19 Therefore it shall be, when Jehovah thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which Jehovah 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.
So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran unto the tent; and, behold, it was hid in his tent, and the silver under it. And they took them from the midst of the tent, and brought them unto Joshua, and unto all the children of Israel; and they laid them down before Jehovah. And Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the mantle, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had: and they brought them up unto the valley of Achor. And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? Jehovah shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him with stones; and they burned them with fire, and stoned them with stones.
And Samuel said unto Saul, Jehovah sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Israel: now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of Jehovah. Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, I have marked that which Amalek did to Israel, how he set himself against him in the way, when he came up out of Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. And Saul summoned the people, and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah. And Saul came to the city of Amalek, and laid wait in the valley. And Saul said unto the Kenites, Go, depart, get you down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them; for ye showed kindness to all the children of Israel, when they came up out of Egypt. So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites. And Saul smote the Amalekites, from Havilah as thou goest to Shur, that is before Egypt. And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but everything that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly. Then came the word of Jehovah unto Samuel, saying, It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king; for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And Samuel was wroth; and he cried unto Jehovah all night. And Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning; and it was told Samuel, saying, Saul came to Carmel, and, behold, he set him up a monument, and turned, and passed on, and went down to Gilgal. And Samuel came to Saul; and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of Jehovah: I have performed the commandment of Jehovah. And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites: for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto Jehovah thy God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed. Then Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will tell thee what Jehovah hath said to me this night. And he said unto him, Say on. And Samuel said, Though thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel? And Jehovah anointed thee king over Israel; and Jehovah sent thee on a journey, and said, Go, and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed. Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of Jehovah, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah? And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of Jehovah, and have gone the way which Jehovah sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the devoted things, to sacrifice unto Jehovah thy God in Gilgal. And Samuel said, Hath Jehovah as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of Jehovah? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim. Because thou hast rejected the word of Jehovah, he hath also rejected thee from being king. And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned; for I have transgressed the commandment of Jehovah, and thy words, because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice. Now therefore, I pray thee, pardon my sin, and turn again with me, that I may worship Jehovah. And Samuel said unto Saul, I will not return with thee; for thou hast rejected the word of Jehovah, and Jehovah hath rejected thee from being king over Israel. And as Samuel turned about to go away, `Saul' laid hold upon the skirt of his robe, and it rent. And Samuel said unto him, Jehovah hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbor of thine, that is better than thou. And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent; for he is not a man, that he should repent. Then he said, I have sinned: yet honor me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people, and before Israel, and turn again with me, that I may worship Jehovah thy God. So Samuel turned again after Saul; and Saul worshipped Jehovah. Then said Samuel, Bring ye hither to me Agag the king of the Amalekites. And Agag came unto him cheerfully. And Agag said, Surely the bitterness of death is past. And Samuel said, As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women. And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before Jehovah in Gilgal. Then Samuel went to Ramah; and Saul went up to his house to Gibeah of Saul. And Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death; for Samuel mourned for Saul: and Jehovah repented that he had made Saul king over Israel.
And it came to pass, when David and his men were come to Ziklag on the third day, that the Amalekites had made a raid upon the South, and upon Ziklag, and had smitten Ziklag, and burned it with fire, and had taken captive the women `and all' that were therein, both small and great: they slew not any, but carried them off, and went their way. And when David and his men came to the city, behold, it was burned with fire; and their wives, and their sons, and their daughters, were taken captive. Then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept, until they had no more power to weep. And David's two wives were taken captive, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the wife of Nabal the Carmelite. And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David strengthened himself in Jehovah his God. And David said to Abiathar the priest, the son of Ahimelech, I pray thee, bring me hither the ephod. And Abiathar brought thither the ephod to David.
And Parshandatha, and Dalphon, and Aspatha, and Poratha, and Adalia, and Aridatha, and Parmashta, and Arisai, and Aridai, and Vaizatha, the ten sons of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Jew's enemy, slew they; but on the spoil they laid not their hand.
Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre: Assyria also is joined with them; They have helped the children of Lot. Selah Do thou unto them as unto Midian, As to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the river Kishon; Who perished at Endor, Who became as dung for the earth. Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb; Yea, all their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna; Who said, Let us take to ourselves in possession The habitations of God. O my God, make them like the whirling dust; As stubble before the wind. As the fire that burneth the forest, And as the flame that setteth the mountains on fire, So pursue them with thy tempest, And terrify them with thy storm. Fill their faces with confusion, That they may seek thy name, O Jehovah. Let them be put to shame and dismayed for ever; Yea, let them be confounded and perish;
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Deuteronomy 25
Commentary on Deuteronomy 25 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
Corporal Punishment. - The rule respecting the corporal punishment to be inflicted upon a guilty man is introduced in Deuteronomy 25:1 with the general law, that in a dispute between two men the court was to give right to the man who was right, and to pronounce the guilty man guilty (cf. Exodus 22:8 and Exodus 23:7).
