel’s
laws. Nor are they to have many wives who could lead them from the LORD. Rather
they are to be scholars and scribes, who copy and study their own scroll of the
law, learning how to revere God. These qualities are exemplified in Jesus, but
remind all of the dangers of money, sex and power. They show Israel’s
kings were to model and administer God’s law, showing the LORD is the real
King.
The
provisions for the Levites are reaffirmed. And if out of a desire to serve God
they come from their towns to minister at God’s place, they are to receive
provision even if they have material means themselves. So the minister has a right
to pay even if they don’t need it (1 Cor 9v4-12).
Seeking
guidance through the occult is condemned before the role of prophets is outlined.
They are God’s means of guidance. A particular prophet like Moses is promised.
He was awaited in Jesus’ day, yet fulfilled in him (Acts 3v22). But others are
promised to. They are needed to mediate the awesome voice of God. They will
therefore speak only what God commands and so must be listened to. And those
who “presume to speak” in God’s name something not from him (such as
predictions that don’t come to pass) must be put to death – and are not to be
feared. This is why flippancy in those who preach or claim to have a word from God
today is so serious, and why those who speak error in his name should be called
to account (Tit 1v10-13).
Having
dealt with cities of refuge east of the Jordan
(4v41-44), those west are now mentioned. They must be accessible; and if God
grants more land, three more built so that those fleeing can find refuge
nearby. However, those who killed maliciously are to be handed over without
pity to any avenger, so justice is done. Honesty as well as justice is then
commended in the instructions not to steal land by moving boundary stones, and to
punish false witnesses with the very punishment those they accuse would have
received.
Praying it home:
Thank God for the government he has established both in the
nation and church. Pray the former would increasingly shape policy according to
God’s ways, and the latter teach and uphold his word clearly and faithfully.
Thinking further:
Any applicable principles of government within Israel
apply more directly not to any nation but to the kingdom
of God and so the church. Nevertheless,
as all government is established providentially to promote good, punish evil
and govern society (Rom 13v1-7), the principles of “good” and “evil” found
within the Mosaic law and taught by Christ and the Apostles are those we should
encourage any government to adopt for the wellbeing of the nation they govern.
Nevertheless, caution is needed so that we correctly understand how exactly these
principles might apply to such a different and secular context, and shrewdness
in how and when to promote them.
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