Deuteronomy 25:3

Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed,.... And that this number might not be exceeded, it is ordered by the Jewish canons that only thirty nine should be given; for it is asked (b), "with how

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.

Not exceed: it seems not superstition, but prudent caution, when the Jews would not exceed thirty-nine stripes, , lest through mistake or forgetfulness or eagerness they should go beyond their bounds, which they were commanded to keep, but they were not obliged to go to the utmost extent of them. Thy brother, who, though faulty and chastised, yet still is thy brother by nation, and probably by religion too. Should seem vile unto thee, i.e. should be made contemptible to his brethren, either by this cruel usage of him, as if he were a slave or brute beast; or by the deformity or infirmity of body which excessive beating might produce.

Deuteronomy 25:3 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.Ver. 3. Should seem vile unto thee.] There is an honour due to all men, and though we must hate the sin, yet not the sinner.

XXV. Deuteronomy 25:1-3. IN .(1) They shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked.—“I will not justify the wicked” (Exodus 23:7). “He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 17:15). It should be noticed that justify is here used forensically, not meaning to make righteous, but to treat as righteous. Those who object to this sense in St. Paul’s Epistles, will find it hard to put any other sense upon the word in the rest of Holy Scripture. (2) If the wicked man be worthy to be beaten.—Literally, a son of beating, or of Haccôth, according to the Hebrew. The treatise called Maccôth, in the Talmud, describes the infliction of the punishment in later times, when “of the Jews five times” St. Paul “received forty stripes save one.” The details have been described by Canon Farrar in an appendix to his Life of St. Paul.Shall cause him to lie down.—The Talmud interprets the position as not sitting nor standing, nor exactly lying, but with the body inclined. Before his face.—This is interpreted as on the front of his body. The thirty-nine stripes were given thirteen on one shoulder, thirteen on the other, and thirteen on the breast. (3) Forty stripes.—The Talmud says that they considered first what a man could bear, and flogged him according to their estimate. In some cases, if the whole punishment could not be administered at once, it was divided. It is contemplated as possibly fatal, however. Lest . . . thy brother should seem vile unto thee.—The punishment was not considered to be any degradation, after it had been inflicted. It was inflicted in the synagogue, and the law was read mean while from Deuteronomy 28:58-59, with one or two other passages. (4) Thou shalt not muzzle the ox.—We have a comment on these words from St. Paul in two places (1 Corinthians 9:9, and 1 Timothy 5:18). It is not only written for the sake of the oxen, but to prove that the “labourer is worthy of his hire;” “they that preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel.”

Verse 3. Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed] According to God's institution a criminal may receive forty stripes; not one more! But is the institution from above or not, that for any offence sentences a man to receive three hundred, yea, a thousand stripes? What horrible brutality is this! and what a reproach to human nature, and to the nation in which such shocking barbarities are exercised and tolerated! Most of the inhabitants of Great Britain have heard of Lord Macartney's embassy to the emperor of China, and they have also heard of its complete failure; but they have not heard the cause. It appears to have been partly occasioned by the following circumstance: A soldier had been convicted of some petty traffic with one of the natives, and he was sentenced by a court-martial to receive sixty lashes! Hear my author: - "The soldiers were drawn up in form in the outer court of the place where we resided; and the poor culprit, being fastened to one of the pillars of the great portico, received his punishment without mitigation. The abhorrence excited in the breasts of the Chinese at this cruel conduct, as it appeared to them, was demonstrably proved by their words and looks. They expressed their astonishment that a people professing the mildest, the most benevolent religion on earth, as they wished to have it believed, could be guilty of such flagrant inattention to its merciful dictates. One of the principal Mandarins, who knew a little English, expressed the general sentiment, Englishmen too much cruel, too much bad." - Accurate account of Lord Macartney's Embassy to China, by an attendant on the embassy, l2mo., 1797, p. 88. The following is Mr. Ainsworth's note on this verse: "This number forty the Scripture uses sundry times in cases of humiliation, affliction, and punishment. As Moses twice humbled himself in fasting and prayer forty days and forty nights, Deuteronomy 9:9; Deuteronomy 9:18. Elijah fasted forty days, 1Kg 19:8; and our Saviour, Matthew 4:2. Forty years Israel was afflicted in the wilderness for their sins, Numbers 14:33-34. And forty years Egypt was desolate for treacherous dealing with Israel, Ezekiel 29:11-13. Forty days every woman was in purification for her uncleanness for a man-child that she bare, and twice forty days for a woman-child, Leviticus 12:4-5. Forty days and forty nights it rained at Noah's flood, Genesis 7:12. Forty days did Ezekiel bear the iniquity of the house of Judah, Ezekiel 4:6. Jonah preached, Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown, Jonah 3:4. Forty years' space the Canaanites had to repent after Israel came out of Egypt, and wandered so many years in the wilderness, Numbers 14:33. And thrice forty years the old world had Noah preaching unto them repentance, Genesis 6:3. It was forty days ere Christ ascended into heaven after his resurrection, Acts 1:3; Acts 1:9. And forty years' space he gave unto the Jews, from the time that they killed him, before he destroyed their city and temple by the Romans.

3. Forty stripes] By later law the number was fixed at ‘forty less one’ (Mishna,’ Makkoth,’ Deuteronomy 3:10 ff., cp. 2 Corinthians 11:24, Josephus, IV. Antt. viii. 21, 23) they were now inflicted with a lash. Ḫ ?ammurabi decrees in one case ‘sixty blows of an ox-hide scourge’ (§ 202). thy brother should seem vile unto thee] Rather, be dishonoured (Deuteronomy 27:16), publicly (lit. to thine eyes). To give him the due punishment of his crime (Deuteronomy 25:2) was not to take away his honour as a brother, i.e. Israelite; but to flog him indiscriminately was to treat him like an animal.

The Jews to keep within the letter of the law fixed 39 stripes as the maximum (compare the marginal reference.).

3. Forty stripes he may give — The rabbins fixed the number at forty save one, for fear of the letter of the law being transgressed.