You shall make judges and officers in all your gates, which Yahweh your God gives you, according to your tribes; and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.
To appoint judges and enforcement officers in every city
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
שֹׁפְטִים וְשֹׁטְרִים תִּתֶּן־לְךָ בְּכָל־שְׁעָרֶיךָ אֲשֶׁר יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לְךָ לִשְׁבָטֶיךָ וְשָׁפְטוּ אֶת־הָעָם מִשְׁפַּט־צֶדֶק
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
היא שצונו למנות שופטים ושוטרים שיכריחו לעשות מצות התורה ויחזירו את הנוטים מדרך האמת אליה על כרחם ויצוו לעשות טוב ויחזרו מהרע ויעמידו הגדרים על העובר עד שלא יהיו מצות התורה ואזהרותיה נדונות לפי אמונת כל איש. ומתנאי מצוה זו שיהיו השופטים האלו מדרגה למעלה ממדרגה וזו כשיתמנו בכל עיר שלשה ועשרים דיינין מקובצין כלם במקום אחד בשער העיר שהיא ראויה למספר הזה ואלו הן סנהדרי קטנה ויתמנו בירושלים בית דין הגדול משבעים דיינין ויתמנה אחד על אלו השבעים והוא ראש ישיבה והוא שקראוהו חכמים נשיא גם כן ויהיו כלם מקובצים במקום אחד מיוחד להם, ועיר שאנשיה מועטין שאינה ראויה לסנהדרי קטנה יתמנו בה שלשה לעשות הדינין הקטנים והדבר הקשה יביאו למי שלמעלה מהם והם ימנו שוטרים נוגשים בעם יסבבו בעיר בשוקים וברחובות ויביטו עניני העם בעסקיהם עד שלא יעשו עול אפילו בדבר מועט. והצווי שבא במצוה זו הוא אמרו שופטים ושוטרים תתן לך בכל שעריך. ולשון ספרי מנין שממנין בית דין תלמוד לומר שופטים ושוטרים ומנין שממנין אחד על כלם תלמוד לומר תתן לך ומנין שממנין בית דין לכל שבט ושבט להיות דן את שבטו תלמוד לומר לשבטיך ושפטו את העם על כרחם. וכבר נכפל הצווי הזה למנות שבעים זקנים, והוא אמרו יתעלה אספה לי שבעים איש ואמרו כל מקום שנאמר לי הרי הוא קיים כמו וכהנו לי כלומר שהוא דבר מתמיד ואינה מצוה לפי שעה אבל הוא ראוי ומחוייב לדורי דורות. ודע אלו המנויין כלם כלומר סנהדרי גדולה וקטנה ובית דין של שלשה וזולתם מן המנויין אמנם יהיו כלם בארץ ישראל וכשנתקיימה הסמיכה בארץ ישראל אז אפשר לסמוכים ההם שישפטו בארץ ובחוצה לארץ אבל לא ידונו דיני נפשות לא בארץ ולא בחוצה לארץ אלא אם כן היה בית הבחירה עומד כמו שבארנו בפתיחת המאמר. ולשון ספרי באמרו מכה נפש בשגגה והיו אלה לכם אמרו בכל מושבותיכם בחוצה לארץ יכול אף ערי מקלט יהיו נוהגות בחוצה לארץ תלמוד לומר אלה אלה הדינין נוהגין בין בארץ בין בחוצה לארץ וערי מקלט אינן נוהגות אלא בארץ. וכבר התבארו משפטי מצוה זו כלם בסנהדרין. (הלכות סנהדרין פ"א):
That is that He commanded us to appoint judges and officers to force the implementation of the Torah's commandments and to bring those inclining away from the true path back towards it. And they will command to do the good and to come back from evil and will establish fences for the transgressor, such that the commandments and prohibitions of the Torah will not be decided according to the beliefs of each individual. And from the stipulations of this commandment is that these judges be one level above another. And that is when twenty-three judges are appointed in every city, all of them gathering in one place, in the gate of the city which is fit for this number. And these are the minor Sanhedrins. And the Great Court in Jerusalem is appointed of seventy judges. And one [judge] is appointed over these seventy, and he is the head of the yeshiva; and he is the one that the Sages also called the Nassi. And they are all gathered in one place designated for them. And a city with few inhabitants which is not fit for a minor Sanhedrin must appoint three [judges] to administer the minor laws; and the complicated matter they bring to the [court] above them. And they appoint officers [that] supervise the people. They go around the city, in the marketplaces and the streets, and observe the actions of the people in their carrying forth - until no injustice is done, even in a small matter. And the statement in which the commandment appears is His saying, "Judges and officers shall you appoint for yourself in all of your gates" (Deuteronomy 16:18). And the language of the Sifrei (Sifrei Devarim 144:1-4) is, "From where [do we know] that we appoint a court [...]? [Hence] we learn to say, 'Judges [and officers…].' [...] And from where [do we know] that we appoint one over all of them? [Hence] we learn to say, 'shall you appoint for yourself.' [...] And from where [do we know] that we appoint a court for each tribe? [Hence] we learn to say, 'for your tribes.' [...] 