Deuteronomy 25:2
If the guilty man was sentenced to stripes, he was to receive his punishment in the presence of the judge, and not more than forty stripes, that he might not become contemptible in the eyes of the people. הכּות בּן , son of stripes, i.e., a man liable to stripes, like son (child) of death, in 1 Samuel 20:31. “ According to the need of his crime in number ,” i.e., as many stripes as his crime deserved.
Deuteronomy 25:3
“ Forty shall ye beat him, and not add ,” i.e., at most forty stripes, and not more. The strokes were administered with a stick upon the back (Proverbs 10:13; Proverbs 19:29; Proverbs 26:3, etc.). This was the Egyptian mode of whipping, as we may see depicted upon the monuments, when the culprits lie flat upon the ground, and being held fast by the hands and feet, receive their strokes in the presence of the judge (vid., Wilkinson, ii. p. 11, and Rosellini , ii. 3, p. 274, 78). The number forty was not to be exceeded, because a larger number of strokes with a stick would not only endanger health and life, but disgrace the man: “ that thy brother do not become contemptible in thine eyes .” If he had deserved a severer punishment, he was to be executed. In Turkey the punishments inflicted are much more severe, viz., from fifty to a hundred lashes with a whip; and they are at the same time inhuman (see v. Tornauw, Moslem. Recht, p. 234). The number, forty, was probably chosen with reference to its symbolical significance, which it had derived from Genesis 7:12 onwards, as the full measure of judgment. The Rabbins fixed the number at forty save one (vid., 2 Corinthians 11:24), from a scrupulous fear of transgressing the letter of the law, in case a mistake should be made in the counting; yet they felt no conscientious scruples about using a whip of twisted thongs instead of a stick (vid., tract. Macc . iii. 12; Buxtorf , Synag. Jud. pp. 522-3; and Lundius, Jüd. Heiligth. p. 472).
The command not to put a muzzle upon the ox when threshing, is no doubt proverbial in its nature, and even in the context before us is not intended to apply merely literally to an ox employed in threshing, but to be understood in the general sense in which the Apostle Paul uses it in 1 Corinthians 9:9 and 1 Timothy 5:18, viz., that a labourer was not to be deprived of his wages. As the mode of threshing presupposed here - namely, with oxen yoked together, and driven to and fro over the corn that had been strewn upon the floor, that they might kick out the grains with their hoofs - has been retained to the present day in the East, so has also the custom of leaving the animals employed in threshing without a muzzle (vid., Hoest, Marokos, p. 129; Wellst. Arabien, i. p. 194; Robinson , Pal. ii. pp. 206-7, iii. p. 6), although the Mosaic injunctions are not so strictly observed by the Christians as by the Mohammedans (Robinson, ii. p. 207).
On Levirate Marriages. - Deu 25:5, Deu 25:6. If brothers lived together, and one of them died childless, the wife of the deceased was not to be married outside (i.e., away from the family) to a strange man (one not belonging to her kindred); her brother-in-law was to come to her and take her for his wife, and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her. יבּם, denom. from יבם, a brother-in-law, husband's brother, lit., to act the brother-in-law, i.e., perform the duty of a brother-in-law, which consisted in his marrying his deceased brother's widow, and begetting a son of children with her, the first-born of whom was “to stand upon the name of his deceased brother,” i.e., be placed in the family of the deceased, and be recognised as the heir of his property, that his name (the name of the man who had died childless) might not be wiped out or vanish out of Israel. The provision, “without having a son” (ben), has been correctly interpreted by the lxx, Vulg., Josephus (Ant. iv. 8, 23), and the Rabbins, as signifying childless (having no seed, Mat 22:25); for if the deceased had simply a daughter, according to Num 27:4., the perpetuation of his house and name was to be ensured through her. The obligation of a brother-in-law's marriage only existed in cases where the brothers had lived together, i.e., in one and the same place, not necessarily in one house or with a common domestic establishment and home (vid., Gen 13:6; Gen 36:7). - This custom of a brother-in-law's (Levirate) marriage, which is met with in different nations, and as an old traditional custom among the Israelites (see at Gen 38:8.), had its natural roots in the desire inherent in man, who is formed for immortality, and connected with the hitherto undeveloped belief in an eternal life, to secure a continued personal existence for himself and immorality for his name, through the perpetuation of his family and in the life of the son who took his place. This desire was not suppressed in Israel by divine revelation, but rather increased, inasmuch as the promises given to the patriarchs were bound up with the preservation and propagation of their seed and name. The promise given to Abraham for his seed would of necessity not only raise the begetting of children in the religious views of the Israelites into the work desired by God and well-pleasing to Him, but would also give this significance to the traditional custom of preserving the name and family by the substitution of a marriage of duty, that they would thereby secure to themselves and their family a share in the blessing of promise. Moses therefore recognised this custom as perfectly justifiable; but he sought to restrain it within such limits, that it should not present any impediment to the sanctification of marriage aimed at by the law. He took away the compulsory character, which it hitherto possessed, by prescribing in Deu 25:7., that if the surviving brother refused to marry his widowed sister-in-law, she was to bring the matter into the gate before the elders of the town (vid., Deu 21:19), i.e., before the magistrates; and if the brother-in-law still persisted in his refusal, she was to take his shoe from off his foot and spit in his face, with these words: “So let it be done to the man who does not build up his brother's house.”
