CHAPTER 25

(1451 B.C.)

SCOURGING

¹If 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 (wickedness must not be condoned).

²And 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.

³Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed: lest, if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then your brother should seem vile unto you (forty is Gods probationary number; however, such punishment was to be rendered by the Judge, and not at all by individuals taking the law into their own hands).

CARE OF BEASTS

⁴You shall not muzzle the ox when he treads out the corn. (The Expositors say, The leaving of the ox unmuzzled when treading out the grain was in order that the animal might be free to eat of the grain which its labor severed from the husk. This prohibition, therefore, was dictated by a regard for the rights and claims of animals employed in labor; but there is involved in it the general principle that all labor is to be duly requited, whether by animal or man; hence, Paul used this very Verse to proclaim the necessity of supporting the Work of God [I Cor. 9:9].)

FAMILIES

⁵If 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 husbands brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husbands brother unto her (that is, if he was not already married, or if the woman had no children).

⁶And it shall be, that the firstborn which she bears shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel (shall be enrolled in the family register as heir of the deceased, and shall perpetuate his name; this had to do with the fact that the Messiah would come from a certain family in Israel, hence each family was to be kept intact as far as possible).

⁷And if the man like not to take his brothers wife, then let his brothers wife go up to the gate unto the Elders, and say, My husbands brother refuses to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of my husbands brother.

⁸Then 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;

⁹Then shall his brothers 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 who will not build up his brothers house.

¹⁰And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him who has his shoe loosed (an example of this is found in Gen., Chpt. 38, even long before the Law was given).

ASSAULT AND BATTERY

¹¹When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draws near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him who smites him, and puts forth her hand, and takes him by the secrets (shall not induce such pain by bruising the testicles, which could make the man impotent):

¹²Then you shall cut off her hand, your eye shall not pity her.

JUST WEIGHTS AND MEASURES

¹³You shall not have in your bag divers weights, a great and a small.

¹⁴You shall not have in your house divers measures, a great and a small.

¹⁵But you shall have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shall you have: that your days may be lengthened in the land which the LORD your God gives you.

¹⁶For all who do such things, and all who do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the LORD your God (honesty in all things).

AMALEK

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

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

¹⁹Therefore it shall be, when the LORD your God has given you rest from all your enemies round about, in the land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance to possess it, that you shall blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget it. (Amalek was to be utterly destroyed; not so the Egyptian. The Egyptian pictures man, as such; the Amalekite, man as the willing agent of evil. This means that the attitude of the Christian toward ordinary men of the world is necessarily different from that towards the willing and determined enemies of goodness and justice.

God Who condemned Amalek to utter extinction was the very same God Who tenderly sheltered the little bird of Verse 22:6. The same God appeared in flesh, and in Luke 12:5-6 taught that the hand that upholds the little sparrow also thrusts wicked men into Hell. As well, Amalek, in Biblical typology, is a type of the flesh, which must be eradicated in the hearts and lives of Believers. This can be done only by the Believer placing his Faith exclusively in Christ and the Cross, which then gives the Holy Spirit latitude to work in our lives, Who Alone can perform this task [Rom. 6:3-14; Gal., Chpt. 5].)