Pursuing Justice

This week’s parashah begins at the gate. At the city gate, where in ancient Israel justice was administered — where the people gathered, and where it was decided who was right. And the first thing it says is a command to arrange that well: appoint judges and officials in all your gates. And then comes a line you need to hear only once to never forget. It contains one word, twice in a row:

‘Justice, justice you shall pursue.’ — Deuteronomy 16:20

Tzedek, tzedek. Twice. Justice is not something you háve — it is something you púrsue. You never possess it completely; you keep seeking it, every day anew. And by righteous means: the end does not sanctify the way. And then the whole parashah works out one question, block by block: who may actually judge? Who may rule, speak, pronounce judgment — and by whose authority? The judge, the king, the priest, the prophet all pass by. And each time the same thing happens: whenever the text gíves someone authority, in the same breath it draws a boundary around it.

It begins with your posture

Just before this stands something small that sets the tone. It is about an offering with a blemish — a maimed animal — and you may not bring it. Why not? Because an offering shows how your heart stands toward God. If I give Him the flawed thing, the leftover, then I am quietly saying: this is Your fault, You made it this way. Then I take no responsibility. Bút if I take the place God means for me, then I give Him the bést of what I received from Him. So this parashah shows, right away, something of God’s heart — how Hé looks at justice and righteousness — and He gladly wants to pass that on to us.

The most powerful man, with the law on his lap

Take the sharpest example: the king. You would expect the king to stand abóve the law — that is how it went among all the surrounding nations; the king wás the law. Bút look at what stands here. God permits a king, but it must be one whom Hé chooses, from among your own brothers. No army of horses, no harem, no mountains of gold. And then this:

‘He shall write for himself a copy of this law … and read in it all the days of his life … that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers.’ — Deuteronomy 17:18–20

Picture it. The most powerful man in the land, and what does he do? He sits cópying out the law. With his own hand, word for word. And notice what that does to a person. You speak the words, you form them with your hand, your eyes go over them — your whole body is involved. That is something quite different from two taps on a screen, copy-paste. We live in a time when we barely take time for the Word anymore: a text message, a snippet from a devotional, and on we go. Bút the king was commanded to cópy it out — to make time, to set it apart, not to rush through it.

And God adds the purpose: ‘that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers.’ Do you hear it? God gíves the words — they come from Hím — and He lays them in our hands, so that we too do something with them with our hands: not only copy them, but apply them, live in them. And the boundary He attaches to it does not make the king léss king. It makes him trústworthy. He does not rule as a god above the people, bút as a brother among brothers, with the Word on his lap.

Presumption, and where it shows itself

And over against this stands the word that runs through this whole parashah: presumption. It says that whoever acts presúmptuously — who does not listen to the priest or the judge who stands there in God’s name — thereby sets loose something evil. Presumption shows itself in one thing: in disobedience to the authority God has instituted. And note: this is nót about the person who honestly wrestles with a question — it is about the pósture that sets itself above the Word, that wants to decide for itself whether the Word still holds. Not the questioner, but the posture that no longer tolerates any authority above itself.

For if you are stuck with a difficult case, you may precisely bring it úpward, to the higher court at the place God chose — as it still works with us, with an appeal. And then it holds: what that court pronounces is binding. The evil is not in the not-knowing or the asking; it is in despising the ruling, in no longer letting yourself be told anything.

Who may receive from the people

Then the priests and the Levites. They receive no piece of land — and something beautiful is said: ‘the LORD is their inheritance’ (18:2). Their support lies not in possessions, but in God Himself. They receive from the people, and that is not because they stand hígher or lówer — it is because God set them apart to serve in His name. Do you remember when it became clear they could be trusted? When the people made the golden calf, there was óne tribe that did not join in. So they showed God that they could be relied on. And God in turn cares for thém: they too may receive a fair portion.

Directed at God, or at yourself?

And then comes a strict passage: no divination, no consulting the dead, no sorcery — do not do as the nations do, for that is an abomination to the LORD. Now I want to be very precise here, for it is easy to hear this wrongly. It is not about the áct in itself. Many things that have to do with your body or your creativity are precisely góod gifts from God, to use in His way — writing that heals, music, movement, breathing, a creative expression. In themselves there is nothing wrong with these.

It goes wrong on one point: when the creativity, or the technique, or the bódy itself becomes the center — when I am occupied with mysélf instead of with Hím. That is exactly the mark of all those forbidden things: they are spiritual-seeming acts, bút without God, directed at the self. And the liberating thing is the other side: God is our riverbed, He is the one who cárries us. He made our body Himself — precisely so that we can serve Him with heart and soul and body and all that is in us. So the question is not ‘may I do something with my body?’, bút: is it directed at God, or at myself?

That is why it says: ‘you shall be blameless before the LORD your God’ (18:13). Tamim — whole, undivided. We must be able to look God in the eyes, with nothing in between. And all those forbidden things put precisely sómething between God and us. God gave only one Mediator: Yeshua. Through Him we receive, through Him we learn to direct everything to the Father — and then we do not need those other things.

Even the one who speaks for God is tested

And then the prophet. A prophet from your own midst, from your brothers, God will raise up — to him you must listen. Moses says it, and that promise points forward to the Lord Jesus. Bút there are also those who sáy they are prophets, and speak in God’s name something He did not give. How do you recognize that? God gives you a sober test:

‘When that prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, and the word does not come to pass — then that is a word the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it in presumption.’ — Deuteronomy 18:22

Not: how impressive does he sound? Bút: does it cóme true, does it come from Hím? Even the prophet may let himself be tested. That does not disempower him; it calibrates him. And there is the word again — presumption: authority that speaks in God’s name what God did not say.

