Week 7 Deuteronomy
I wasn’t halfway through the first chapter of Deuteronomy before I read the line: …then I charged your judges at that time, saying…
It’s Moses speaking, Moses reviewing the last forty years, Moses reminding them that way back when he couldn’t manage the legal case load he had appointed judges. That story was a-hundred-&-fifty pages ago but I remember it, remember the advice Moses got from an in-law: select out of all the people able men who fear God, men of truth, those who hate dishonest gain…and let them judge the people.
And so judges were appointed at that time.
Anyway what got my attention today is that at some point in the past I had double-underlined the word judges in my bible. Can’t say for sure why but I think it was because I was mentally jumping ahead to the book of Judges and wondering if the judges appointed by Moses in Exodus were version 1.0 of The Judges that appeared in Judges.
Now I have my doubts about that. Moses appointed many judges for the job of judging legal disputes. But a man or woman who judged in Judges was an individual operator who was a warrior-chieftain. More like a Viking warlord, or maybe a shogun with his samurai.
It’s a tricky thing – same word in the English-bible, but so different in function they’d easily qualify for different names.
Note: quotes from Deuteronomy 1:16 & Exodus 18:21-22 (NASB)