Deuteronomy 17: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Moses continues laying out laws for Israel's life in the land. He forbids sacrificing a defective animal, sets the procedure for trying and executing someone who worships other gods, and requires at least two witnesses before any death sentence. He then establishes a central court of priests and a judge for cases local courts cannot settle, and finally sets rules for a future king: chosen by the LORD, an Israelite, not piling up horses, wives, silver or gold, and required to write out and read a copy of the law all his life.

Claim by Claim

1. 17:1
   • You shall not sacrifice to the LORD your God an ox or a sheep that has a blemish in it.
   • You shall not sacrifice to the LORD your God an ox or a sheep that has anything bad about it.
   • Such an animal is an abomination to the LORD your God.
2. 17:2
   • A man or woman may be found among you, within one of your gates.
   • The LORD your God is giving you those gates.
   • The offense in view is doing what is evil in the sight of the LORD your God.
   • Doing this evil is transgressing the LORD's covenant.
3. 17:3
   • The offender has gone and served other gods.
   • The offender has bowed down to those gods.
   • The objects of such worship may be the sun.
   • The objects of such worship may be the moon.
   • The objects of such worship may be any of the host of heaven.
   • The LORD says he did not command such worship.
4. 17:4
   • The matter is reported to you.
   • You have heard of it.
   • You are to investigate thoroughly.
   • The condition is that the report proves true.
   • The condition is that the matter is established as certain.
   • The condition is that this abomination has been done in Israel.
5. 17:5
   • Then you shall bring out that man or that woman who did this evil thing to your gates.
   • You shall stone them with stones.
   • They shall die.
6. 17:6
   • A person condemned to death is put to death on the testimony of two witnesses or three witnesses.
   • A person shall not be put to death on the testimony of one witness.
7. 17:7
   • The hands of the witnesses shall be the first upon the condemned to put him to death.
   • The hands of all the people shall come afterward.
   • You shall purge the evil from among you.
8. 17:8
   • A matter for judgment may be too difficult for you.
   • Such a matter may be between one kind of bloodshed and another.
   • Such a matter may be between one legal claim and another.
   • Such a matter may be between one kind of assault or injury and another.
   • These are matters of dispute within your gates.
   • In that case you shall arise and go up to the place the LORD your God will choose.
9. 17:9
   • You shall come to the Levitical priests.
   • You shall come to the judge who is in office in those days.
   • You shall inquire of them.
   • They will declare to you the verdict of the case.
10. 17:10
    • You shall act according to the word they declare to you from the place the LORD will choose.
    • You shall be careful to do according to all that they instruct you.
11. 17:11
    • You shall act according to the instruction of the law they teach you.
    • You shall act according to the judgment they tell you.
    • You shall not turn aside from the word they declare to you, to the right hand or to the left.
12. 17:12
    • A man may act presumptuously by refusing to listen to the priest who stands to minister there before the LORD your God.
    • A man may act presumptuously by refusing to listen to the judge.
    • That man shall die.
    • You shall purge the evil from Israel.
13. 17:13
    • All the people shall hear.
    • All the people shall fear.
    • They will not act presumptuously again.
14. 17:14
    • You will come to the land the LORD your God is giving you.
    • You will possess it.
    • You will dwell in it.
    • You will say that you will set a king over yourself.
    • You will say you want a king like all the nations around you.
15. 17:15
    • You shall surely set over yourself the king whom the LORD your God chooses.
    • You shall set a king over yourself from among your brothers.
    • You may not put over yourself a foreigner who is not your brother.
16. 17:16
    • The king shall not acquire many horses for himself.
    • The king shall not cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses.
    • The LORD has said to you that you shall never again return that way.
17. 17:17
    • The king shall not take many wives for himself.
    • The reason is so that his heart does not turn away.
    • The king shall not greatly accumulate silver and gold for himself.
18. 17:18
    • When the king sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll.
    • He shall write it from what is before the Levitical priests.
19. 17:19
    • The written law shall remain with him.
    • He shall read in it all the days of his life.
    • The purpose is that he may learn to fear the LORD his God.
    • The purpose is that he may keep all the words of this law and these statutes by doing them.
20. 17:20
    • The purpose is that his heart not be lifted up above his brothers.
    • The purpose is that he not turn aside from the commandment, to the right hand or to the left.
    • The purpose is that he may prolong his days in his kingdom.
    • His sons also may prolong their days in the kingdom.
    • This is to be in the midst of Israel.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

17:1

Animals brought for sacrifice had to be physically sound, no injury, disease, or deformity. A gift to God was expected to be the best of the flock or herd, not the animal a farmer could most easily spare. The King James "evilfavouredness" simply means ugly or malformed; it carries no moral sense. "Abomination" translates a Hebrew word (to'evah) meaning something offensive or repellent, often used of practices that violate the boundaries of Israel's worship.

