18 Appoint judges and officers, organized by tribes, in all the towns that God, your God, is giving you. They are to judge the people fairly and honestly. 19 Don't twist the law. Don't play favorites. Don't take a bribe - a bribe blinds even a wise person; it undermines the intentions of the best of people. 20 The right! The right! Pursue only what's right! It's the only way you can really live and possess the land that God, your God, is giving you. 21 Don't plant fertility Asherah trees alongside the Altar of God, your God, that you build. 22 Don't set up phallic sex pillars - God, your God, hates them.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Deuteronomy 16:18-22
Commentary on Deuteronomy 16:18-22
(Read Deuteronomy 16:18-22)
Care is taken for the due administration of justice. All personal regards must be laid aside, so that right is done to all, and wrong to none. Care is taken to prevent following the idolatrous customs of the heathen. Nothing belies God more, or tends more to corrupt the minds of men, than representing and worshipping, by an image, that God, who is an almighty and eternal Spirit, present every where. Alas! even in gospel days, and under a better dispensation, established upon better promises, there is a tendency to set up idols, under one form or another, in the human heart.