Shoftim
Judges
“God’s Governance Parameters”
Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9
Isaiah 51:12-52:12 (or finish at 53:12)
excerpted from TorahScope, Volume III
As we continue to read through the Book of Deuteronomy this week, one is reminded that the Holy One of Israel was most definitely concerned about how His people were going to properly govern themselves, after the conquest of Canaan was secured. God is not one to promote confusion, but instead peace and order (cf. 1 Corinthians 14:33). However, as the nascent nation was commanded to overcome obstacles, with the eradication of existing people groups and the redistribution of the territory to the Twelve Tribes—the need to maintain a modicum of justice, coupled with the eventual choice of a king and specific roles for the priesthood and prophetic offices, was articulated. For most assuredly, the Creator was absolutely aware of human beings’ propensity to selfishly do what is right in their own eyes (cf. Deuteronomy 12:8; Judges 17:6). Consequently, the Lord would define some of the roles, and some of the various nuances of judges, kings, priests, and even prophets—in order to distribute leadership responsibilities among those gifted or chosen, to function in such capacities.
As indicated by the name of our Torah portion, Shoftim or “Judges,” the Lord commanded the Ancient Israelites to appoint judges and officers in their new cities and towns, in order to maintain a high degree of righteous judgment and order:
“You shall make judges and officers in all your gates, which the LORD your God gives you, according to your tribes; and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality. You shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous. You shall follow that which is altogether just, that you may live and inherit the land which the LORD your God gives you. You shall not plant for yourselves an Asherah of any kind of tree beside the LORD your God’s altar, which you shall make for yourselves. Neither shall you set yourself up a sacred stone which the LORD your God hates” (Deuteronomy 16:18-22, WMB).
While the specific method for appointing judges is not stated here, it can be agreed that the main guidelines, for becoming a judge in Ancient Israel, were concurrent with the principles established when Moses was wisely counseled by his father-in-law Jethro, to distribute the workload of mediating between the complainants in disputes (Exodus 18). Note how in the dialogue below between Moses and Jethro, that the counsel, to choose such judges or leaders in the community, was that such individuals were to fear God, know the truth, and hate dishonest gain:
“Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God. Aaron came with all the elders of Israel, to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God. On the next day, Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood around Moses from the morning to the evening. When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he did to the people, he said, ‘What is this thing that you do for the people? Why do you sit alone, and all the people stand around you from morning to evening?’ Moses said to his father-in-law, ‘Because the people come to me to inquire of God. When they have a matter, they come to me, and I judge between a man and his neighbor, and I make them know the statutes of God, and his laws.’ Moses’ father-in-law said to him, ‘The thing that you do is not good. You will surely wear away, both you, and this people that is with you; for the thing is too heavy for you. You are not able to perform it yourself alone. Listen now to my voice. I will give you counsel, and God be with you. You represent the people before God, and bring the causes to God. You shall teach them the statutes and the laws, and shall show them the way in which they must walk, and the work that they must do. Moreover you shall provide out of all the people able men which fear God: men of truth, hating unjust gain; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. Let them judge the people at all times. It shall be that every great matter they shall bring to you, but every small matter they shall judge themselves. So shall it be easier for you, and they shall share the load with you. If you will do this thing, and God commands you so, then you will be able to endure, and all these people also will go to their place in peace.’ So Moses listened to the voice of his father-in-law, and did all that he had said. Moses chose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people, rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. They judged the people at all times. They brought the hard cases to Moses, but every small matter they judged themselves. Moses let his father-in-law depart, and he went his way into his own land” (Exodus 18:12-27, WMB).
Right from the very establishment of leadership in the fledgling nation, the Lord pointed out the alluring temptations of wealth, and the distorted understanding that human nature falsely believes that wealth generates security—creating a conflict which arises in the hearts of many people. Yeshua would later address this reality in His Sermon on the Mount:
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can’t serve both God and Mammon” (Matthew 6:24, WMB).
Moses himself, however, would soon point out the blindness generated, when those subjected to dishonest gain take a bribe:
“You shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds those who have sight and perverts the words of the righteous” (Exodus 23:8, WMB).
With the establishment of a just society, with honest and truth-seeking leaders for Ancient Israel—how do modern people, even in “democratically” elected systems, avoid the tendency for love of money, and the false sense of security it often engenders, properly govern themselves?
“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some have been led astray from the faith in their greed, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But you, man of God, flee these things, and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness” (1 Timothy 6:10-11, WMB).
