19 So when the Lord your God has given you rest from all who are against you on every side, in the land which the Lord your God is giving you for your heritage, see to it that the memory of Amalek is cut off from the earth; keep this in mind.
So Joshua sent men quickly, and looking in his tent, they saw where the robe had been put away secretly with the silver under it. And they took them from the tent and came back with them to Joshua and the children of Israel, and put them before the Lord. Then Joshua and all Israel took Achan, the son of Zerah, and the silver and the robe and the mass of gold, and his sons and his daughters and his oxen and his asses and his sheep and his tent and everything he had; and they took them up into the valley of Achor. And Joshua said, Why have you been a cause of trouble to us? Today the Lord will send trouble on you. And all Israel took part in stoning him; they had him stoned to death and then burned with fire.
And Samuel said to Saul, The Lord sent me to put the holy oil on you and to make you king over his people, over Israel: so give ear now to the words of the Lord. The Lord of armies says, I will give punishment to Amalek for what he did to Israel, fighting against him on the way when Israel came out of Egypt. Go now and put Amalek to the sword, putting to the curse all they have, without mercy: put to death every man and woman, every child and baby at the breast, every ox and sheep, camel and ass. And Saul sent for the people and had them numbered in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen and ten thousand men of Judah. And Saul came to the town of Amalek, and took up his position in the valley secretly. And Saul said to the Kenites, Go away, take yourselves out from among the Amalekites, or destruction will overtake you with them: for you were kind to the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt. So the Kenites went away from among the Amalekites. And Saul made an attack on the Amalekites from Havilah on the road to Shur, which is before Egypt. He took Agag, king of the Amalekites, prisoner, and put all the people to the sword without mercy. But Saul and the people did not put Agag to death, and they kept the best of the sheep and the oxen and the fat beasts and the lambs, and whatever was good, not desiring to put them to the curse: but everything which was bad and of no use they put to the curse. Then the Lord said to Samuel, It is no longer my pleasure for Saul to be king; for he is turned back from going in my ways, and has not done my orders. And Samuel was very sad, crying to the Lord in prayer all night. And early in the morning he got up and went to Saul; and word was given to Samuel that Saul had come to Carmel and put up a pillar, and had gone from there down to Gilgal. And Samuel came to Saul; and Saul said to him, May the blessing of the Lord be with you: I have done what was ordered by the Lord. And Samuel said, What then is this sound of the crying of sheep and the noise of oxen which comes to my ears? And Saul said, They have taken them from the Amalekites: for the people have kept the best of the sheep and of the oxen as an offering to the Lord your God; all the rest we have given up to destruction. Then Samuel said to Saul, Say no more! Let me give you word of what the Lord has said to me this night. And he said to him, Say on. And Samuel said, Though you may seem little to yourself, are you not head of the tribes of Israel? for the Lord with the holy oil made you king over Israel, And the Lord sent you on a journey and said, Go and put to the curse those sinners, the Amalekites, fighting against them till every one is dead. Why then did you not do the orders of the Lord, but by violently taking their goods did evil in the eyes of the Lord? And Saul said, Truly, I have done the orders of the Lord and have gone the way the Lord sent me; I have taken Agag, the king of Amalek, and have given the Amalekites up to destruction. But the people took some of their goods, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which were put to the curse, to make an offering of them to the Lord your God in Gilgal. And Samuel said, Has the Lord as much delight in offerings and burned offerings as in the doing of his orders? Truly, to do his pleasure is better than to make offerings, and to give ear to him than the fat of sheep. For to go against his orders is like the sin of those who make use of secret arts, and pride is like giving worship to images. Because you have put away from you the word of the Lord, he has put you from your place as king. And Saul said to Samuel, Great is my sin: for I have gone against the orders of the Lord and against your words: because, fearing the people, I did what they said. So now, let my sin have forgiveness, and go back with me to give worship to the Lord. And Samuel said to Saul, I will not go back with you: for you have put away from you the word of the Lord, and the Lord has put you from your place as king over Israel. And when Samuel was turning round to go away, Saul took the skirt of his robe in his hand, and the cloth came away. And Samuel said to him, The Lord has taken away the kingdom of Israel from you this day by force, and has given it to a neighbour of yours who is better than you. And further, the Glory of Israel will not say what is false, and his purpose may not be changed: for he is not a man, whose purpose may be changed. Then he said, Great is my sin: but still, give me honour now before the heads of my people and before Israel, and come back with me so that I may give worship to the Lord your God. So Samuel went back after Saul, and Saul gave worship to the Lord. Then Samuel said, Make Agag, the king of the Amalekites, come here to me. And Agag came to him shaking with fear. And Agag said, Truly the pain of death is past. And Samuel said, As your sword has made women without children, so now your mother will be without children among women. And Agag was cut up by Samuel, bone from bone, before the Lord in Gilgal. Then Samuel went to Ramah; and Saul went up to his house in Gibeah, in the land of Saul. And Samuel never saw Saul again till the day of his death; but Samuel was sorrowing for Saul: and it was no longer the Lord's pleasure for Saul to be king over Israel.
Now when David and his men came to Ziklag on the third day, the Amalekites had made an attack on the South and on Ziklag, and had overcome Ziklag and put it on fire; And had made the women and all who were there, small and great, prisoners: they had not put any of them to death, but had taken them all away. And when David and his men came to the town, they saw that it had been burned down, and their wives and their sons and daughters had been made prisoners. Then David and the people who were with him gave themselves up to weeping till they were able to go on weeping no longer. And David's two wives, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail, the wife of Nabal of Carmel, had been made prisoners. And David was greatly troubled; for the people were talking of stoning him, because their hearts were bitter, every man sorrowing for his sons and his daughters: but David made himself strong in the Lord his God. And David said to Abiathar the priest, the son of Ahimelech, Come here to me with the ephod. And Abiathar took the ephod to David.
They put to death Parshandatha, Dalphon, Aspatha, Poratha, Adalia, Aridatha, Parmashta, Arisai, Aridai, and Vaizatha, The ten sons of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the hater of the Jews; but they put not a hand on any of their goods.
Gebal and Ammon and Amalek; the Philistines and the people of Tyre; Assur is joined with them; they have become the support of the children of Lot. (Selah.) Do to them what you did to the Midianites; what you did to Sisera and Jabin, at the stream of Kishon: Who came to destruction at En-dor; their bodies became dust and waste. Make their chiefs like Oreb and Zeeb; and all their rulers like Zebah and Zalmunna: Who have said, Let us take for our heritage the resting-place of God. O my God, make them like the rolling dust; like dry stems before the wind. As fire burning a wood, and as a flame causing fire on the mountains, So go after them with your strong wind, and let them be full of fear because of your storm. Let their faces be full of shame; so that they may give honour to your name, O Lord. Let them be overcome and troubled for ever; let them be put to shame and come to destruction;
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.