The Pulpit Commentary — Deuteronomy — Section 298

Vers. 8-13.-The priest and the fudge. The priests, in association with a judge or judges (eh. xix. 17), constituted a supreme tribunal to which difficult causes were carried, and whose judgment was to be final. The priest had naturally a place in this supreme court:· 1. .As representing God in the theocracy. 2. As a member of the distinctively learned class of the nation. 3. .As one whose special office it was to teach and interpret the Law of God (Lev. x. 11; eh. xxxiii. 10; Ezek. xii,·. 2!; ~fol. ii. 7). The differentiation of functions in society has long since taken learning in the law out of the hands of the clergy, but we may remark- I. THAT SPIBITUAL AND CIVIL FUNCTIONARIES Mcl.Y RENDER EACH OTHER IMPOTI- TANT ASSISTANCE. The spheres of civil and spiritual jurisdiction nre indeed distinct. Yet as the lawyer and judge, with their legal expertness, their knowledge of forms, anu their experience in sifting evidence, are often of the greatest service in processes purely ecclesiastical, so, on the other hand, the best of them stand in need of that higher direction and enlightenment of the conscience from God's Word, which it is the busi- ness of a body of spiritual teachers to supply. The ministers of religion have a function: 1. In upholding the Law of God as the supreme standard of right. 2. In furn.ishing general enlightenment to the conscience. 3. In reminding judges, the highest of \hem, of their duties and responsibilities before God as set "for the punishment of uvildoers, and for the praise of them that do well" (1 Pet. ii. 14). II. 'l'HAT LAWS BASED ON Goo's w·ono HAVE ATI'ACHING TO TIIEM A DIVINE AS WELL AS A HUMAN AUTHORITY. The duty of the priest was not to invent laws, but to interpret the existing Law of God. To it all cases of right bad ultimately to ho appealed. God's Law, as exhibiting the unalterable principles of right., underlies human law and gives to it authority. Whatever may happen in courts on earth, no decision will stand in the court of heaven which that Law is found to condemn. Laws e.g. which invade rights of conscience, which (as in slave-hohling countries) place the life of ono man at the mercy of another, which are favourable to illicit relations of the sexes, which make light of divorce, which bear unequally on different classes of the  294 TIIE DOOK OF DEUTERONOMY. [err. xvn. 1-20.