Constitution for Righteousness: A Literary-Theological Study of the Laws on Public Offices in Deuteronomy 16:18-18:22

This paper, in the perspective of confessional biblical scholarship, examines the contents and nature of Deuteronomy 16:18-22, (often called) the first written constitution in human history, evaluates various arguments concerning it, and proposes an interpretation as an answer to the issues raised by critical scholarship. Surveying history of research, this paper examines various views, from the views of the fathers of critical interpretation of the Old Testament such as Spinoza, de Wette, and Wellhausen, to the views of their modern followers (i.e., views holding that Deuteronomy 16:18-22 or a part of it is interpolated and that the abrupt thematic shift is the evidence thereof), and to the views emphasizing the unity of the text. Proposing an alternative interpretation from the perspective of confessional scholarship, this paper focuses on two issues. First, concerning the placement and the structure of our passage, 1) the weaknesses of Dillmann’s “standard solution” to the perceived problem of Deut 16:21-17:17 and those of other approaches by his followers are pointed out, 2) the way in which our passage is connected to its surrounding co-texts is demonstrated, while the interpolation hypothesis (held by Wellhausen, Lohfink, etc.) being refuted, based on linguistic and thematic grounds. Second, concerning the motivation and significance of our passage, 1) the invalidity of the interpretation based on the centralization hypothesis, namely conjecturing the motivation to fill the local legal vacuum, is pointed out and 2) it is argued that the motivation of our passage is to main righteousness in the land, to enhance efficiency in legal procedure, and to emphasize on the ultimate authority of God and His words. The hermeneutical contributions of this paper lie in that it shows the usual limitations of the interpretations based on the Document Hypothesis appearing in studying “Israel’s constitution,” and that it argues a case demonstrating that hermeneutically proper and theologically richer interpretations come from hearing attentively the language, structure, and motivation of the text as it presents them.