“Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked.”
Have nothing to do with a false charge and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty. The double command — reject false charges, do not kill the innocent — protects the integrity of the judicial process from both directions. The divine sanction — I will not acquit the guilty — grounds the human obligation in the divine character: the God who is just will not overlook what human courts attempt to do unjustly. Proverbs 17:15 says acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent — the Lord detests them both. The miscarriage of justice that the law prohibits is precisely what the passion narrative records: false charges, innocent condemned, guilty released. The law of Exodus 23:7 is violated in the trial of Jesus.
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