---
title: "Clarke"
description: "Verse Deuteronomy 25:1. They shall justify the righteous — This is a very important passage, and is a key to several others. The word צדק tsadak is used h"
image: "/images/missing.jpg"
url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/commentaries/clarkes-commentary/deuteronomy/25"
---

Verse [Deuteronomy 25:1](../../../kjv/deuteronomy/25/1). ***They shall justify the righteous*** — This is a very important passage, and is a key to several others. The word צדק *tsadak* is used here precisely in the same sense in which St. Paul sometimes uses the corresponding word δικαιοω, not to *justify* or make *just*, but to *acquit, declare innocent*, to *remit punishment*, or *give reasons why such a one should not be punished*; so here the magistrates הצדיקו *hitsdiku, shall acquit*, the righteous-declare him innocent, because he is found to be *righteous* and not *wicked*: so the Septuagint: και δικαιωσουσιν τον δικαιον *they shall make righteous the righteous*-declare him free from blame, not liable to punishment, acquitted; using the same word with St. Paul when he speaks of a sinner's justification, i. e., his acquittance from blame and punishment, because of the death of Christ in his stead.

Verse [Deuteronomy 25:2](../../../kjv/deuteronomy/25/2). ***The judge shall cause him to lie down, and to be**********beaten before his face*** — This precept is literally followed in China; the culprit receives in the presence of the magistrate the punishment which the law directs to be inflicted. Thus then *justice* is done, for the magistrate sees that the letter of the law is duly fulfilled, and that the officers do not transgress it, either by *indulgence* on the one hand, or *severity* on the other. The culprit receives nothing more nor less than what *justice* requires.

Verse [Deuteronomy 25:3](../../../kjv/deuteronomy/25/3). ***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](../../../kjv/deuteronomy/9/9); [Deuteronomy 9:18](../../../kjv/deuteronomy/9/18). *Elijah* fasted forty days, [1 Kings 19:8](../../../kjv/1-kings/19/8); and our Saviour, [Matthew 4:2](../../../kjv/matthew/4/2). Forty years *Israel* was afflicted in the wilderness for their sins, [Numbers 14:33-34](../../../kjv/numbers/14/33-34). And forty years *Egypt* was desolate for treacherous dealing with Israel, [Ezekiel 29:11-13](../../../kjv/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](../../../kjv/leviticus/12/4-5). Forty days and forty nights it rained at Noah's flood, [Genesis 7:12](../../../kjv/genesis/7/12). Forty days did *Ezekiel* bear the iniquity of the house of *Judah*, [Ezekiel 4:6](../../../kjv/ezekiel/4/6). *Jonah* preached, *Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown*, [Jonah 3:4](../../../kjv/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](../../../kjv/numbers/14/33). And thrice forty years the old world had Noah preaching unto them repentance, [Genesis 6:3](../../../kjv/genesis/6/3). It was forty days ere Christ ascended into heaven after his resurrection, [Acts 1:3](../../../kjv/acts/1/3); [Acts 1:9](../../../kjv/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.
"By the Hebrews this law is expounded thus: *How many* stripes *do* *they beat* (an offender) *with*? With forty, lacking one: as it is written, ([Deuteronomy 25:2](../../../kjv/deuteronomy/25/2); [Deuteronomy 25:3](../../../kjv/deuteronomy/25/3),) *by number forty*, that is, the number which is next to forty, *Talmud Bab*, in *Maccoth*, chap. iii. This their understanding is very ancient, for so they practised in the apostles' days; as Paul testified: *Of the Jews five times received I forty* (stripes) *save* *one*; [2 Corinthians 11:24](../../../kjv/2-corinthians/11/24). But the reason which they give is not solid; as when they say, *If it had been written* FORTY IN NUMBER, *I would say* *it were full forty; but being written* IN NUMBER FORTY, *it means the* *number which reckons forty* next after it, that is, thirty-nine. By this exposition they confound the verses and take away the distinction. I rather think this custom was taken up by reason of the manner of their beating forespoken of, which was with a scourge that had three cords, so that every stroke was counted for three stripes, and then they could not give even forty, but either thirty-nine or forty-two, which was above the number set of God. And hereof they write thus: *When they judge* (or *condemn*) *a sinner* *to so many* (*stripes*) *as he can bear, they judge not but by strokes* *that are fit to be trebled* [that is, to give three stripes to one stroke, by reason of the three cords.] *If they judge that he can* *bear twenty, they do not say he shall be beaten with one and* *twenty, to the end that they may treble the stripes, but they give* *him eighteen*. - *Maimon* in *Sanhedrin*, chap. xvii., sec. 2. Thus he that was able to bear twenty stripes, had but eighteen: the executioner smote him but six times, for if he had smitten him the seventh they were counted one and twenty stripes, which was above the number adjudged: so he that was adjudged to forty was smitten thirteen times, which being counted one for three, make thirty-nine. And so R. *Bechaios*, writing hereof, says, *The* *strokes are trebled*; that is, every one is three, and three times thirteen are nine and thirty."
*Thy brother be vile*, or *be contemptible*. - By this God teaches us to hate and despise the sin, not the sinner, who is by this chastisement to be amended; as the power which the Lord hath given is to *edification, not to destruction*, [2 Corinthians 13:10](../../../kjv/2-corinthians/13/10).

