Later text
You are to appoint judges and officials for your tribes in every town that the LORD your God is giving you. They are to judge the people with righteous judgment.
Intertextuality Pair
Allusion
Later text
You are to appoint judges and officials for your tribes in every town that the LORD your God is giving you. They are to judge the people with righteous judgment.
Earlier text
Exodus 23:8BSB
Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the righteous.
Exodus 23:8 prohibits accepting bribes (שֹׁחַד, shochad) because a bribe "blinds those who see" (יְעַוֵּר פִּקְחִים, ye'avver piqchim), and Deuteronomy 16:18 institutionalizes this principle by commanding the appointment of judges and officials "in every town that the LORD your God is giving you," who "are to judge the people with righteous judgment." Both texts address judicial corruption, but Deuteronomy creates the administrative infrastructure—appointed judges in every town—that makes the Exodus prohibition enforceable within settled community life. The anti-bribery principle moves from a general ethical command to a foundational requirement for Israel's nascent judicial system.