Deuteronomy 25:1-3. HUMANITY IN PUNISHMENTS.

(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 (1Corinthians 9:9, and 1Timothy 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.”

(1) If there be a controversy between men, and they come to judgment, and the judges judge them, and justify the righteous and condemn the wicked (compare the marginal reference. and Exodus 23:7; Proverbs 17:15);

(2) then it shall be, etc.

De 25:1-19. Stripes Must Not Exceed Forty.Judges must do justly, Deu 25:1,2. Stripes not to exceed forty, Deu 25:3. The threshing ox not to be muzzled, Deu 25:4. The duty of raising seed unto a brother, Deu 25:5-10. The punishment of an immodest woman, Deu 25:11,12. A just weight and measure, Deu 25:13-16. The memory of Amalek is to be blotted out, Deu 25:17-19.

A controversy about criminal matters, as it follows. They shall justify, i.e. acquit him from guilt and false accusations, and free him from punishment.

Condemn the wicked; declare him guilty, and pass sentence of condemnation to suitable punishments upon him.

and they come unto judgment; into a court of judicature, bring their cause thither:

that the judges may judge them; who were never less than three; the great sanhedrim at Jerusalem consisted of seventy one, the lesser court was of twenty three, and the least of all three only:

then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked: acquit the one, whose cause is good, and condemn the other to punishment, who is guilty of a crime, and as that deserves; which is to do righteous judgment; the contrary to this is an abomination to the Lord, Proverbs 17:15.

(a) Whether there is a plaintiff or not, the magistrates should try our faults, and punish according to the crime.