Verse [Deuteronomy 25:4](../../../kjv/deuteronomy/25/4). ***Thou shalt not muzzle the ox, c.*** — In Judea, as well as in Egypt, Greece, and Italy, they make use of beeves to tread out the corn and Dr. Shaw tells us that the people of Barbary continue to tread out their corn after the custom of the East. Instead of beeves they frequently made use of mules and horses, by tying by the neck three or four in like manner together, and whipping them afterwards round about the *nedders*, as they call the *treading* floors, (the Libycae areae *Hor*), where the sheaves lie open and expanded, in the same manner as they are placed and prepared with us for threshing. This indeed is a much quicker way than ours, though less cleanly, for as it is performed in the open air, ([Hosea 13:3](../../../kjv/hosea/13/3)), upon any round level plot of ground, daubed over with cow's dung to prevent as much as possible the earth, sand, or gravel from rising; a great quantity of them all, notwithstanding this precaution, must unavoidably be taken up with the grain, at the same time that the straw, which is their chief and only fodder, is hereby shattered to pieces; a circumstance very pertinently alluded to in [2 Kings 13:7](../../../kjv/2-kings/13/7), where *the king of Syria* is said *to have made the Israelites like* *the dust by threshing*. - Travels, p. 138. While the oxen were at work some muzzled their mouths to hinder them from eating the corn, which Moses here forbids, instructing the people by this symbolical precept to be kind to their servants and labourers, but especially to those who ministered to them in holy things; so St. Paul applies it [1 Corinthians 9:9](../../../kjv/1-corinthians/9/9), c. [1 Timothy 5:18](../../../kjv/1-timothy/5/18). Le Clerc considers the injunction as wholly symbolical; and perhaps in this view it was intended to confirm the laws enjoined in the fourteenth and fifteenth verses of the former chapter. See *Dodd* and *Shaw*.
In *Bengal*, where the same mode of treading cut the corn is used, some muzzle the ox, and others do not, according to the disposition of the farmer.-*Ward*.

Verse [Deuteronomy 25:9](../../../kjv/deuteronomy/25/9). ***And loose his shoe*** — It is difficult to find the reason of these ceremonies of degradation. Perhaps the *shoe* was the emblem of *power*; and by *stripping it off, deprivation* of that power and authority was represented. *Spitting* in the face was a mark of the utmost ignominy; but the Jews, who are legitimate judges in this case, say that the spitting was not in his face, but *before* his face *on the ground*. And this is the way in which the Asiatics express their detestation of a person to the present day, as *Niebuhr* and other intelligent travellers assure us. It has been remarked that the prefix ב *beth* is seldom applied to פני *peney*; but when it is it signifies as well *before* as *in* the face. See [Joshua 21:44](../../../kjv/joshua/21/44); [Joshua 23:9](../../../kjv/joshua/23/9); [Esther 9:2](../../../kjv/esther/9/2); and [Ezekiel 42:12](../../../kjv/ezekiel/42/12); which texts are supposed to be proofs in point. The act of spitting, whether *in* or *before* the face, marked the strong contempt the woman felt for the man who had slighted her. And it appears that the man was ever after disgraced in Israel; for so much is certainly implied in the saying, [Deuteronomy 25:10](../../../kjv/deuteronomy/25/10): *And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath* *his shoe loosed*.

Verse [Deuteronomy 25:13](../../../kjv/deuteronomy/25/13). ***Divers weights*** — אבן ואבן *eben vaaben*, a *stone and* *a stone*, because the weights were anciently made of stone, and some had two sets of stones, a *light* and a *heavy*. With the *latter* they bought their wares, by the *former* they sold them. In our own country this was once a common case; smooth, round, or oval stones were generally chosen by the simple country people for selling their wares, especially such as were sold in *pounds* and *half* pounds. And hence the term a *stone weight*, which is still in use, though *lead* or *iron* be the matter that is used as a counterpoise: but the name itself shows us that a *stone* of a certain weight was the material formerly used as a weight. See the notes on [Leviticus 19:35-36](../../../kjv/leviticus/19/35-36).

Verse [Deuteronomy 25:14](../../../kjv/deuteronomy/25/14). ***Divers measures*** — Literally, *an ephah and an ephah*; one *large*, to buy thy neighbour's wares, another *small*, to sell thy own by. So there were *knaves* in all ages, and among all nations. [Exodus 16:16](../../../kjv/exodus/16/16); [Exodus 16:16](../../../kjv/exodus/16/16), and [Leviticus 19:35](../../../kjv/leviticus/19/35); [Leviticus 19:35](../../../kjv/leviticus/19/35).

Verse [Deuteronomy 25:18](../../../kjv/deuteronomy/25/18). ***Smote the hindmost of thee*** — [Exodus 17:8](../../../kjv/exodus/17/8). It is supposed that this command had its final accomplishment in the death of Haman and his ten sons, [Esther 3](../../../kjv/esther/3), [Esther 7](../../../kjv/esther/7), [Esther 9](../../../kjv/esther/9), as from this time the memory and name of Amalek was blotted out from under heaven, for through every period of their history it might be truly said, *They feared not God*.

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