With the beginning of a new section, Moses should be reintroduced as the speaker.

The occasion for this law is a dispute, that is, a legal controversy between two Israelites that must be settled in court by the judges (see 1.16).

Between men: it is better to say “two Israelites” (Good News Translation) or “two Israelite men.”

Decide between them: for the procedure to be followed, see similar cases in 17.8-13; 19.17-18. A more natural way of stating this is “the judges decide that one [of the two men] is guilty.” It should be understood from this that the other one is innocent.

Acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty: the Hebrew text uses two pairs of cognate phrases, that is, phrases consisting of a verb and an adjective formed from the same Hebrew root. Good News Translation combines the final two clauses as follows: “one is declared innocent and the other guilty.” We may also translate “the judges decide that one [of the two men] is guilty and the other is innocent.”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .