Moses Gives The Job Description
December 1, 2022
Commentary
Moses gives the Job Description of Judges (v.v. 1-13) and Kings (v.v. 14-20). After Moses and Joshua died, the people were to be governed by judges and priests. It could only work if these leaders and the people were committed to following the Lord. Their Judges responsibilities were:
1. To prevent impure worshiping practices in the land. The Judges were normally responsible to maintain pure worship but if they failed the priests were to step in.
2. To see that false worshipers were executed. This execution could only take place after a thorough investigation. There had to be two or three witnesses.
The rules for a King were outlined as follows:
1. He was not to oppose the direct rule of the Lord over the people.
2. God did not command the people to have a king but only permitted them to have one.
3. God would appoint the king and he would not be chosen by popular vote.
4. The king could not be a foreigner but must come from among the brethren.
5. He could not multiply his horses, lest Israel be tempted to return to Egypt on horseback.
6. He could not multiply wives, lest they turn his heart away from the Lord.
7. He had to possess a copy of the Law and read it all the days of his life.
Application
I cannot know what God wants except through His Word and His Word will not affect my life unless I read and think about it daily.
Deuteronomy 17:1– 20 (NET)
1 You must not sacrifice to him a bull or sheep that has a blemish or any other defect, because that is considered offensive to the Lord your God. 2 Suppose a man or woman is discovered among you in one of your villages that the Lord your God is giving you who sins before the Lord your God and breaks his covenant 3 by serving other gods and worshiping them—the sun, moon, or any other heavenly bodies that I have not permitted you to worship. 4 When it is reported to you and you hear about it, you must investigate carefully. If it is indeed true that such a disgraceful thing is being done in Israel, 5 you must bring to your city gates that man or woman who has done this wicked thing—that very man or woman—and you must stone that person to death. 6 At the testimony of two or three witnesses the person must be executed. They cannot be put to death on the testimony of only one witness. 7 The witnesses must be first to begin the execution, and then all the people are to join in afterward. In this way you will purge the evil from among you.
8 If a matter is too difficult for you to judge—bloodshed, legal claim, or assault —matters of controversy in your villages —you must leave there and go up to the place the Lord your God chooses. 9 You will go to the Levitical priests and the judge in office in those days and seek a solution; they will render a verdict. 10 You must then do as they have determined at that place the Lord chooses. Be careful to do just as you are taught. 11 You must do what you are instructed, and the verdict they pronounce to you, without fail. Do not deviate right or left from what they tell you. 12 The person who pays no attention to the priest currently serving the Lord your God there, or to the judge—that person must die, so that you may purge evil from Israel. 13 Then all the people will hear and be afraid, and not be so presumptuous again.
14 When you come to the land the Lord your God is giving you and take it over and live in it and then say, “I will select a king like all the nations surrounding me,” 15 you must select without fail a king whom the Lord your God chooses. From among your fellow citizens you must appoint a king—you may not designate a foreigner who is not one of your fellow Israelites. 16 Moreover, he must not accumulate horses for himself or allow the people to return to Egypt to do so, for the Lord has said you must never again return that way. 17 Furthermore, he must not marry many wives lest his affections turn aside, and he must not accumulate much silver and gold. 18 When he sits on his royal throne he must make a copy of this law on a scroll given to him by the Levitical priests. 19 It must be with him constantly, and he must read it as long as he lives, so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and observe all the words of this law and these statutes and carry them out. 20 Then he will not exalt himself above his fellow citizens or turn from the commandments to the right or left, and he and his descendants will enjoy many years ruling over his kingdom in Israel.
Illustration: The Employee Who Refused to Answer The Phone
Some years ago a former American astronaut took over as head of a major airline, determined to make the airline’s service the best in the industry. One day he walked through a particular department, and saw an employee resting his feet on a desk while the telephone on the desk rang incessantly. “Aren’t you going to answer that phone?” the boss demanded. “This isn’t my department,” answered the employee nonchalantly, apparently not recognizing his new boss. “I work in maintenance.” “Not anymore you don’t!” snapped the president. (Today in the Word, MBI, December, 1989, p. 35).