'and they shall judge the people' - [even] against their will." And this command of appointing seventy elders has already been repeated; and that is His, may He be exalted, saying, "Gather for Me seventy men" (Numbers 11:16). And they said (Sifrei Bamidbar 92:1), "Wherever 'for Me,' is stated, it surely endures [forever]; like [with the priests], 'that they minister for Me' (Shemot 28:41)." That means to say it is not a temporary commandment, but it is [intrinsically] fitting, and obligatory for all generations. And you should know that all of these appointments - meaning great Sanhedrins, minor Sanhedrins, courts of three and other appointments - are indeed done in the Land of Israel. And when there is ordination in the Land of Israel, it is then possible for those ordained to judge in the Land and outside of the Land. But they may not judge capital cases - whether in the Land or outside of the Land - unless the Chosen [Temple] is standing, as we explained at the beginning of the essay. And the language of the Sifrei (Sifrei Zuta, brought in Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 788:12) about His saying [about] one who smites a soul inadvertently, "Such shall be for you," saying, "in all your settlements" - "perhaps the cities of refuge should also be practiced outside the Land of Israel. [Hence] we learn to say, 'these.' These judges practice whether in the Land or outside the Land. But cities of refuge are only practiced in the Land." And the regulations of this commandment have already all been explained in Sanhedrin. (See Mishneh Torah, The Sanhedrin and the Penalties within their Jurisdiction 1)
Hebrew: Sefer HaMitzvot, Warsaw 1883 (public domain). English: Sefaria Edition, trans. Rabbi Francis Nataf, 2021 (CC0). Via Sefaria; translator’s footnotes omitted.
Literary form: a flat, unconditional command
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
- Recorded as practiced today
Classical halakhic consequences
The consequences the classical halakhah attaches to this commandment, grouped by who imposes them. Where a category has none recorded, that absence is itself meaningful.
Imposed by a court
No court-imposed penalty is recorded.
At the hands of Heaven
No divinely-imposed consequence is recorded.
Ritual remedy
No ritual remedy is recorded.
How the streams of Judaism treat this commandment
The streams of Judaism read the same commandment differently — an ongoing plurality, not a ranking. Each position below is reported as the catalog records it; none is presented as the correct one.
- Orthodox Binding, with modification
- Conservative Binding, with modification
- Reform Kept as an ethical principle
- Reconstructionist Kept as an ethical principle
- Karaite Binding
24 of 613 commandments have been examined in depth so far — this one is queued.
How later traditions received this commandment
How later traditions read or reworked this commandment, each attributed to its own voice. The catalog’s own classification of each reception is shown as it records it, never adopted as GEBible’s.
Qumran (the Dead Sea Scrolls)
- 11QTemple (11Q19) LI:11-18 The catalog describes this reception as: paraphrase with intensification
- CD 10:4-10 The catalog describes this reception as: halakhic specification (judicial qualifications)
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 4.169-175 rationalized it
Josephus
- Ant. 4.214 expanded it homiletically
Beside the older legal codes of its world
The commandment set beside the ancient Near-Eastern legal collections scholars compare it to — a descriptive comparison, not a claim of dependence.
- code of hammurabi penalty for a judge who alters his own sealed verdict (judicial integrity enforced by the state); a comparative datum on judicial accountability, not on the source of judicial appointment Relationship to the parallel: shared theme §5 Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (Scholars Press, 1997)
- code of hammurabi Hammurabi appointed by Shamash as supreme judge to establish justice in the land; judicial authority flows from the king, not from a communal mandate to appoint local courts in every city Relationship to the parallel: polemical contrast Prologue (col. i 1 – col. v 24) Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (Scholars Press, 1997)
Where this commandment meets modern human-rights frameworks
One modern normative lens, attributed to it — not GEBible’s assessment. Each row names the framework it measures against and the catalog’s own classification of the relation.
This framework catalogues tensions; it records agreement in only one of its entries. The near-total tension rate is the shape of the instrument, not a finding.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as a substantive tension.
The commandment envisions a mandatory, publicly funded judiciary administering Torah law in every settlement — a system in which religious law functions as the law of the state; secular liberal democratic constitutionalism requires the separation of religious and civic legal authority, treating a Torah-law court system with coercive jurisdiction as an establishment of religion incompatible with the neutrality principle.