Skip to main content
Psalmlog Logo

Deuteronomy 17

Deuteronomy 17 places Israel’s worship, courts, and future king under God’s authority, with safeguards against false accusations and royal pride.

Moses gives Israel laws for worship and public justice as the people prepare to live in the land God is giving them. Defective sacrifices are forbidden, and accusations of idolatry require investigation and multiple witnesses before execution. Difficult cases go to the priests and the judge at God’s chosen place. Moses then addresses a future king, placing limits on his wealth and power and requiring him to copy and read God’s law throughout his life.

leadership weightsermon or Bible study notes
Read
1You shall not sacrifice to the LORD your God an ox or a sheep in which is a defect or anything evil; for that is an abomination to the LORD your God.
2If there is found among you, within any of your gates which the LORD your God gives you, a man or woman who does that which is evil in the LORD your God’s sight in transgressing his covenant,
3and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun, or the moon, or any of the stars of the sky, which I have not commanded,
4and you are told, and you have heard of it, then you shall inquire diligently. Behold, if it is true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is done in Israel,
5then you shall bring out that man or that woman who has done this evil thing to your gates, even that same man or woman; and you shall stone them to death with stones.
6At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death. At the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death.
7The hands of the witnesses shall be first on him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So you shall remove the evil from among you.
8If there arises a matter too hard for you in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within your gates, then you shall arise, and go up to the place which the LORD your God chooses.
9You shall come to the priests who are Levites and to the judge who shall be in those days. You shall inquire, and they shall give you the verdict.
11According to the decisions of the law which they shall teach you, and according to the judgment which they shall tell you, you shall do. You shall not turn away from the sentence which they announce to you, to the right hand, nor to the left.
12The man who does presumptuously in not listening to the priest who stands to minister there before the LORD your God, or to the judge, even that man shall die. You shall put away the evil from Israel.
13All the people shall hear and fear, and do no more presumptuously.
14When you have come to the land which the LORD your God gives you, and possess it and dwell in it, and say, “I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,”
15you shall surely set him whom the LORD your God chooses as king over yourselves. You shall set as king over you one from among your brothers. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.
16Only he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he may multiply horses; because the LORD has said to you, “You shall not go back that way again.”
17He shall not multiply wives to himself, that his heart not turn away. He shall not greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.
18It shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write himself a copy of this law in a book, out of that which is before the Levitical priests.
19It shall be with him, and he shall read from it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them;
20that his heart not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he not turn away from the commandment to the right hand, or to the left, to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children, in the middle of Israel.
World English BibleRead in NIV in Psalmlog →Highlighted verses are the most connected.
Key verses
Deuteronomy 17:18The king must write his own copy of the law, placing his rule under the commands entrusted to the priests.
Deuteronomy 17:16The ban on multiplying horses limits royal military power and forbids taking the people back toward Egypt.
Deuteronomy 17:6Multiple witnesses are required before a death sentence, making one person’s accusation insufficient grounds for execution.
Where this chapter reaches

Joshua shares the command to keep reading and obeying God’s law, while John cites the law’s requirement for two witnesses. The accounts of Solomon in 1 Kings describe horses from Egypt, accumulated wealth, and wives who turn his heart away, echoing the dangers named here.

Deuteronomy 17's chapter linksAll strongest linksHover or tap a book
Notice

After reading the whole chapter

What stands out to you about the safeguards and severity in Israel’s courts?

Write on this

How might reading God’s law shape a leader’s view of the people under their care?

Write on this

Questions people ask about Deuteronomy 17

Why does Deuteronomy 17 command death for idolatry?

The chapter treats worship of other gods as a breach of Israel’s covenant with YHWH, carrying a death sentence within Israel’s public legal order. It requires investigation, certainty, and multiple witnesses. These instructions address ancient Israel’s courts; they give no permission for private violence against people of another faith.

Does Deuteronomy 17 allow Israel to have a king?

Yes. Moses anticipates Israel asking for a king like the surrounding nations and sets terms for that office. The king must be someone YHWH chooses from among Israel’s own people. His conduct remains subject to God’s law, including limits on horses, wives, and accumulated wealth.

Why did Israel’s king have to write a copy of the law?

The king’s copy was to come from the law held by the Levitical priests and remain with him for lifelong reading. The stated purposes are to teach him to fear YHWH and obey his commands, keeping his heart from rising above his fellow Israelites.

Read it. Now write it.

Start an entry on Deuteronomy 17. Your words go beside the text, and you get one next step for the week.

Deuteronomy · 34 chapters
12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334

Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).