In the text
from Qumran 11Q19 (alt. 11QTa), we read the following in column LXI:
7 . . . If a false witness should stand up against a
man to accuse him 8 of wrongdoing, the two men between whom there is
/the litigation/ shall stand before me, and before the priests and the levites,
and before 9 the
judges who will be there on those days; and the judges shall investigate. And
if it happens that a witness has given falsely testimony, falsely 10 accusing
his brother, then you shall do to him so as he intended to do to his brother;
thus shall you eradicate the evil from the your midst. 11 The
rest shall hear it and fear and not dare to do a similar bad thing /again/ in
your midst. Not 12 shall your eye take pity on him; life for life, eye
for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. (The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, eds. Florentino García Martínez
and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar [Leiden: Brill, 1997], 1283, 1285)
As we read
in a commentary on this passage:
This text, which reproduces the law of
testimony in Deut 19:15-21, addresses the case of a malicious witness (עַד חָמָס), who
deliberately makes a false declaration against the accused (לַעֲנוֹת בּוֹ סָרָה) before the high court at the sanctuary (לְפָנַי, “before me”). When the lie is uncovered during the investigation of the court, the
false witness is to receive the punishment that his testimony was intended to
bring upon the accused. (David W. Chapman and Eckhard J. Schnabel, The Trial and Crucifixion of Jesus: Texts
and Commentary [Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2019], 39, emphasis added)
One is
reminded of how Laban (falsely) accused Nephi of being, not a thief, but a
robber (1 Nephi 3:13). Why is this significant? In the Ancient Near East, being
a thief was not a capital offense, but a robber was (for a fuller discussion,
see John W. Welch, Theft
and Robbery in the Book of Mormon and Ancient Near Eastern Law). Nephi, in
slaying Laban at the command of the Spirit, can be viewed as distributing divine
justice, as if Laban was found guilty of this false witness in a court of law,
he would probably have been executed.
