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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Deuteronomy 19:14 - 19:21
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Precepts Regarding Witnesses
v. 14. Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmark, the fence or the posts which indicated the boundary of his property, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt in her it in the land that the Lord, thy God, giveth thee to possess it. Whatever the heads or chiefs, the first possessors, the fathers, Joshua and the renowned elders, determined, should be observed down to the most distant future. It is clear that this direction was given while the people were riot yet in possession of Canaan.
v. 15. One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, guilt, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth, for a single witness is no witness; at the mouth of two witnesses or at the mouth of three witnesses, according to the testimony of two or three persons, shall the matter be established. This rule was to hold not only in case of one on trial for his life, Deu_17:6, but was to find general application, Num_35:30; Mat_18:16; 2Co_13:1; 1Ti_5:19.
v. 16. If a false witness rise up against any man to testify against him that which is wrong, as might happen where only a single witness is available and the charge is a very grave one, literally, one of falling away from the Law of God, especially in a deliberate transgression, a crime,
v. 17. then both the men between whom the controversy is, the accuser and the accused, shall stand before the Lord, at the central Sanctuary, before the priests and the judges, Deu_17:9, which shall be in those days, for these were to be regarded as the representatives of God;
v. 18. and the judges shall make diligent inquisition, conduct their investigation with painstaking care; and, behold, if the witness be a false witness, and hath testified falsely against his brother, spoken lies against him to harm him, perhaps even to the extent of causing him to lose his life,
v. 19. then ye shall do unto him as he had thought to have done unto his brother, his evil plans should be executed against himself; so shalt thou put the evil away from among you, Exo_21:23; Lev_24:20.
v. 20. And those which remain shall hear and fear, and shall henceforth commit no more any such evil among you, Deu_17:13.
v. 21. And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, namely, in punishing the false witness. The punishment of a false witness, even today, is in the hands of God: "A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall not escape," Pro_19:5.