Deuteronomy 12:5

12:5 But you must seek only the place he ¹  chooses from all your tribes to establish his name as his place of residence, ²  and you must go there.

Deuteronomy 19:17

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.

Psalms 122:4-5

122:4 The tribes go up ⁴  there, ⁵ 

the tribes of the Lord,

where it is required that Israel

give thanks to the name of the Lord. ⁶ 

122:5 Indeed, ⁷  the leaders sit ⁸  there on thrones and make legal decisions,

on the thrones of the house of David. ⁹ 

¹ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

² tc Some scholars, on the basis of v. 11, emend the MT reading שִׁכְנוֹ (shikhno, “his residence”) to the infinitive construct לְשָׁכֵן (lÿshakhen, “to make [his name] to dwell”), perhaps with the 3rd person masculine singular sf לְשַׁכְּנוֹ (lÿshakÿno, “to cause it to dwell”). Though the presupposed nounשֵׁכֶן (shekhen) is nowhere else attested, the parallel here with שַׁמָּה (shammah, “there”) favors retaining the MT as it stands.

³ tn The appositional construction (“before the Lord, that is, before the priests and judges”) indicates that these human agents represented the Lord himself, that is, they stood in his place (cf. Deut 16:18-20; 17:8-9).

⁴ tn Or “went up.”

⁵ tn Heb “which is where the tribes go up.”

⁶ tn Heb “[it is] a statute for Israel to give thanks to the name of the Lord.”

⁷ tn Or “for.”

⁸ tn Or “sat.”

⁹ tn Heb “Indeed, there they sit [on] thrones for judgment, [on] thrones [belonging] to the house of David.”