Discovery BoxDeuteronomy 19:16-20 
Context19:16 If a false 1 witness testifies against another person and accuses him of a crime, 2 19:17 then both parties to the controversy must stand before the Lord, that is, before the priests and judges 3 who will be in office in those days. 19:18 The judges will thoroughly investigate the matter, and if the witness should prove to be false and to have given false testimony against the accused, 4 19:19 you must do to him what he had intended to do to the accused. In this way you will purge 5 evil from among you. 19:20 The rest of the people will hear and become afraid to keep doing such evil among you.
1 tn Heb “violent” (חָמָס, khamas). This is a witness whose motivation from the beginning is to do harm to the accused and who, therefore, resorts to calumny and deceit. See I. Swart and C. VanDam, NIDOTTE 2:177-80.
2 tn Or “rebellion.” Rebellion against God’s law is in view (cf. NAB “of a defection from the law”).
3 tn The appositional construction (“before the
4 tn Heb “his brother” (also in the following verse).
5 tn Heb “you will burn out” (בִּעַרְתָּ, bi’arta). Like a cancer, unavenged sin would infect the whole community. It must, therefore, be excised by the purging out of its perpetrators who, presumably, remained unrepentant (cf. Deut 13:6; 17:7, 12; 21:21; 22:21-22, 24; 24:7).
