Deuteronomy 25

This chapter belongs to Moses' exposition of the law, which runs from chapter 12 through chapter 26 of Deuteronomy. The preceding chapter, Deuteronomy 24, presents regulations on divorce, pledges, and care for poor neighbors and strangers. This chapter continues with regulations concerning the courts, the family, and commerce, and it concludes with the command to remember Amalek.

Outline

• Verses 1–3: When a dispute comes to court, the judge is to justify the righteous and condemn the wicked. Flogging (punishment by beating with a rod) is to be administered according to the severity of the offense, but it may not exceed forty stripes.
• Verse 4: The ox that treads out the grain is not to be muzzled.
• Verses 5–10: If a brother dies without a son, the surviving brother is to take his widow as his wife, and their firstborn son is to carry on the name of the dead brother. This practice is commonly called levirate marriage. If the brother refuses, the woman removes his shoe before the elders at the city gate and spits in his face. His house is then to be called "The house of him that hath his shoe loosed."
• Verses 11–12: If two men are fighting and the wife of one seizes the other by his private parts, her hand is to be cut off.
• Verses 13–16: Israel is not to keep two kinds of weights and measures, one large and one small, but only just ones. All who deal unrighteously are an abomination to the LORD.
• Verses 17–19: Israel is to remember how Amalek attacked the weak stragglers at the rear when the people came out of Egypt. After Israel has obtained rest in the land, it is to blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.

Key Verses

• Deuteronomy 25:3 "Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed" — Punishment is given a limit so that a brother is not degraded. This verse forms the background of 2 Corinthians 11:24, where Paul says he received "forty stripes save one."
• Deuteronomy 25:4 "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn" — Paul quotes this verse in 1 Corinthians 9:9 and 1 Timothy 5:18 as grounds for ministers of the gospel to receive material support.
• Deuteronomy 25:17 "Remember what Amalek did unto thee" — This command recalls the events of Exodus 17 and leads to the war against the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15.

People and Places

• Amalek: A nomadic people who attacked Israel on the journey of the Exodus.
• Egypt: The land of Israel's bondage, from which the people came out.
• Elders at the city gate: Local leaders who heard cases and rendered judgments at the town gate.

Points for Reflection

• The levirate regulation is read alongside the story of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38 and the story of Boaz and Ruth in Ruth 4. In Ruth, however, the removal of the shoe appears as a sign of transferring the right of the kinsman-redeemer. It therefore differs in character from the ceremony in this chapter, which shames the man who refuses.
• Leviticus 18:16 forbids uncovering the nakedness of a brother's wife. The provision in this chapter is generally understood as an exception to that law, intended to preserve the family line.
• In Matthew 22:23–28, the Sadducees cited this regulation in posing a question meant to refute the resurrection.
• The practice of giving only thirty-nine stripes to avoid exceeding forty arose in later Jewish tradition. The text itself says only "forty."
• Rabbinic Jewish tradition is reported to have interpreted the penalty in verses 11–12 as monetary compensation rather than the cutting off of the hand.
• Interpretations of the command to blot out Amalek differ. Some view it as a command applicable only to its historical situation, others as God's judgment on evil, and still others read it as a figure of spiritual warfare.
• Judaism has a tradition of reading verses 17–19 on the Sabbath immediately before Purim. There is also a traditional interpretation that regards Haman, "the Agagite" of the book of Esther, as a descendant of Agag, king of the Amalekites.