Shofetim

(7) How welcome on the mountain are the footsteps of the herald announcing happiness, heralding good fortune, announcing victory, telling Zion, “Your God is King!” (8) Hark! Your watchmen raise their voices, as one they shout for joy; for every eye shall behold the LORD’s return to Zion.(9) Raise a shout together, O ruins of Jerusalem! For the LORD will comfort His people, will redeem Jerusalem.

(18) You shall appoint magistrates and officials for your tribes, in all the settlements that your God ה' is giving you, and they shall govern the people with due justice. (19) You shall not judge unfairly: you shall show no partiality; you shall not take bribes, for bribes blind the eyes of the discerning and upset the plea of the just. (20) Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that your God ה' is giving you.

(14) If, after you have entered the land that your God ה' has assigned to you, and taken possession of it and settled in it, you decide, “I will set a king over me, as do all the nations about me,” (15) you shall set a king over yourself, one chosen by your God ה'. Be sure to set as king over yourself one of your own people; you must not set a foreigner over you, one who is not your kin.

(1) The levitical priests, the whole tribe of Levi, shall have no territorial portion with Israel. They shall live only off יהוה’s offerings by fire as their portion, (2) and shall have no portion among their brother tribes: ה' is their portion, as promised. (3) This then shall be the priests’ due from the people: Everyone who offers a sacrifice, whether an ox or a sheep, must give the shoulder, the cheeks, and the stomach to the priest. (4) You shall also give him the first fruits of your new grain and wine and oil, and the first shearing of your sheep. (5) For your God ה' has chosen him and his descendants, out of all your tribes, to be in attendance for service in the name of ה' for all time.

(15) From among your own people, your God ה' will raise up for you a prophet like myself; that is whom you shall heed. (16) This is just what you asked of your God ה' at Horeb, on the day of the Assembly, saying, “Let me not hear the voice of my God ה' any longer or see this wondrous fire any more, lest I die.” (17) Whereupon ה' said to me, “They have done well in speaking thus. (18) I will raise up for them from among their own people a prophet like yourself, in whose mouth I will put My words and who will speak to them all that I command; (19) and anybody who fails to heed the words [the prophet] speaks in My name, I Myself will call to account.

(32) Then King David said, “Summon to me the priest Zadok, the prophet Nathan, and Benaiah son of Jehoiada.” When they came before the king, (33) the king said to them, “Take my loyal soldiers,^-h and have my son Solomon ride on my mule and bring him down to Gihon. (34) Let the priest Zadok and the prophet Nathan anoint him there king over Israel, whereupon you shall sound the horn and shout, ‘Long live King Solomon!’ (35) Then march up after him, and let him come in and sit on my throne. For he shall succeed me as king; him I designate to be ruler of Israel and Judah.”

(1) At the king’s summons, all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem assembled before him. (2) The king went up to the House of the LORD, together with all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests and prophets—all the people, young and old. And he read to them the entire text of the covenant scroll which had been found in the House of the LORD.

(13) Rabbi Shimon said: There are three crowns: the crown of torah, the crown of priesthood, and the crown of royalty, but the crown of a good name supersedes them all.

These three good crowns were given to this nation at the beginning of the giving of the Torah. And they are priesthood, monarchy and Torah. Aharon merited [to take] priesthood, David merited [to take] monarchy, but the crown of Torah remains for anyone who wants to be crowned with it.

(14) If, after you have entered the land that your God ה' has assigned to you, and taken possession of it and settled in it, you decide, “I will set a king over me, as do all the nations about me,” (15) you shall set a king over yourself, one chosen by your God ה'. Be sure to set as king over yourself one of your own people; you must not set a foreigner over you, one who is not your kin. (16) Moreover, he shall not keep many horses or send people back to Egypt to add to his horses, since ה' has warned you, “You must not go back that way again.” (17) And he shall not have many wives, lest his heart go astray; nor shall he amass silver and gold to excess. (18) When he is seated on his royal throne, he shall have a copy of this Teaching written for him on a scroll by the levitical priests. (19) Let it remain with him and let him read in it all his life, so that he may learn to revere his God ה', to observe faithfully every word of this Teaching as well as these laws. (20) Thus he will not act haughtily toward his fellows or deviate from the Instruction to the right or to the left, to the end that he and his descendants may reign long in the midst of Israel.

