John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Deuteronomy 17:9
Thou shalt come unto the priests, the Levites ,.... The priests that are of the tribe of Levi, as the Targum of Jonathan, and so Jarchi; for Aben Ezra says there are priests that are not of the genealogy of Levi; such there were indeed in Jeroboam's time, 1 Kings 12:31 . Maimonides F6 Hilchot Sanhedrin, c. 2. sect. 2. observes, that it is ordered that there should be in the great sanhedrim priests and Levites, as it is said: "and thou shalt come unto the priests, and the judge that... read more
Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Deuteronomy 17:8-13
Courts of judgment were ordered to be erected in every city (Deut. 16:18), and they were empowered to hear and determine causes according to law, both those which we call pleas of the crown and those between party and party; and we may suppose that ordinarily they ended the matters that were brought before them, and their sentence was definitive; but, 1. It is here taken for granted that sometimes a case might come into their court too difficult for those inferior judges to determine, who... read more