Do Not Fear to Render Judgment
The Commandment Against Judicial Cowardice
Deut 1:17: “You shall not be partial in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be intimidated by anyone (lo taguru mipnei ish), for the judgment is God's.” Gur (גּוּר) means to fear, to shrink from, or to be intimidated. A judge who hesitates to rule correctly because they fear the reaction of a powerful litigant has violated this commandment — not through an incorrect verdict but through an incorrect internal posture.
The prohibition is precise in its scope. It does not target general fearfulness; it targets the specific fear of a human party that distorts judicial conduct. A judge may be afraid of many things without violating Deut 1:17. But fear that causes them to delay a ruling, soften a verdict, avoid a confrontation, or otherwise let the anticipated reaction of a powerful person shape their judicial output — that is the lo tagur this verse prohibits. The specification “mipnei ish” (before a person/man) names the object: it is human social threat, not divine accountability, that the judge must not fear.
Courage as a Judicial Qualification
Deut 1:15: “So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and set them as heads over you — commanders of thousands, commanders of hundreds, commanders of fifties, commanders of tens, and officers for your tribes.” Deut 1:17 is Moses's charge to these same men. The formal appointment was followed by the explicit requirement not to fear. Courage, in other words, was not assumed to be present among the wise — it needed to be commanded and cultivated.
Ex 18:21: Jethro's formulation of the same requirement adds the positive complement: judges must be men who “fear God and hate dishonest gain.” Fear of God is the antidote to fear of humans. A judge who genuinely fears God — who understands that they are standing before a divine standard — cannot simultaneously fear the powerful litigant in front of them without creating an irresolvable conflict of loyalties. The Torah resolves this conflict structurally: by making God-fear a prerequisite for appointment, it displaces the human-fear that would otherwise corrupt the court.
Escalation, Not Silence — The Torah's Answer to Hard Cases
The verse does not leave judges without recourse when cases are genuinely difficult. Deut 1:17: “And the case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.” The Torah distinguishes between two situations: the judge who knows the right ruling but fears to deliver it (violation of lo tagur), and the judge who genuinely does not know how to rule (occasion for escalation). The permitted response to genuine uncertainty is referral to a higher court — not delay, not silence, not a verdict driven by fear of whichever party seems stronger.
This escalation clause is itself a form of judicial courage. Acknowledging that a case exceeds your capacity and sending it upward requires the same freedom from ego and social pressure that the lo tagur prohibition demands. The judge who fears a powerful party might pretend the case is simple to avoid the appearance of weakness. The Torah's system creates legitimate exits from hard cases precisely so that fear of the difficult is not the reason a judge gives an easy verdict to the wrong party.
- Moses — Deut 1:17: both the one who gave the charge to appointed judges and the one to whom hard cases were escalated. Moses embodies the two poles of judicial courage: the courage to rule and the humility to receive cases others cannot resolve.
- Jethro — Ex 18:21: framed the qualification for judges as “men who fear God and hate dishonest gain.” His formulation identifies the psychological foundation of lo tagur: God-fear displaces human-fear by giving the judge a higher loyalty that overrides social pressure.
- The Powerful Litigant — Deut 1:17: the “ish” (person/man) in the prohibition. Their power creates the temptation; the Torah names the temptation explicitly so that the judge who feels it knows they are at the exact point where lo tagur applies.
Read the source passage in the Torah reader.
Read in the Torah Reader — Deuteronomy 1:17