(4) All the elders of Israel assembled and came to Samuel at Ramah, (5) and they said to him, “You have grown old, and your sons have not followed your ways. Therefore appoint a king for us, to govern us like all other nations.” (6) Samuel was displeased that they said “Give us a king to govern us.” Samuel prayed to the LORD, (7) and the LORD replied to Samuel, “Heed the demand of the people in everything they say to you. For it is not you that they have rejected; it is Me they have rejected as their king. (8) Like everything else they have done ever since I brought them out of Egypt to this day—forsaking Me and worshiping other gods—so they are doing to you. (9) Heed their demand; but warn them solemnly, and tell them about the practices of any king who will rule over them.” (10) Samuel reported all the words of the LORD to the people, who were asking him for a king. (11) He said, “This will be the practice of the king who will rule over you: He will take your sons and appoint them as his charioteers and horsemen, and they will serve as outrunners for his chariots. (12) He will appoint them as his chiefs of thousands and of fifties; or they will have to plow his fields, reap his harvest, and make his weapons and the equipment for his chariots. (13) He will take your daughters as perfumers, cooks, and bakers. (14) He will seize your choice fields, vineyards, and olive groves, and give them to his courtiers. (15) He will take a tenth part of your grain and vintage and give it to his eunuchs and courtiers. (16) He will take your male and female slaves, your choice young men,^-a and your asses, and put them to work for him. (17) He will take a tenth part of your flocks, and you shall become his slaves. (18) The day will come when you cry out because of the king whom you yourselves have chosen; and the LORD will not answer you on that day.” (19) But the people would not listen to Samuel’s warning. “No,” they said. “We must have a king over us, (20) that we may be like all the other nations: Let our king rule over us and go out at our head and fight our battles.” (21) When Samuel heard all that the people said, he reported it to the LORD. (22) And the LORD said to Samuel, “Heed their demands and appoint a king for them.” Samuel then said to the men of Israel, “All of you go home.”

The baraita continues: And so would Rabbi Yehuda say: Three mitzvot were commanded to the Jewish people upon their entrance into Eretz Yisrael: to establish a king for themselves (see Deuteronomy 17:14–15), and to cut off the seed of Amalek in war (see Deuteronomy 25:17–19), and to build the Chosen House, i.e., the Temple, in Jerusalem (see Deuteronomy 12:10–12).

Rabbi Nehorai says: This biblical passage about appointing a king was stated only in response to the Jewish people’s complaint, as it is stated: “When you come unto the land that the Lord your God gives you, and shall possess it, and shall dwell therein, and shall say: I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me” (Deuteronomy 17:14). The verse indicates that appointing a king is not a mitzva and that when Samuel spoke to them, he intended to frighten them so that they might regret their complaint and retract their request for a king.

It is taught in a baraita: Rabbi Eliezer says: The elders of Samuel’s generation asked appropriately, as it is stated: “Give us a king to judge us” (I Samuel 8:6), since they wanted a steady leader in place of Samuel. But the ignoramuses among them ruined it, as it is stated: “But the people refused to heed the voice of Samuel; and they said: No, but there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us, and emerge before us, and fight our battles” (I Samuel 8:19–20).

(1) When Abram was ninety-nine years old, ה' appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am El Shaddai. Walk in My ways and be blameless. (2) I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will make you exceedingly numerous.” (3) Abram threw himself on his face; and God spoke to him further, (4) “As for Me, this is My covenant with you: You shall be the father of a multitude of nations. (5) And you shall no longer be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I make you the father of a multitude of nations. (6) I will make you exceedingly fertile, and make nations of you; and kings shall come forth from you.

(9) God appeared again to Jacob on his arrival from Paddan-aram. God blessed him, (10) saying to him, “You whose name is Jacob, you shall be called Jacob no more, but Israel shall be your name.”Thus he was named Israel. (11) And God said to him, “I am El Shaddai. Be fertile and increase; a nation, yea an assembly of nations, shall descend from you, and kings shall issue from your loins.

In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did as he pleased.

(22) Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, “Rule over us—you, your son, and your grandson as well; for you have saved us from the Midianites.” (23) But Gideon replied, “I will not rule over you myself, nor shall my son rule over you; the LORD alone shall rule over you.”

(4) All the elders of Israel assembled and came to Samuel at Ramah, (5) and they said to him, “You have grown old, and your sons have not followed your ways. Therefore appoint a king for us, to govern us like all other nations.” (6) Samuel was displeased that they said “Give us a king to govern us.” Samuel prayed to the LORD, (7) and the LORD replied to Samuel, “Heed the demand of the people in everything they say to you. For it is not you that they have rejected; it is Me they have rejected as their king.

