Deuteronomy 19:14 - Meaning and Application

Here is a law meant to prevent fraud and perjury. God’s law cares about people’s rights and property, and it puts a protective hedge around them. In that way, it is a great friend to human society and to civil peace.

First, there is a law against fraud in Deuteronomy 19:14. It gives an implied instruction to the first settlers of Canaan to fix land boundaries according to how the land was divided among the tribes and families by lot. God wants each person to know what belongs to them, and he wants every fair means used to stop people from trespassing or suffering wrong. Once a right is settled, care must be taken not to unsettle it again, and to avoid disputes if possible.

The law also gives a direct command to later generations not to move those boundary markers once they had been set. By doing so, a person could secretly take what belonged to a neighbor. This is clearly a moral command, and it still binds us. It forbids invading another person’s rights and taking what is not ours through fraud, whether by forging, hiding, destroying, or changing deeds and written records, which serve as our boundary markers in legal matters. It also forbids shifting hedges, boundary stones, and borders. Even if people set those marks with their own hands, anyone who moved them was still a thief before God. Let each person be content with his own portion and fair with his neighbors, and then no one will be tempted to move the boundary lines.

It also forbids stirring up trouble between neighbors and doing anything that leads to conflict or lawsuits. That happens when people blur the very things that should settle disputes and end arguments. And it forbids breaking into the settled order of civil government or changing old customs without good reason. This law supports the honor of long-standing custom. As the old saying puts it, custom becomes law.

Second, there is a law against perjury, which means speaking falsehood under oath. It sets out two main rules. No single witness was ever to be accepted in a criminal case so that a sentence would rest on his word alone, as in Deuteronomy 19:15. This was already stated in Numbers 35:30 and again in Deuteronomy 17:6. It protected the accused, whose life and honor should not be left to the mercy of one person who might bear him a grudge. It also warned the accuser not to make a charge he could not support with another witness.

This law also shows how untrustworthy mankind is by nature. In that sense, every person is viewed with caution. At the same time, it honors God’s grace, because the testimony about his Son is confirmed in heaven and on earth by three witnesses (1 John 5:7). Let God be true and every human being a liar (Romans 3:4).

If a false witness came forward, that person was to receive the same punishment that would have been given to the accused. If two, three, or many witnesses joined in false testimony, all of them were liable under this law. The injured person, or the one brought into danger by the false charge, would normally bring the case, as in Deuteronomy 19:17. Yet if a man had already been put to death on false evidence, and the truth later came out, anyone could bring the false witness to account, including the judges themselves in their official duty.

Cases like this, which were especially hard to judge, were to go before the highest court, the priests and judges who stood before the Lord. Other judges sat at the gates of their cities, but these sat at the gate of the sanctuary, as in Deuteronomy 17:12. Great care had to be taken in the trial, as in Deuteronomy 19:18. The judges were to investigate the people involved and every detail of the case, comparing all the circumstances so that the truth could be found. Where people seek the truth honestly and fairly, God’s providence may be expected to help bring it to light.

If it appeared that a man had knowingly and maliciously given false witness against his neighbor, then even if his plan had not succeeded, he was to suffer the very penalty his testimony would have brought on the other man, as in Deuteronomy 19:19. No law could be more just. If the crime he accused the other man of deserved death, the false witness was to die. If it called for lashes, he was to be beaten. If it called for a fine, he was to pay the fine.

Some might think this too severe for a few spoken words, especially if no real harm came from them. So the law adds, “Your eye shall not pity” (Deuteronomy 19:21). No human mercy needs to go beyond God’s mercy. The public good that comes from such strict justice will fully repay it. “Those who remain” will hear and fear (Deuteronomy 19:20). When people see the trapmaker fall into the pit he dug, such punishments warn others not to attempt the same evil.