_A.M. 2553. B.C. 1451._ Stripes not to exceed forty, Deuteronomy 25:1. The ox not to be muzzled, Deuteronomy 25:4. Of marrying the brother's widow, Deuteronomy 25:5. Of an immodest woman, Deuteronomy 25:11; Deuteronomy 25:12. Of just weights and measures, Deuteronomy 25:13. Amalek to be destroyed,... [ Continue Reading ]
_If there be a controversy between men_ Having made provision for the security of private right in some such remarkable cases as might be sufficient standards whereby to regulate all others, and having fixed punishments to the breach of the most capital laws, Moses now comes to such criminal matters... [ Continue Reading ]
_Worthy to be beaten_ Which the Jews say was the case of all those who had committed crimes which the law commands to be punished, without expressing the kind or degree of punishment. _Before his face_ That the punishment might be duly inflicted, without excess or defect. And from this no person's r... [ Continue Reading ]
_Forty stripes he may give him_ The law of Moses very wisely limited the number of stripes, lest severe judges should order delinquents to be lashed to death, as was often done among the Romans, than which, perhaps, a more cruel kind of death can hardly be devised. And it seems not to have been supe... [ Continue Reading ]
_When he treadeth out the corn_ Which they did in those parts, either immediately by their hoofs, or by drawing carts or other instruments over the corn. Hereby God taught them humanity, even to their beasts that served them, and much more to their servants, or other men who laboured for them, espec... [ Continue Reading ]
_If brethren dwell together_ In the same town, or, at least, country. For if the next brother had removed his habitation into remote parts, or were carried thither into captivity, then the wife of the dead had her liberty to marry the next kinsman that lived in the same place with her. _One_ Any of... [ Continue Reading ]
_Loose his shoe_ As a sign of his resignation of all his right to the woman, and to her husband's inheritance; for as the shoe was a sign of one's power and right, (Psalms 60:8; Psalms 108:9,) so the parting with the shoe was a token of the alienation of such right; and as a note of infamy, to signi... [ Continue Reading ]
_Divers weights, great and small_ The great to buy with, the small for selling. This law taught them to be so far from practising deceit, that they were not even to have the instruments of it by them. Would to God that there was no need to enforce the same law in our days!... [ Continue Reading ]
_Out of Egypt_ Which circumstance greatly aggravated their sin, that they should do thus to a people who had been long exercised with sore afflictions, to whom pity was due by the laws of nature and humanity, and for whose rescue God had in so glorious a manner appeared, which they could not be igno... [ Continue Reading ]