John Gill Commentary Deuteronomy 17

You shall not sacrifice unto the Lord your God any
bullock or sheep wherein is blemish
No sacrifice of any sort, whether burnt offering, sin offering, or peace offering, was to have any blemish init; typical of the unblemished and immaculate Lamb of God, who, being without sin, offered himself withoutspot to God, and so could take away the sins of others by the sacrifice of himself; see (Leviticus 22:18–25) ,

[or] any evilfavouredness ;
any sickness or disease upon it of any sort, which made it ill favoured to the sight, or disagreeable to thesmell, or however unacceptable for sacrifice:

for that is an abomination to the Lord your God ;
every such blemished and ill favoured sacrifice; see (Malachi 1:8Malachi 1:14) .

If there be found among you, within any of your gates which the
Lord your God gives you
In any of their cities in the land of Canaan:

man or woman that has wrought wickedness in the sight of the Lord your
God :
as all that is wrought is in the sight of the omniscient God; here it means not any kind of wickedness, for there is none lives without committing sin of one sort or another, all which is known to God the searcher of hearts, but such wickedness as is after described:

in transgressing his covenant ;
that is, his law, and particularly the first table of it, which respects divine worship, and which is in the nature of a marriage contract or covenant; which, as that is transgressed by adultery committed by either party, so the covenant between God and Israel was transgressed by idolatry, which is spiritual adultery, and going a whoring after other gods, as it follows:

And has gone
The Targum of Jonathan adds, after the evil imagination or concupiscence, lusting after other lovers, and forsaking the true God, and departing from his worship:

and served other gods ;
strange gods, the idols of the people, other gods besides the true God; the creature besides the Creator:

and worshipped them ;
by bowing down before them, praying to them, or ascribing their mercies and blessings to them, and giving them the glory of them:

either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven :
the two great luminaries, and the planets, constellations, and stars, any of them; which kind of idolatry very early obtained, and was in use at this time among the Heathens, and was an iniquity to be punished by the judge, (Job 31:26–28) , which sin, though so strictly forbidden, the people of Israel sometimes fell into, (2 Kings 21:3) (23:4)

which I have not commanded :
and which is a sufficient reason, in matters of worship, to avoid and abstain from anything, that God has not commanded it; for in things of that nature nothing should be done but what he has ordered, who is a jealous God, and will not suffer any to take upon them to direct what should be done as a religious service and duty; and if any are so presumptuous, they must expect it will be resented; see (Isaiah 1:12) and especially with respect to the object of worship, as here, and which relate to things if not forbid expressly, yet tacitly, to do which was an abomination to the Lord.

And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and inquired
diligently
A report of this kind was not to be neglected; though it was not to be concluded upon as certain by hearsay, it was to be looked into, and the persons that brought it thoroughly examined; so the Targum of Jonathan, ``and inquired the witnesses well,'' what proof and evidence they could give of the fact, who the persons were, when and where, and in what manner the sin was committed:

and, behold, [it be] true, [and] the thing certain ;
upon examining the witnesses the case is plain and out of all question:

that such abomination is wrought in Israel ;
to do it in any country was abominable, but much more so in the land of Israel, among the professing people of God, who had the knowledge of the true God, and had had so many proofs of his deity, his power and providence, as well as received so many favours and blessings from him, and had such laws and statutes given them as no other people had.

You shall bring forth that man or that woman who have
committed the wicked thing
Idolatry in any of the above instances: this must be supposed to be done after he or she have been had before a court of judicature, and have been tried and found guilty, and sentence passed on them, then they were to be brought forth to execution:

unto your gates ;
the Targum of Jonathan says, unto the gates of your sanhedrim, or court of judicature; but Jarchi observes, that this is a mistake of the paraphrase, for he says, we are taught by tradition that "your gate" is the gate in which he has served or committed idolatry;

And so says Maimonides ^F4 , they do not stone a man but at the gate where he served or worshipped; but if the greatest part of the city are Heathens, they stone him at the door of the sanhedrim; and this is received from tradition, that "to your gates" is the gate at which he served, and not where his judgment is finished:

[even] that man or that woman ;
this is repeated, and the woman as well as the man is expressed, to show that no compassion is to be had on her as is usual, nor to be spared on account of the weakness and tenderness of her sex, but she as well as the man must be brought forth and executed according to her sentence, without any mercy shown; and this is observed to show the resentment of the divine Majesty, and his indignation at this sin:

and shall stone them with stones until they die ;
of the manner of stoning men and women, (See Gill on Acts 7:58).

FOOTNOTES:

• F4: Hilchot Sanhedrin, c. 15. sect. 2.