Deuteronomy 19:17

shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges, etc.] That is in the supreme court to be instituted at the One Altar, Deuteronomy 17:9. The construction is awkward and betrays expansion. Steuern. and Berth. and Marti take before the judgesas alone original, as these only are mentioned in the next v., and understand the reference to be, not to the supreme court but to the newly instituted judges of Deuteronomy 16:18. But it is quite as probable that before the Lordwas all that the original text of the law contained, and that the rest was added from Deuteronomy 17:9 by an editor. This is just one of the difficult cases, which in more primitive conditions were referred to some representative of the Deity and which, on the institution of the supreme court at Jerusalem, Israel was directed to take there (cp. Deuteronomy 17:8, between plea and plea, the same Heb. term as is here rendered controversy).