I give you kings in My ire, and take them away in My wrath.

I give, when I gave you a king in the days of Shmuel, it was in My ire, because I knew that you would end up splitting from each other and worship idols, so it was against My wish.

(1) If, in the land that your God ה' is assigning you to possess, someone slain is found lying in the open, the identity of the slayer not being known, (2) your elders and magistrates shall go out and measure the distances from the corpse to the nearby towns. (3) The elders of the town nearest to the corpse shall then take a heifer which has never been worked, which has never pulled in a yoke; (4) and the elders of that town shall bring the heifer down to an everflowing wadi, which is not tilled or sown. There, in the wadi, they shall break the heifer’s neck. (5) The priests, sons of Levi, shall come forward; for your God ה' has chosen them for divine service and to pronounce blessing in the name of ה', and every lawsuit and case of assault is subject to their ruling. (6) Then all the elders of the town nearest to the corpse shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the wadi. (7) And they shall make this declaration: “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done. (8) Absolve, ה', Your people Israel whom You redeemed, and do not let guilt for the blood of the innocent remain among Your people Israel.” And they will be absolved of bloodguilt. (9) Thus you will remove from your midst guilt for the blood of the innocent, for you will be doing what is right in the sight of ה'.

As a rule the investigation, the procession of the elders, the measuring, and the taking of the heifer, make people talk about it, and by making the event public, the murderer may be found out, and he who knows of him, or has heard of him, or has discovered him by any due, will now name the person that is the murderer ... We have thus shown the use of the law concerning the breaking of the neck of the heifer in discovering the murderer.

But the Rabbi [Moshe ben Maimon] said in the Moreh Nebuchim that the reason for the breaking of the heifer’s neck is to discover the murderer ... Hence according to this reason there is a benefit in this rite ...

In my opinion the reason for it is similar to that of the offerings which are done outside [of the Sanctuary Court], such as the goat sent [to Azazel] and the Red Heifer. Therefore the Rabbis have counted the commandment of breaking the heifer’s neck among the chukim [“the statutes” — the class of commandments for which we do not know the reasons].

Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Shaul says: For what reason did the Torah say to bring a heifer whose neck is broken to a stream? The Holy One, Blessed be He, said: Let something that did not produce fruit, i.e., a heifer that has not given birth, come and have its neck be broken at a stream that flows forcefully, which is a place that does not produce fruit, and atone for the murder of one who was not given an opportunity to produce fruit.

The Gemara asks: What is this fruit that he was not given an opportunity to produce? If we say it refers to being fruitful and multiplying, i.e., that the killer prevented him from having more children, but if that is so, in the case of an elderly person or a eunuch, so too will you say that we do not break the heifer’s neck because they could not have had any more children even had they lived? Rather, the fruit are mitzvot, as the killer deprived the victim of the opportunity to perform additional mitzvot.

The Elders of that city would then wash their hands in water in the place of the breaking of the neck of the heifer, and they would recite: “Our hands did not spill this blood, nor did our eyes see” (Deuteronomy 21:7). The mishna explains: But did it enter our minds that the Elders of the court are spillers of blood, that they must make such a declaration? Rather, they mean to declare that the victim did not come to us and then we let him take his leave without food, and we did not see him and then leave him alone to depart without accompaniment. They therefore attest that they took care of all his needs and are not responsible for his death even indirectly.

(7) And they shall make this declaration: “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done. (8) Absolve, ה', Your people Israel whom You redeemed, and do not let guilt for the blood of the innocent remain among Your people Israel.” And they will be absolved of bloodguilt.

This he took from them and cast in a mold, and made it into a molten calf. And they exclaimed, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!”

It is, therefore, necessary for every man to behold himself throughout the whole year in a light of being evenly balanced between innocence and guilt, and look upon the entire world as if evenly balanced between innocence and guilt; thus, if he commit one sin, he will overbalance himself and the whole world to the side of guilt, and be a cause of its destruction; but if he perform one duty, behold, he will overbalance himself and the whole world to the side of virtue, and bring about his own and their salvation and escape, even as it is said: "But the righteous is an everlasting foundation" (Prov. 10. 25), it is he, by whose righteousness he overbalanced the whole world to virtue and saved it.