Deuteronomy 25:1

Here we have a total of six paragraphs on:

(1) limiting the infliction of corporal punishment as a legal penalty (Deuteronomy 25:1-3);

(2) muzzling the ox on the threshing floor (Deuteronomy 25:4);

(3) rules regarding Levirate marriage (Deuteronomy 25:5-10);

(4) a special law regarding wrestling (Deuteronomy 25:11,12);

(5) the law against crooked weights and measures (Deuteronomy 25:13-16);

(6) God's order calling for the extermination of the Amalekites (Deuteronomy 25:17-19).

Of special interest in the chapter is the last paragraph containing the Divine instructions to destroy Amalek. It is amusing that Watts wondered, "What practical meaning this section could have had for later generations when the Amalekites no longer existed!"[1] Of course, such instructions would seem totally inexplicable to any liberal who receives the false notion that Deuteronomy was written long after the Amalekites had disappeared from the earth. The true answer to such a puzzle lies squarely in the fact that Moses wrote Deuteronomy at a time when Amalek was indeed a powerful and terrible enemy of Israel, fully deserving the ban here placed upon them by God's specific order. (See more on this subject under Deuteronomy 25:17-19.)

"If there be a controversy between two men, and they come unto judgment, and the judges judge them; then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked. 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 wickedness, by number. Forty stripes he may give him, he shall not exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee."

The purpose of this law is clearly that of restraining the unmerciful, brutal, and often fatal beatings inflicted upon offenders throughout many of the ancient nations of that era, savage practices that have continued into modern times in places like China and Turkey. The Jews themselves, after the manner of strict observance of the letter and total disregard of the spirit of God's laws, made a mockery of this. The purpose of the law is dearly that of restricting such beatings, which were never to exceed 40 stripes, but note that this was the maximum, not the standard penalty for any offence. The judges were supposed to assign such punishments "by number" (Deuteronomy 25:2), indicating that penalties, of five, ten, fifteen or even fewer stripes could be assigned as penalties; but there is no record of where any Jewish judge ever assigned less than the maximum. In 2 Corinthians 11:24, Paul was punished "five times" with "forty stripes save one." Furthermore, there was nothing to prevent the sadistic judges from assigning penalties for two or more offences to be administered simultaneously, thus enabling them to beat offenders to death just exactly like the pagans all around them. One cannot help but wonder if Paul received all of those beatings on a single occasion. "Such barbarous beatings were sometimes fatal."[2]

The restrictions here were indeed an improvement over customs such as those in the Code of Hammurabi, for example, where "sixty stripes" were the penalty[3] for minor offences. Also, as Wright pointed out, "Here, beating could be done only after trial and sentence,"[4] and then it had to done in the presence of a judge, and the prisoner was further protected by being punished lying down (presumably face down) to protect eyes and private parts.

To us it appears that the custom of compelling the sufferer to listen to readings from the Sacred Scriptures while his punishment was being inflicted was just about the most dreadful and insulting part of the whole procedure. Dummelow states that the passages read during beatings were Deuteronomy 28:58,59, and Psalms 78:38.[5]

Reference to the two men in controversy as the "wicked" and the "righteous" hardly conveys the true status of the contenders. Orlinsky gave the correct translation of the terms here as "the innocent" and "the guilty."[6]

The further refinement of language entitles such contenders today to the designations of "plaintiff" and "defendant."