The answer to this dilemma is most complex, because peering into the hearts of people is exclusively reserved for the Almighty, and beyond the ability of mere humans. But as followers of Yeshua the Messiah, who have the right and citizen responsibility to make choices during elections—or perhaps even selections of those called to serve the Body of Messiah—it is critical that the influence of money on those being elevated is considered. In the case of entering into the Promised Land, the Holy One was most concerned about justice for His people. Without righteous judges, or as is later described, obedient kings, or priests who followed His commandments, or prophets who prophesied the truth rather than false—the ways of Israel would be perverted.
So in order to spread the responsibility when it came to justice, God established a principle which would require multiple witnesses to determine and adjudicate justice. Interestingly, He even required the witnesses to execute the judgment when it came to capital offenses, while insisting that the Levitical priesthood be the final arbiter when it came to interpreting the specifics of the Torah, and its application in the community:
“At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death. At the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death. The hands of the witnesses shall be first on him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So you shall remove the evil from among you. If there arises 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 you shall arise, and go up to the place which the LORD your God chooses. You shall come to the priests who are Levites and to the judge who shall be in those days. You shall inquire, and they shall give you the verdict. You shall do according to the decisions of the verdict which they shall give you from that place which the LORD chooses. You shall observe to do according to all that they shall teach you. According to the decisions of the law which they shall teach you, and according to the judgment which they shall tell you, you shall do. You shall not turn away from the sentence which they announce to you, to the right hand, nor to the left. The man who does presumptuously in not listening to the priest who stands to minister there before the LORD your God, or to the judge, even that man shall die. You shall put away the evil from Israel. All the people shall hear and fear, and do no more presumptuously” (Deuteronomy 17:6-13, WMB).
God was extremely concerned about equal justice for all. The question one might ask, especially when noticing in the modern era that justice is often perverted by those with great influence (predominantly due to their financial status), is how long will the Almighty allow the unjust to prevail? When bribery in legal, political, and even religious institutions appears rampant, what is one to do? Perhaps turning to the Book of Proverbs to understand that this is not unusual—but sadly, the norm for wicked people under the influence of the world, the flesh, and the Adversary—will give each of us some key instructions on how the righteous are to deal with the wicked:
“A wicked man receives a bribe in secret, to pervert the ways of justice” (Proverbs 17:23, WMB).
“Don’t lay in wait, wicked man, against the habitation of the righteous. Don’t destroy his resting place; for a righteous man falls seven times and rises up again, but the wicked are overthrown by calamity. Don’t rejoice when your enemy falls. Don’t let your heart be glad when he is overthrown, lest the LORD see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him. Don’t fret yourself because of evildoers, neither be envious of the wicked; for there will be no reward to the evil man. The lamp of the wicked will be snuffed out. My son, fear the LORD and the king. Don’t join those who are rebellious, for their calamity will rise suddenly. Who knows what destruction may come from them both? These also are sayings of the wise: To show partiality in judgment is not good. He who says to the wicked, ‘You are righteous,’ peoples will curse him, and nations will abhor him—but it will go well with those who convict the guilty, and a rich blessing will come on them” (Proverbs 24:15-25, WMB).
Perverse justice present in the world is to be expected, but it is not to be accepted or embraced. As children of the Most High, we are not to fret or be envious of the wicked, but recognize how the Omniscient One will eventually deal with those who abuse their positions of responsibility. Our steadfast responsibility, as His people, is to pray for our enemies, without associating with them, and certainly not condoning their wicked acts. For without a doubt, followers of Yeshua are told by Him specifically, to be careful of their judgment, due to their own mortal limitations:
“For with whatever judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but don’t consider the beam that is in your own eye? Or how will you tell your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye,’ and behold, the beam is in your own eye? You hypocrite! First remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:2-5, WMB).
Our Torah portion also addresses the inevitability of the choice or appointment of a king over Israel—and not only the potential abuses of the new human leader, but also a description of what the Holy One demands of someone taking on such an awesome position and responsibility of leadership. Note the king’s accountability to the priesthood, but also and most importantly, to the written Word of the Most High:
“When you have come to the land which the LORD your God gives you, and possess it and dwell in it, and say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ you shall surely set him whom the LORD your God chooses as king over yourselves. You shall set as king over you one from among your brothers. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. Only he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he may multiply horses; because the LORD has said to you, ‘You shall not go back that way again.’ He shall not multiply wives to himself, that his heart not turn away. He shall not greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. It shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write himself a copy of this law in a book, out of that which is before the Levitical priests. It shall be with him, and he shall read from it 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; that his heart not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he not turn away 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 middle of Israel” (Deuteronomy 17:14-20, WMB).
