Back in April, a Milwaukee County judge, Hannah Dugan, was arrested on the charge that she intentionally allowed an illegal immigrant to escape from a government agency that was attempting to arrest him. If she is guilty as charged, it’s a sign of corruption and injustice. That unjust judge may find herself behind bars.

One of the marks of good government and orderly civilization is a fair, just, and impartial judicial system. Sadly, in our world, justice is sometimes not fair or impartial. Some judges—hopefully, a small minority—accept bribes and ignore the law.

Today we are getting back into our study of the book of Deuteronomy. You may recall that most of the book consists of a series of messages Moses gave to Israel as they were on the brink of entering the PL.

Moses knew that success in the PL would depend on a fair, just, and impartial judicial system. So this part of the text gives rules and principles for setting up and operating a just judicial system.

The OT judicial system for the Jews was significantly different from our system today. Under the OT system, there was no separation of civil and spiritual. Matters of civil justice are set right alongside matters of spiritual significance. For example, 16:18-20 deal with a just judicial system, and then 16:21-17:7 deal with judging idolatry. The OT law covered every area of life—family, civil government, and spiritual life.

Although this passage applies specifically to Israel, we find some timeless principles here that should apply to our legal system today. In fact, many of the ideals of western jurisprudence come from the system we see described in the Bible. Further, we are not judges, but we should be just, fair, and impartial in our evaluation of things. Jesus said, “Judge righteous judgment” (Jn 7:24). When we have to judge, we should be fair and impartial, just as the judges of Israel were supposed to be.

Let’s see what Moses tells us here about various matters of justice.