A God of life, even in war

And now something beautiful happens, precisely in the darkest place: war. You would think only death reigns there. Bút God lays down laws there that protect lífe. Whoever has built a new house and does not yet live in it, whoever has planted a vineyard and not yet eaten of it, whoever is betrothed — he may go hóme. God honors human labor and the joy of the harvest; He does not want the cycle of building and planting and harvesting to be broken off by the violence. And even the trées remain standing:

‘Is the tree of the field a man, that it should be besieged by you? … those trees you shall not cut down.’ — Deuteronomy 20:19

The landscape is not the enemy. The fruit trees provide food and outlast the war; they transcend the temporary conflict. That is stewardship, right at the very beginning. For the land is not even really ours — God says it Himself: ‘the land is Mine; you are but strangers and sojourners with Me’ (Lev. 25:23). We receive it on loan. And the most beautiful image of peace in all of Scripture is therefore not possession or power, but this: that each person sits safely ‘under his own vine and his own fig tree’ (Micah 4:4).

And trace that vineyard line through, for it runs from front to back through the whole Bible. At the very beginning God Himself planted a garden, and set the human in it to ‘work it and keep it’ — with abundant fruit to enjoy. Then, with the prophets, Israel itself becomes God’s vineyard: He dug up the soil, planted the best vine, and expected good grapes — and do you know what He sought? Justice and righteousness (Isaiah 5). There it is again, tzedek, from the first line of this parashah. And then Jesus comes, and He says: ‘I am the true Vine’ (John 15). He restores what broke in the garden. Joined to Him, we again bear and receive the fruit that was intended from Eden onward. Do you see how it is óne story — creation, law, and restoration in Christ — and that God, even against the backdrop of death, proves above all a God of life and lasting provision?

The hands that are washed

And at the very end, at a murder whose perpetrator no one knows. Then the elders of the nearest town come, and wash their hands over an offering: ‘our hands have not shed this blood, and our eyes have not seen it’ (21:7). They do not wave it away — they cárry the responsibility, even for blood that does not cling to their hands. A priest must come, someone who stands between God and the people, to weigh the matter. God does not want innocent blood to remain lying on the people. Even the unsolved He does not simply let lie.

Receiving — or grasping

Now lay it side by side, for here everything comes together. All this authority is gíven: God chooses the king, raises up the prophet, is the inheritance of the priest. No one has his place from himself. And precisely because it is given, it is not absolute — it bends under the Word and lets itself be tested. The king whose heart lifts itself up, the prophet who speaks what God did not say: that is each time authority that has cut itself lóose from the source. Grasped authority.

Think of Jacob and Esau. The birthright was a gíft. Esau could have received it — bút he despised it. And Jacob, to whom it was not first given, longed for it and took it with both hands. So God gives us the power to become children of God, to share in what Hé gives. Bút note hów you receive something. You can say: now it is míne, I have grabbed it, no one may touch it anymore. Like a child at a birthday party who runs off with his present and keeps it to himself — then the whole idea of a gift is gone, and it becomes a burden. Receiving is something other than grasping. The gift remains a gift as long as it keeps coming from His hand.

Above all gates

And then Isaiah, in the haftarah, lifts your gaze upward, over all those fragile human offices. For judges fail, kings lift up their hearts, prophets err. Bút listen to what the watchmen on the walls call out:

‘How lovely on the mountains are the feet of the messenger of good news … who says to Zion: your God reigns!’ — Isaiah 52:7

Your God reigns. On that it rests. Beneath all gates, above all judges and kings, stands the One who truly reigns. All human authority is only on loan — and that is no terror, that is a comfort. For the last judge is not a human being.

The authority that did not speak from itself

And then the gospel. Jesus, just before His suffering. Philip asks: show us the Father. And Jesus answers:

‘Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father … the words I speak to you I do not speak from Myself; the Father who dwells in Me does the works.’ — John 14:9–10

‘I do not speak from Myself.’ There it stands in the perfect form. Jesus is the prophet like Moses whom God promised, and He embodies what the king with the law on his lap pictured: authority that is wholly réceived, that does nothing from itself, that stands entirely under the Father. The most powerful, and the most obedient. And that is why He can say: whoever sees Mé, sees the Father. He is that one Mediator, with nothing in between. And then the comfort, so close to Isaiah: ‘I will not leave you as orphans’ (14:18). The King who truly reigns does not leave you alone.

Does it still let itself be tested?

Let me bring it home to ourselves. We all have a bit of authority — over our work, in our family, over our opinion, over ourselves. And the question of this week is not: do I háve authority? The question is: does my authority still let itself be tésted? Do I carry my corner as someone who has it from himself — or as someone who réceived it, and therefore stays under it, with the Word on his lap?

The liberating thing is: you do not have to grásp the power. That is exactly the burden this parashah takes from you. You do not have to lift up your heart to be someone. The King who truly reigns came as a brother, with the will of the Father instead of His own, and He shows us who God is. And as He intended the vineyard from Eden onward: joined to Hím you may again bear fruit and receive it.

Think it over this week, very concretely: where do I exercise authority — however small — that no longer lets itself be corrected? And what would change if I there took the law on my lap again, as a brother among brothers, before the face of the One who truly reigns? Read it over, and tell me freely where you would put it differently than I.