Without enforcement, a law is merely a suggestion. Even carnal people realize that punishment is a necessary part of keeping order. A lack of punishment results in chaos.
Let’s continue our look at the system of judgment God put in place within Israel—the legal system and the means of enforcing the laws and exacting punishment. We’ll contrast God’s system with what human beings have devised.
Responsibilities of a Witness
In the last article, we looked at the laws God gave to judges, including His warning that they guard against false testimony (Exodus 23:7). The verses leading up to this scripture show the counterpart to that law: God commanded the witness to be truthful.
Read verse 1. “You shall not circulate a false report,” the New King James Version says. “Do not put your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.” Nothing perverts justice like lying! God hates it! The Living Bible says, “Do not cooperate with an evil man by affirming on the witness stand something you know is false.” For a judge to make a right decision, he must be acting on true testimony.
Consider the language in Exodus 20:16. Have you ever noticed that the Ninth Commandment is expressed in legal terms?
Return to Exodus 23 and read verse 2. This commands the witness not to go along with a majority opinion. He must simply give the truth as he understands it. “You shall not follow a multitude to do evil; nor shall you bear witness in a suit, turning aside after a multitude, so as to pervert justice” (Revised Standard Version). The Living Bible says, “When on the witness stand, don’t be swayed in your testimony by the mood of the majority present.” Providing true testimony—being a faithful witness—is an important responsibility. The judge has his part to play in meting out justice—but so do the witnesses. And God says, If you see a crime, you have a duty to come forward with a true account of it. That is the law!
See God’s instruction in Leviticus 5:1. A crime has occurred, and judges make a public request for witnesses to step forward. If you saw it—or even just know about it from some other source—God says you must step forward and make the truth known. You can’t just stand aside and let other people “do their thing.” We are all responsible to help administer justice! If you have evidence, God says that failing to testify is sin.
Examining a Witness
God is serious about getting all the facts to the judge so a right judgment can be made. Thus, He gave laws to judges about how to examine witnesses.
The context: A rumor is spreading that a city within Israel is becoming idolatrous. God describes how witnesses in such a trial should be examined. Read the first part of Deuteronomy 13:14. The word inquire means to tread or frequent for pursuit or search—like carefully combing a patch of ground in search of something. The phrase make search means to penetrate or to examine intimately—to get right to the heart of the truth. Ask can mean demand. God commanded that the judge thoroughly examine the witness to get the whole truth and to ferret out any lies. Proverbs 25:2 says, “[T]he honour of kings is to search out a matter.” When judging, we have to be willing to use all means to search out the truth so as to correctly judge. Getting to the truth takes work. Parents can apply this to raising children as well—cross-examining to search out the truth.
Read Proverbs 18:17 for another look at this godly principle. “He who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him,” the rsv says. God commands His judges to hear both sides of the case to get the whole story, not to make a rash judgment based on incomplete and possibly biased testimony.
Read Deuteronomy 17:6 and 19:15; see also Numbers 35:30. The context here is about capital crimes—those deserving death. A person couldn’t be put to death on testimony from a single witness. Barnes’ Notes explains, “[N]o one was to be executed unless two persons certainly bore testimony, and it was regarded as important, if possible, that three witnesses should concur in the statement.” God wanted to make sure that an innocent person wasn’t executed! Two or three people were less likely than one person to give false testimony, or to be mistaken about what had occurred.
False Witnesses
Consider another law against bearing false witness beginning in Deuteronomy 19:16. There is historical evidence that judges would examine witnesses separately to smoke out false witnesses. The Apocrypha describes a woman named Susanna, who was falsely accused of committing adultery by two elders in Israel. The judges were about to accept their evidence, but then they separated the two elders. When the men couldn’t hear what the other was saying, their witness disagreed. The result was that Susanna was freed, and those two men were executed.
Verses 16-17 command witnesses to stand before God! This is more evidence that judges were considered holy people who sat in the place of God. God was very much a presence in the Israelite courtroom.
