Charles Ellicott Commentary Deuteronomy 13

If there arise.—Three cases of instigation to idolatry are considered in this chapter:—

1. The false prophet (Deuteronomy 13:1–5).
2. A private individual (Deuteronomy 13:6–11).
3. A city (Deuteronomy 13:12–18).

In every case the penalty is the same—death without mercy.

Is this law the production of a later age? It may be said to have been more often broken than observed.

But there are instances in the history of Israel which seem to require some such law as this in all its three sections. The case of the false prophet justifies the action of Elijah, who took the prophets of Baal from Carmel when proved to be impostors, and brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there.

If your brother. —The substance of this law is that individual idolaters might be executed in Israel. It justifies Jehu and Jehoiada in destroying Baal out of Israel and Judah (2 Kings 10:19–27; 2 Kings 11:18). It also accounts for the covenant made in the time of Asa (2 Chronicles 15:13), that whoever would not serve the Lord God of Israel should be put to death whether man or woman.

The law may seem harsh, but its principle is reproduced in the Gospel: He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me (Matthew 10:37). If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:26).

It is impossible to deny or escape the identity of the Lord Jesus with the Jenovah of the Old Testament. He does not always put the execution of His judgments into human hands, but He is the same forever.

Your hand shall be first upon him to put him to death. —A law tending to prevent false accusation. Where the witness is obliged to carry out the sentence he demands himself, or to aid in carrying it out, secret accusation is impossible; and it is far less easy to pervert the law in order to prosecute a private quarrel.

If thou shalt hear say in one of thy cities. —The only case of this kind is the case of Gibeah. We may fairly assume the abominations done there to have been connected with idolatry, from the allusions in Hosea 9:9; Hosea 10:9. But the outrage rather than the idolatry seems to have excited the indignation of Israel . It is noticeable that in the remonstrance with the Benjamites at Gibeah—(Judges 20:13): “Now therefore deliver us the men, the children of Belial, which are in Gibeah, that we may put them to death, and put away evil from Israel” —there seems to be an allusion to the language of this chapter in Deuteronomy 13:5; Deuteronomy 13:11.

Children of Belial. —The very same expression is used in Judges 20:13: Deliver us the men, the children of Belial, that are among you. This is the first place where the expression “sons of Belial” occurs, and Judges 19:22 is the second. It is generally explained by modern scholars as “worthlessness.” Rashi curiously makes it “destroyers of the yoke” (of Jehovah).