Clearly, despite the description later found about the elevation of Saul to the kingship of Israel (1 Samuel 8), there is the nagging reminder that those in positions of authority should always be subject to the Word of the Lord. Lamentably, as the world has moved through time, the waxing and waning of reverence for the Holy Writ, has led to all sorts of turmoil not only among nations—but most sadly within the company of those seeking to represent the Almighty to the world. Should we not do better in our generation, given the preponderance of information available today—not only about the mistakes made in the past, which we should seek to avoid—but most especially with the return of Yeshua looming ever closer?
Turning to Deuteronomy 18, readers see how Moses was especially concerned for equity regarding the Levitical priesthood. These people had specific responsibilities and duties, without the benefit of an inheritance in the Promised Land, because they were set-apart for service unto the Almighty in and around the Tabernacle. But beyond proper respect for the role of the priesthood, it was and remained critical for those called into service, to keep the balance of the people of Israel from drifting into error and perversion because of the influences of the world. Nations, or people groups within nations, have historically found ungodly ways to seek the spiritual world, and Israel was absolutely warned to avoid such practices:
“They shall have like portions to eat, in addition to that which comes from the sale of his family possessions. When you have come into the land which the LORD your God gives you, you shall not learn to imitate the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found with you anyone who makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who tells fortunes, or an enchanter, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or someone who consults with a familiar spirit, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD. Because of these abominations, the LORD your God drives them out from before you. You shall be blameless with the LORD your God. For these nations that you shall dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery and to diviners; but as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you so to do” (Deuteronomy 18:8-14, WMB).
As our parashah winds down, we encounter a description of a future prophet who would be raised up among the people, with some words which would require adherence—as compared to many of the presumptuous or false prophets who would come along over the course of time to test hearts and minds (Deuteronomy 13:1-3). This specific passage was made mention of by the Apostle Peter, in Acts 3:22, in reference to the ministry work of Yeshua the Messiah:
“The LORD your God will raise up to you a prophet from among you, of your brothers, like me. You shall listen to him. This is according to all that you desired of the LORD your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear again the LORD my God’s voice, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I not die.’ The LORD said to me, ‘They have well said that which they have spoken. I will raise them up a prophet from among their brothers, like you. I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him. It shall happen, that whoever will not listen to my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ You may say in your heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the LORD has not spoken?’ When a prophet speaks in the LORD’s name, if the thing doesn’t follow, nor happen, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You shall not be afraid of him” (Deuteronomy 18:15-22, WMB).
There is so much to be said about orderliness in the camp, and the desire of the Holy One to have His people properly represent Him among the nations of the world. But as is always the challenge, there are so many distractions which can afflict God’s people, and such a lack of discernment when it comes to listening to various “prophets” and their presumed words—that only turning once again to the Holy Scriptures, can one even begin to get a grasp on what is required of God’s people to truly serve Him. The Epistle to the Hebrews includes a great summary of what is to be done by followers of Yeshua the Messiah, who are purposefully attempting to follow in the footsteps of the cloud of witnesses which has preceded them. There is a definite emphasis placed on Believers fixing their eyes on Yeshua, and obeying Him as their prime example:
“Therefore let’s also, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let’s run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Yeshua, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him who has endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, that you don’t grow weary, fainting in your souls. You have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin. You have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with children, ‘My son, don’t take lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him; for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and chastises every son whom he receives’ [Proverbs 3:11-12]. It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with children, for what son is there whom his father doesn’t discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have been made partakers, then you are illegitimate, and not children. Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days disciplined us as seemed good to them, but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed. Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no man will see the Lord, looking carefully lest there be any man who falls short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and many be defiled by it, lest there be any sexually immoral person or profane person, like Esau, who sold his birthright for one meal. For you know that even when he afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for a change of mind though he sought it diligently with tears. For you have not come to a mountain that might be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness, darkness, storm, the sound of a shofar, and the voice of words; which those who heard it begged that not one more word should be spoken to them, for they could not stand that which was commanded, ‘If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned’ [Exodus 19:12-13]. So fearful was the appearance that Moses said, ‘I am terrified and trembling’ [Deuteronomy 9:19]. But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable multitudes of angels, to the festal gathering and assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Yeshua, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than that of Abel. See that you don’t refuse him who speaks. For if they didn’t escape when they refused him who warned on the earth, how much more will we not escape who turn away from him who warns from heaven, whose voice shook the earth then, but now he has promised, saying, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens’ [Haggai 2:6]. This phrase, ‘Yet once more’ signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain. Therefore, receiving a Kingdom that can’t be shaken, let’s have grace, through which we serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:1-29, WMB).
May the Lord bring each of us to a place of confession and repentance, so that we can follow Him more closely. May we be able to follow and obey His Word more fully—because He alone is worthy of our praise and adoration!
