Deuteronomy 25:1-19 - Sutcliffe's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Bible Comments

Deuteronomy 25:5. If brethren dwell together. Not in the same house, but near each other on the ancient lot of land which the family possessed; for Moses often speaks as though the people were already fixed in the promised land.

Deuteronomy 25:7. If a man like not to take his brother's wife. With regard to loosing the shoe, the Turks in divorce, allow a woman to turn up her slipper in presence of the court, a silent intimation that her husband has separated himself from her society. The loss of the shoe was a loss of moral rank; it classed a man with the poor, who often walked barefoot.

Deuteronomy 25:11. When two men strive, having first immodestly stripped themselves naked to fight.

REFLECTIONS.

The summary way of punishing crimes not capital was wise and salutary. The offender received his punishment in presence of the magistrate. The soreness of his back would not detain him long from labour, nor would he be corrupted and made worse by long imprisonment. He usually received thirteen strokes from a leathern thong slit into three; hence the public shame would be a greater punishment than the pain of the stripes.

Compassion must extend to animals as well as men. The ox that trod a machine to thrash the corn, must not be muzzled: this would have been a crime against nature. Hence, according to St. Paul, when ministers labour hard in private studies and exercises to give food to the people, they are not to be denied the supply of their wants. If a laborious beast has claims on his master for food, ministers are not less entitled to a remuneration from the people.

We have next the injunction for a younger brother, or the next of kin, who are often called brothers in the scriptures, to marry the widow of his brother who had died without issue. This was an ancient law of the patriarchs, as appears from the case of Tamar. Genesis 38:8. It kept alive the name of his brother; it kept the families together; and preserved the lot of land entire to the same family. These were marriages of prudence, but not enforced against affection; and if God did not claim the right of doing this, no parent should assume more than God. Parents have a right to a negative; they may hinder an imprudent marriage; but to compel a child to marry against inclination, may be productive of serious consequences.

The cutting off the hand of the cruel and immodest woman, is a remarkable case in the Hebrew administration of justice. Here the judges could not follow the law of an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; but immodesty is hateful in the sight of God and man. And it surely should be the first object of female education to inspire them with delicacy, bashfulness, and all those retiring graces which are the first ornaments of the fair sex: and these are ornaments not only of inestimable value in themselves, but which every poor man may leave as a best legacy to his children.

The law of a just weight and measure is here enforced anew: a man who has recourse to those mean and sordid tricks, chiefly robs the poor, and renders his name odious to the public.

Immediately after the law of weights and measures, follows a repetition of the sentence against Amalek: the murder of the sick and feeble Israelites still cried to heaven. Exodus 17. God put that nation in his balances, and they were still found wanting. They had no repentance, no reformation, nor did they make any overtures of peace to diminish the consequences of their guilt. God had long beheld the declining balance, he had long suspended the blow; but vengeance came at last; and though slow in its approach, it was sudden and tremendous in the execution. 1 Samuel 15.

Deuteronomy 25:1-19

1 If there be a controversy between men, and they come unto judgment, that the judges may judge them; then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked.

2 And it shall be, if the wicked man be worthy to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down, and to be beaten before his face, according to his fault, by a certain number.

3 Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed: lest, if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee.

4 Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.

5 If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto her.

6 And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel.

7 And if the man like not to take his brother's wife, then let his brother's wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, My husband's brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of my husband's brother.

8 Then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak unto him: and if he stand to it, and say, I like not to take her;

9 Then shall his brother's wife come unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother's house.

10 And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.

11 When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets:

12 Then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her.

13 Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small.

14 Thou shalt not have in thine house divers measures, a great and a small.

15 But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

16 For all that do such things, and all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the LORD thy God.

17 Remember what Amalek did unto thee by the way, when ye were come forth out of Egypt;

18 How he met thee by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary; and he feared not God.

19 Therefore it shall be, when the LORD thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it.