“You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns that the LORD your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.” Deuteronomy 16.18

The people of Israel expected to settle all the land of Canaan, to dispossess the pagan peoples of the land and to acquire their cities and villages as their own. In all those cities and villages God determined that His people should live together in justice according to His Law.

Each community was to appoint its own “judges and officers.” These are sometimes referred to as “elders,” and this suggests that those who exercised rule over the people were older and more experienced in the ways of God. They were considered competent to serve as elders who were able to judge with righteous judgment how the Law should be applied to everyday life in community. These officers were “appointed” by the people, “set” in place, or “given” their role, probably by a process of common consent, based on long observation of the lives of those to be considered for the task.

Local elders/judges attended to the concerns of their own communities by meeting in the gates of the cities, where their deliberations could be observed by all. This had both a symbolic and a didactic benefit for the community. By meeting in the gates the elders could be seen to be guarding the community from any undesirable outside elements, watching over all the comings and goings of the community according to the Law of God; and, as they met, the people could learn how to think and live according to the Law of God by listening in on their deliberations (cf. Ruth 4).

A kind of hierarchy of courts appears to have been available in ancient Israel, but with limited application. Local judges, if they found a matter too difficult for them, could take the case to the high priest “and to the judge who is in office in those days” (Deut. 17.9) in order to get their ruling. At the same time, whatever the judges of a community ruled in any matter was considered to be the final word for that community (Deut. 17.12), and any penalties were to be enacted at once.

“Justice and only justice” was what God sought for the communities of His people – that, by the rule of His Law, love for God and neighbor should be the dominant motif in all the cities of the land (Deut. 16.20). In cases of disputes between neighbors judges were expected to be impartial, determining outcomes solely on the basis of the teaching of the Law. Witnesses were heard and, in some sense, the “congregation” might also have a voice in the deliberations (cf. Nun. 35.12, 25).

Thus the civil order of ancient Israel, community by community, was to be structured and judged according to the commandments, precepts, statutes, and rule of the Law of God. Communities ordered by the Law of God would embody His good purposes and experience His steadfast love in all their dealings with one another.

For a practical guide to the role of God’s Law in the life of faith, get The Ground for Christian Ethics by going to www.ailbe.org and click on our Book Store.