1.
If 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.
2.
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 fault, by a certain number.
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.
4.
Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.
Ver. 4. Thou shalt not muzzle the ox, &c.— In Judea, as well as in Egypt, Greece, and Italy, they made 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 make use of mules and horses, by tying by the neck three or four together in like manner, 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.) upon any round level plat of ground, dawbed over with cows' 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 the straw, which is their chief and only fodder, is hereby shattered to pieces; a circumstance very pertinently alluded to, 2Ki 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 9:8-9. 1 Timothy 5:18.
5.
If 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 husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto her.
6.
And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel.
7.
And if the man like not to take his brother's wife, then let his brother's wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, My husband's brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of my husband's brother.
8.
Then 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;
9.
Then shall his brother's 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 that will not build up his brother's house.
10.
And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.
11.
When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets:
12.
Then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her.
13.
Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small.
Ver. 13. Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights— In the margin of our Bibles, a stone and a stone: so, a heart and a heart, meaneth a double and deceitful heart; 1 Chronicles 12:33. The same mode of expression is used in the 14th verse. This law teaches them to be so far from practising deceit, that they were not even to retain the instruments of it; not to have a great weight to buy with, and a small one to sell with: a method of cheating, it is to be feared, but too common in our days. See on Leviticus 19:35.
14.
Thou shalt not have in thine house divers measures, a great and a small.
15.
But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
16.
For all that do such things, and all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the LORD thy God.
17.
Remember what Amalek did unto thee by the way, when ye were come forth out of Egypt;
18.
How he met thee by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary; and he feared not God.
19.
Therefore it shall be, when the LORD thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it.
Ver. 19. Thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek— Respecting the transaction here referred to, see Exodus 17 from the 8th verse to the end. This deletion of Amalek was completed by the death of Haman the Amalekite; Esther 3:1; Esther 7:10. See the Reflections on the Destruction of the Canaanites after chap. 20:
REFLECTIONS.—A dreadful memento is put upon Amalek. He had fallen upon them as soon as they had escaped from Egypt. He had taken advantage of their weakness, and attacked them when weary with marching, and faint with thirst. He had, in a cowardly manner hung upon their rear, to pick up the hindmost, who could make no resistance; and impiously feared not the Lord, whose glory appeared so visibly at their head. For these instances of treacherous cruelty to his people, God will punish him with utter excision; and they must not forget to execute the sentence, which was done at several times by Saul and David, and finally in the time of Hezekiah, 1 Chronicles 4:43. Note; (1.) God will avenge the quarrels of his people upon their enemies; and they will be especially remembered who seek to distress or discourage the weak, and to offend his little ones who are but beginning to escape from spiritual Egypt. (2.) God's sentence is slow in the execution, but it is sure.