Read verses 18-19 to see how God solved the problem of false witnesses. False witnesses received the same punishment the accused would receive if he were guilty! Would you commit perjury if it risked bringing the punishment of the accused on your own head? Note the broader purpose of this command in verse 20. Seeing a false witness punished this way was also a major deterrent to others who might be tempted to lie in court. This is another principle you can implement with your own children. Notice verse 21. This is one of two places where this eye-for-eye, tooth-for-tooth punishment is mentioned. We’ll come back to this principle a little later.
No Mercy
Notice again Deuteronomy 19:21, particularly the words “thine eye shall not pity.” This is one of only a few places in God’s law where He specifically excludes room for mercy. If a false witness is found out, the punishment should be swift, sure and uncompromising.
Read verses 11-13 to see another situation where God commands no mercy: premeditated murder. This is a case where a murderer tries to take advantage of a provision afforded for those who have only committed manslaughter, accidental killing. God commands that such a one receive no pity. “He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses” (Hebrews 10:28).
God certainly records some cases where He extended mercy even though the letter of the law called for the death penalty; for example, individuals who had the Holy Spirit, like David after he repented of his sin with Bathsheba. “The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die,” the Prophet Nathan said (2 Samuel 12:13). In John 8, Christ forgave the adulteress even though Leviticus 20:10 penalizes adultery with death for both man and woman. Here, men brought the woman out and said they caught her in the act—but they didn’t bring the man. This suggests that they either falsely accused her or they failed to act with God’s justice. Christ forgave the woman; though she had sinned, He showed her mercy—and told her to go and sin no more. As with David, God forgave a sin before Christ died, applying that sacrifice in advance. That would have also been true anytime God healed before Christ had been beaten; He applied Christ’s sacrifice in advance.
Educating and Warning
King Jehoshaphat of Judah was righteous; he had obviously studied the law of Moses. He followed the pattern Moses had instituted, establishing local judges in every city (2 Chronicles 19:4-5).
Read verses 6-7 to see his instructions summarizing the main points of the laws of judging. You judge for God! Jehoshaphat told the judges. Judges must realize that they are under God’s authority. Otherwise they begin to act as if they themselves are the highest authority. They begin to make laws. Judges must fear the real Chief Justice!
Notice the system of appeals for these judges in verse 8, in keeping with the law in Deuteronomy 17:8-10. If local judges could not make a decision in faith, they referred those cases to Levites and judges at headquarters. Jehoshaphat instructed these judges to judge “in the fear of the Lord, faithfully, and with a perfect heart” (verse 9).
Notice something particularly interesting in verse 10. The job of an Israelite judge was actually more than executing judgment when someone broke the law. He was also there to educate and counsel people in the law! He helped those who came before him to avoid future sins.
There are a few ways the judge might fulfill this command to warn people not to sin. One way was surely to remind those in his court about God’s laws on giving testimony: Before you speak, remember what God commands us to do with a false witness. Also, they almost certainly also used the opportunity—dealing with an Israelite who had broken God’s law—to have a serious talk with him, educating him about God’s law and about the path he is on. Think about the principle in Ezekiel 33:13-16. God says He will warn the wicked man to turn from his sin; if that man listens, he will live. It makes sense that God would expect the judges to teach and to warn those who had made bad decisions.
God intended His judgments and punishments to serve as a warning! In those cases where the criminal was not put to death, the punishment was intended to persuade him never to commit that sin again. But the execution of a sentence also served as a warning to others not to commit the same act in the future. In several scriptures, God says, Do this so others in Israel will hear and fear.
Executing Punishment
To illustrate this point, consider the main way God had Israel carry out the death penalty: stoning. Read Leviticus 24:16. “All the congregation” was to participate! Barnes says stoning was “the commonest form of capital punishment.” Hanging or other methods of executing criminals could be done by one person, but stoning involved everyone taking part: men, women, old, young. “It is the participation of the society which is important, since all persons regardless of sex or age could throw stones, it became the total act of the whole population in obedience to God’s command” (Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament).
