Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Deuteronomy · About this commentary
Justice, Justice You Shall Follow
Deuteronomy 16:18-22
18 You shall make judges and officers in all your gates, which Yahweh your God gives you, according to your tribes; and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. · WEB
Courts are to be set up in every town, and the three things forbidden to a judge all describe seeing the parties instead of the case.
You shall make judges and officers in all your gates Deuteronomy 16:18. Not one court at the sanctuary — a court in every town, appointed by tribe, so that justice is local and reachable.
The standard is set in three prohibitions, and they describe one failure from three angles.
You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality. You shall not take a bribe Deuteronomy 16:19.
The middle phrase is literally about recognizing a face. A judge who sees who is in front of him — a relative, a man of standing, someone he will meet again — has stopped hearing the case. That is the same charge Moses gave the first judges he appointed Deuteronomy 1:17, and the reason he gave there was that the judgment is God's.
The observation about bribes is the sharpest sentence in the passage: a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous Deuteronomy 16:19.
The targets named are the wise and the righteous. A bribe is not described as something that corrupts bad men; it is described as something that works on good ones, and the effect is on sight and speech rather than on intention. A man taking one does not decide to be unjust. He becomes unable to see straight, and his words come out bent.
The command that follows repeats a word for emphasis, and the doubling is the point: you shall follow that which is altogether just Deuteronomy 16:20. Justice pursued, not merely avoided offending against — and the promise attached is the land itself.
The two verses that close the chapter look misplaced beside the courts, and are not. No sacred pole is to be planted beside the altar, and no standing stone set up Deuteronomy 16:21–22.
Both were ordinary religious furniture in that world, and both would have been added to God's altar rather than to a rival's. The chapter puts corrupt courts and improvised worship side by side because they are the same failure: taking something God has arranged and adjusting it to suit the people running it.
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