Deuteronomy 17 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
~1406 BC, the fortieth year after Israel left Egypt, in the last weeks of Moses' life
Location
The plains of Moab, a stretch of flat land east of the Jordan River across from Jericho, where Israel is camped before crossing into Canaan
Audience
The second generation of Israelites, the children of those who left Egypt, gathered to hear Moses restate the covenant before he dies and they enter the land
Situation
Moses continues his laws for public life, covering blemished sacrifices, the death penalty for idol worship and the requirement of two or three witnesses, a supreme court at the central sanctuary for cases too hard for local judges, and rules for a future king. It is the closest thing in the law to a constitution for the nation Israel is about to become.
Key Background
Every nation around Israel treated its king as the source of law and often as semi-divine, but this chapter puts the king under the law and has him hand-copy it and read it daily. The bans on many horses, many wives and heavy silver and gold each target a specific royal habit of the ancient Near East: horses came from Egypt and meant a chariot army, and marriages sealed treaties with foreign courts, which brought their gods along with the bride. The two-witness rule and the requirement that witnesses throw the first stone were practical checks on false accusation in a society with no police force or forensic evidence.
Don’t sacrifice to your God any ox or sheep that has a defect or anything wrong with it — that’s to your God.
If someone among you — in any of the towns Yahweh your God is giving you — is found doing what Yahweh considers wrong by breaking his
and goes off to serve other gods and down to them — whether it’s the sun, the moon, or anything else in the sky — which I never authorized,
and you’re told about it or hear of it, then investigate it thoroughly. If the report checks out and this offensive thing really did happen in Israel,
bring the man or woman who did this terrible thing out to your and stone that person to death.
The person facing death must be convicted on the testimony of two or three No one can be put to death on the word of just one witness.
The witnesses must be the first to carry out the execution, and then all the people join in. You must this wrong from among you.
If a case comes before you in your local courts that’s too difficult to decide—whether it involves bloodshed, a legal dispute, or an assault—any controversy within your towns—take it up to the place Yahweh your God will choose.
Go to the and to the judge serving at that time. Consult them, and they’ll give you the ruling.
You must follow the decision they hand down from that place Yahweh chooses. Be careful to do everything they instruct you.
Act according to the they give you and the ruling they announce. Don’t deviate from what they tell you, either to the right or to the left.
Anyone who acts arrogantly by refusing to listen to the priest who stands serving Yahweh your God there, or to the judge—that person must die. You must purge this wrong from Israel.
All the people will hear about it and be afraid, and they won’t act arrogantly again.
When you’ve entered the land Yahweh your God is giving you, and you’ve taken possession of it and settled down in it, and you say, “Let’s set up a king over us, like all the nations around us”—
you must appoint the king Yahweh your God chooses. Appoint someone from among your own people. You may not put a foreigner over you—someone who isn’t one of your own.
But the king must not acquire large numbers of for himself, and he must not send the people back to Egypt to get more because Yahweh told you, “You are never to go back that way again.”
He must not take many wives, or his will be And he must not accumulate excessive amounts of silver and gold.
When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he must write out a copy of this on a scroll, taken from the one the Levitical priests keep.
It must stay with him, and he must read it every day of his life, so that he learns to Yahweh his God by carefully following every word of this instruction and these guidelines —
so that he doesn’t start than his fellow Israelites, and so he doesn’t drift from what’s been commanded, either to the right or to the left. That way he and his descendants will reign for a long time over Israel.