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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Deuteronomy 17:11 - 17:11
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee: these words are a manifest limitation of the foregoing assertion, that they were to do according to all that the judge or judges informed him. And they seem to limit and regulate,
1. The judges in their sentence, that they shall not, upon pretence of this supreme authority put into their hands, presume to teach or direct otherwise than the law prescribes.
2. The people in their obedience; first they shall not simply obey them in all things, but so far forth as their sentence is according to the law and word of God, but not when their commands are evidently contrary to God’s laws, for then, say even popish commentators on this place, they must obey God rather than man. And this cannot be denied by any man of sense, upon supposition that this place speaks of, and this power given to the priest or judge reacheth to, all controversies or questions of faith and manners, as the papists would extend it: for put case these priests or judges’ should give a sentence directly contrary to the express words of God’s law, Thou shalt worship a graven image, as Aaron did in the case of the calf, thou shalt profane the sabbath, thou shalt dishonour thy father and mother, thou shalt murder, steal, commit adultery, &c., I ask, were the people in this case bound to do as the judge determined, or not? If any say they were, such a bold and wicked assertion must need strike all sober Christians with horror; and if they say they were not, then this must needs be taken for a limitation. But this place speaks only of particular suits between man and man, as is apparent from the notes on See Poole "Deu_17:8". And in all such cases, although the judge be hereby confined and tied to his rule in giving the sentence, yet it seems but fit and reasonable that people should be bound simply to acquiesce in the sentence of their last and highest judge, or else there would have been no end of strife.