The taking off of the shoe was an ancient custom in Israel, adopted, according to Rth 4:7, in cases of redemption and exchange, for the purpose of confirming commercial transactions. The usage arose from the fact, that when any one took possession of landed property he did so by treading upon the soil, and asserting his right of possession by standing upon it in his shoes. In this way the taking off of the shoe and handing it to another became a symbol of the renunciation of a man's position and property, - a symbol which was also common among the Indians and the ancient Germans (see my Archäologie, ii. p. 66). But the custom was an ignominious one in such a case as this, when the shoe was publicly taken off the foot of the brother-in-law by the widow whom he refused to marry. He was thus deprived of the position which he ought to have occupied in relation to her and to his deceased brother, or to his paternal house; and the disgrace involved in this was still further heightened by the fact that his sister-in-law spat in his face. This is the meaning of the words (cf. Num 12:14), and not merely spit on the ground before his eyes, as Saalschütz and others as well as the Talmudists (tr. Jebam. xii. 6) render it, for the purpose of diminishing the disgrace. “Build up his brother's house,” i.e., lay the foundation of a family or posterity for him (cf. Gen 16:2). - In addition to this, the unwilling brother-in-law was to receive a name of ridicule in Israel: “House of the shoe taken off” (הנּעל חלוּץ, taken off as to his shoe; cf. Ewald, §288, b.), i.e., of the barefooted man, equivalent to “the miserable fellow;” for it was only in miserable circumstances that the Hebrews went barefoot (vid., Isa 20:2-3; ? foundation of his house” (vid., my Archäologie, pp. 64, 65).
“But in order that the great independence which is here accorded to a childless widow in relation to her brother-in-law, might not be interpreted as a false freedom granted to the female sex” ( Baumgarten ), the law is added immediately afterwards, that a woman whose husband was quarrelling with another, and who should come to his assistance by laying hold of the secret parts of the man who was striking her husband, should have her hand cut off.
The duty of integrity in trade is once more enforced in Deuteronomy 25:13-16 (as in Leviticus 19:35-36). “ Stone and stone ,” i.e., two kinds of stones for weighing (cf. Psalms 12:3), viz., large ones for buying and small ones for selling. On the promise in Deuteronomy 25:15 , see Deuteronomy 4:26; Deuteronomy 5:16; Deuteronomy 25:16 , as in Deuteronomy 22:5; Deuteronomy 18:12, etc. In the concluding words, Deuteronomy 25:16 , “ all that do unrighteously ,” Moses sums up all breaches of the law.
But whilst the Israelites were to make love the guiding principle of their conduct in their dealings with a neighbour, and even with strangers and foes, this love was not to degenerate into weakness or indifference towards open ungodliness. To impress this truth upon the people, Moses concludes the discourse on the law by reminding them of the crafty enmity manifested towards them by Amalek on their march out of Egypt, and with the command to root out the Amalekites (cf. Exodus 17:9-16). This heathen nation had come against Israel on its journey, viz., at Rephidim in Horeb, and had attacked its rear: “ All the enfeebled behind thee, whilst thou wast faint and weary, without fearing God .” זנּב , lit., to tail, hence to attack or destroy the rear of an army or of a travelling people (cf. Joshua 10:19). For this reason, when the Lord should have given Israel rest in the land of its inheritance, it was to root out the remembrance of Amalek under heaven. (On the execution of this command, see 1 Sam 15.) “ Thou shalt not forget it: ” an emphatic enforcement of the “remember” in Deuteronomy 25:17.