17:2

A covenant was a formal, binding agreement, like a treaty between a ruler and a subject people, with stated terms and stated penalties. Deuteronomy presents Israel's whole relationship with God in these legal terms, so "breaking his covenant" means violating the agreement's terms, not merely being unfaithful in feeling. The King James "within any of thy gates" means "in any of your towns": a walled town was identified by its gate.

17:3

The sun, moon, and stars were worshiped as gods by Israel's neighbors in Egypt, Canaan, and Mesopotamia. "The host of heaven" is a standard phrase for these heavenly bodies pictured as an army or royal court. The point of the list is that these were the ordinary, respectable religions of the surrounding world, not exotic practices.

17:4

"Abomination" in the King James is not a general insult. It translates a word for something a community treats as intolerable, used through these laws for practices that are absolutely ruled out rather than merely disapproved of. Note also that the law requires an investigation: a report on its own is not enough to act on.

17:5

The open space just inside a town's gate was where public business was done, markets, contracts, lawsuits, and judgments. Executions took place outside it, away from where people lived. Stoning was carried out by the community together rather than by an official executioner, so responsibility for the death was shared by everyone present.

17:6

Israelite courts had no police, no forensic evidence, and no written records of most events; a case rested entirely on the sworn word of witnesses. Requiring at least two independent witnesses was therefore the main protection against a person being executed on one enemy's accusation.

17:7

Making the witnesses throw the first stones tied them personally to the outcome of their testimony. If they had lied, they were the ones who had actually killed the accused, and elsewhere in Deuteronomy a proven false witness suffers the penalty the accused would have suffered.

17:8

The King James phrases are Hebrew legal shorthand: "between blood and blood" means distinguishing one kind of killing from another, such as murder from accidental death; "plea and plea" means civil disputes over property or damages; "stroke and stroke" means cases of assault and injury. "The place the LORD your God shall choose" is Deuteronomy's recurring phrase for the single central sanctuary where Israel's worship was to be concentrated, the site is never named in the book, though later tradition identified it with Jerusalem.

17:9

The Levites were one of the tribes of Israel, set apart for religious duties rather than given farmland of their own. Priests were drawn from this tribe, and part of their work was giving rulings on disputed points of law. Alongside them sat a civil judge, so the central court combined religious and legal authority. What is described here is essentially a supreme court of appeal for cases local elders could not settle.

17:11

"Turning to the right hand or the left" is a standard Hebrew idiom for deviating from a road, and by extension from an instruction. It means do not depart from the ruling in any direction, not that right and left are two particular errors.

17:12

The King James "presumptuously" translates a word meaning to act deliberately and defiantly, literally "with a high hand." Biblical law consistently distinguishes offenses committed in ignorance or by accident, which could be put right by sacrifice, from open, knowing defiance, which could not. The offense punished here is refusing to accept the court's authority, not simply losing the case.

17:14

Israel at this point in the story has no king; it is a loose association of tribes led by elders and occasional temporary leaders. The demand for a king "like all the nations around me" is the request Israel actually makes generations later, in 1 Samuel 8. The law here neither commands a monarchy nor forbids one: it sets conditions in case the people ask for one.

17:15

"Stranger" in the King James means a foreigner, someone from outside the nation, not someone you happen not to know. "In any wise" means "by all means" or "be sure to", and "thy brethren" means fellow Israelites.

17:16

Horses in this period were military hardware: they pulled chariots, the most expensive and powerful weapon of the age. Egypt was the major source of them, and buying them meant sending gold, goods, or men south in trade, hence the warning about sending the people back to Egypt, the country Israel had just escaped from. The restriction limits the king's ability to build a standing army independent of the people.

17:17

Royal marriages in the ancient Near East were largely diplomatic: a king married the daughters of neighboring rulers to seal treaties and alliances. Many wives therefore meant many foreign alliances, and with them the foreign gods those wives brought to court. The restriction is about the king's foreign entanglements and personal wealth as much as his private life.

17:18

A "book" here means a scroll, a long strip of leather or papyrus rolled up, the standard book form for centuries. The master copy of the law was kept by the priests, and the king was to write his own copy from it by hand, a slow process that meant reading every word. The Hebrew phrase for "copy of this law" was translated into Greek as deuteronomion, which is where the book's English name Deuteronomy comes from.

17:19

"Fear" in this idiom means reverence and serious regard for someone's authority, the attitude of a subject before a ruler, rather than being frightened. The point of the daily reading is that the king is himself under the law, not above it.

17:20

"Prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children" is about dynasty, not personal lifespan alone: the reward described is that the king's descendants continue to reign after him.