Why did God have the entire congregation execute criminals? Think about the effect it would have on you to do this. This wasn’t a Roman-style entertainment. It was a painful, gut-wrenching ceremony. You are helping to execute a human being, possibly even a friend or family member! God wanted the Israelites to see what sin does and how He views sin. Notice that this punishment was administered in a way where people didn’t even touch the person who had become unclean through sin.
In the case of someone worshiping another god, the witnesses “shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people” (Deuteronomy 17:7). If your friend or family member tried to lead you into idolatry, Deuteronomy 13:9 says your hand “shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.” Deuteronomy 21:21 commands this for an incorrigible son: “all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die”—that includes the boy’s father! It’s hard to imagine the emotion and agony of this experience—perhaps more excruciating for the stone thrower than for the person being stoned!
God wanted this punishment to have the maximum deterrent effect. He wanted people to see the destructive nature of sin firsthand. He wanted them to grieve for what sin did. He wanted them to take warning! How many times would stonings have to happen before people chose to crush out the sin in the first place—before they had to crush the sinner?
Deeply and vividly realize the brutality of what our sins did to Jesus Christ. His sacrifice should have a similar deterrent effect on us!
Immediate Punishment More Effective
Over all the principles we’ve covered in the last two articles in this series, have you noticed that God’s system of justice had no prisons? Israel had cities of refuge (which we will discuss in a future article), but zero prisons. Jails and prisons are inventions of human justice systems that ignore God’s system.
In God’s system, if someone were predisposed to criminal behavior, then, in order to convince the criminal not to do it again, God would exact the punishment right then and there—whether it be whipping or a monetary penalty. If the criminal refused to give up his criminal ways, God killed him. There was no need to lock anybody up! This not only saved a major amount of resources, it prevented all the problems we see within our prisons today. And most importantly, it did what prisons are supposed to do: It actually protected society from criminals and dissuaded criminals from breaking the law again.
The Spirit of the Law
God established this system of punishments within this physical nation for a specific reason. “Israel needed punishments for lawbreakers to keep peace and security and ensure obedience in the land,” Herman Hoeh wrote. “So God ordained that human judges exercise certain of His divine prerogatives and execute punishments on their fellowmen” (Good News, August 1972). Those circumstances ended when God’s rule over the ancient nation of Israel ended. By the time Christ came, there was a different administration. “[I]n Matthew 5, Jesus gave instructions, not for a civil government as in the Old Testament, but for a spiritual Church” (ibid; emphasis added). What, then, are the differences between the civil government and the spiritual Church?
To begin to answer this question, turn to Exodus 21 and compare verse 12 with verses 18-19. Here we see two very different approaches to two different crimes. Crimes involving murder required the death penalty. Crimes involving the loss of time or property required a monetary penalty. Fighting a man and killing him resulted in a criminal murder charge and the death penalty. But fighting him and only injuring him did not.
The New King James Version of “keepeth his bed” in verse 18 reads “is confined to his bed.” The victim was seriously hurt and bedridden, but didn’t die. The man who inflicted this injury was quit (acquitted) of criminal charges when his victim was up and walking again—even if he had to use a staff to do it (verse 19). But if the man died upon his bed, the perpetrator’s crime was punishable by death. That would have been great incentive for the perpetrator to say, I sure hope you recover! Is there anything I can do to help you get better?
That’s not to say the brawler didn’t face any punishment. Notice the second half of verse 19. He (not an insurance company) paid for any time the man lost while recovering from the injury, as well as costs for treating it. This is an important principle in God’s system: When you do damage, you pay for it. If you hurt someone, you take care of that person and restore what you took. God’s system favors the victim of crime rather than the criminal; so many man-made laws do the opposite.
