John Gill Commentary Exodus 23:2

"Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to turn aside after a multitude to wrest [justice]:" — Exodus 23:2 (ASV)

You shall not follow a multitude to do evil
The Targums of Jerusalem and Jonathan add, but to do good. As in private life, the examples of the many, who are generally the most wicked, should not be followed, though they too often are; examples, and especially of the multitude, as they often have great influence, and therefore are to be guarded against; so in public courts of judicature, where there are many judges upon the bench, if one of them is sensible that the greater part go wrong in their judgment of a case, he should not follow them, or be influenced by them, but go according to the dictates of his own conscience, and the evidence of things as they appear to him, and neither agree to justify the wicked, nor condemn the righteous:

neither shall you speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest
judgment ;
or "you shall not answer" ^F18 ; either in pleading in a cause, and taking the side of it the majority is on, and for that reason, though it is a manifest perversion of justice; or by giving a vote on that side, and on that account, whereby a wrong judgment passes;

and this vote given either according to the number of witnesses, which should not always be the rule of judgment; for it is not the number of witnesses, but the nature, evidence, and circumstances of their testimony, that should be regarded: Jarchi says, in judgments of life and death, they go after the mouth of one witness to absolve, and after the mouth of two to condemn: or according to the number of judges on the bench, and their superiority in years and knowledge; and so some render the word, "after the great ones" ^F19 ; for a judge should not be influenced by names or numbers when giving his vote, but to judge according to the truth of things, as they appear to him:

hence the Jews say, that the younger or puisne judges used to be asked their judgment first, that they might not be influenced by others superior to them; and a like method is taken with us in the trial of a peer, the younger lords always giving their opinion first:

As to the number of votes by which a cause was carried in court, it is said ^F20 , not as the decline to good, is the decline to evil; the decline to good, i.e. to absolution, is by the sentence of one (a majority of one); the decline to evil, i.e. to condemnation, is by the mouth or sentence of two, a majority of two.

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FOOTNOTES:

• F18: (hnet alw) "neque respondeas", Tigurine version; "non respondebis", Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus, Drusius.
• F19: (Mybr yrxa) "post potentiores", Junius & Tremellius; "post magnos", Lyra, Cartwright.
• F20: Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 1. sect. 6.