Criminal Intent
Read verses 13-14 of Exodus 21 to see another distinction God makes that also illuminates the spirit of the Sixth Commandment. God distinguishes between someone who accidentally kills someone (what we call manslaughter) and deliberate, premeditated murder. Both result in a premature death of an innocent person, but the difference is in the spirit. Was the deed motivated by hatred?
The punishment for manslaughter was not death, but it was still very serious. The perpetrator had to completely uproot himself and flee to one of the cities of refuge. If he didn’t make it there in time or was caught outside the city thereafter, he could be killed legally by the avenger from the victim’s family. God said the criminal had to remain in that city until the death of the high priest—or he could be killed for his crime!
Read Exodus 22:2. In God’s eyes, a man defending his home from an intruder is acceptable. If a burglar broke into a man’s house when it was pitch black, and in the heat of the moment the man happened to strike the burglar so hard he killed him, God did not consider it murder. But read the distinction in verse 3. If it was light enough to see, you could not use this law to justify intentionally killing someone, even an intruder. Again, God is clearly concerned with the intent behind the action.
These laws are meant to protect innocent life, but even more, they guard against the hatred that is so contrary to God’s law of love!
See another example of God protecting life in Exodus 21:22. “If men fight, and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows, he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman’s husband imposes on him; and he shall pay as the judges determine” (nkjv). If the infant was uninjured, the perpetrator had to pay monetary damages for the inconvenience or hardship he brought on the family.
Continue reading in verse 23. If a brawler’s actions caused an unborn child to die, he was sentenced to death! (verses 24-25). Among other things, this law shows that God does consider killing an unborn child—something abortionists do every day in order to earn a paycheck—to be murder. But it also illuminates an important principle in God’s law. “The whole context of the ‘eye for eye, tooth for tooth’ command is concerned with the matter of just recompense or payment for the injury caused—an ‘eye-value’ for an eye, a ‘tooth-value’ for a tooth,” Dr. Hoeh wrote. “The principle of a ‘life for a life’ definitely applied in extreme cases, where no other penalty would be just and adequate (Exodus 21:23)” (ibid). In other words, the punishment must fit the crime.
Now, with this background, let’s see how the approach with individuals under the New Covenant differs from the national approach under the Old Covenant.
New Covenant
Jesus spoke about this subject directly. Consider His instructions in Matthew 5:38-39. Is Christ saying that the principle of just compensation for a wrong is no longer God’s way?
Absolutely not! That principle stands! Christ is saying He doesn’t want individual Christians—who have God’s love shed abroad in their hearts by God’s Spirit—to deal with one another this way. He doesn’t want each of us going around as judge and jury to make sure others treat us fairly! You took an eye from me, I’ll take one from you! He is teaching us to have a merciful, compassionate, loving attitude that is willing to forgive! No one has been wronged more than God—and no one has forgiven more than God! He is trying to teach us to think the way He does!
Continue in verses 40-41. This isn’t a new system of justice. This isn’t God saying, OK, we did it that other way, but now I want judges to tell the man who got his coat stolen to give the thief his cloak too! No—this is a principle that God wants to govern the heart of Spirit-begotten believers! Paul says in Romans 7:12 that the “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” law was holy, just and good! It was there to protect the community—not to guide the heart of individual believers. Each of us is to love our enemies, not to exact eye for eye, tooth for tooth.
In the future, God will establish His Kingdom, and once again God will be administering punishments, not men. God’s Spirit will be freely available. God beings will work with human beings to repent and live God’s way of life. Since they will have the Holy Spirit, people who are put to death for sins and crimes will also die the second death. So the punishments in God’s Kingdom won’t be according to the strict letter of the law that was given to ancient Israelites who did not have God’s Spirit.
Still, looking at the system of justice God gave ancient Israel, we have to agree that, as Gerald Flurry wrote in The Last Hour, “This gives us a deep insight into the character of the Father and the Son. They have gone to extreme lengths to see that we receive justice. Our Father is perfect and demands perfect justice.” Whether in ancient Israel, the modern Church or the future Kingdom, that fact never changes.