Deuteronomy 25 Study Notes

25:1-3 Limiting the number of lashes addresses the fine balance between justice and mercy. The first-century practice of inflicting thirty-nine lashes was to ensure that no more than forty would accidentally be applied (2Co 11:24).

25:4 Mercy in the application of the law extended even to the treatment of animals, which were to share the fruits of their labor. Paul applied this principle to paying a fair wage to those engaged in ministry (1Co 9:9-14; cp. 1Tm 5:17-18).

25:5-10 Passing a man’s name to future generations was so important that if a man should die without a son, his widow was to attempt to have a son by one of her brothers-in-law. This was called the levirate custom (from Lat levir, “brother-in-law”). See Ru 4:1-10.

25:11-12 Interpreters differ over the meaning of this passage. One possibility is that the woman who forcefully grabbed her husband’s opponent by his genitals during a fight was to be punished so severely because her act risked emasculating the assailant to the point that he might be unable to sire children.

25:13-16 Differing weights and measures in this case would constitute theft, the violation of one of the Ten Commandments (5:19).

25:17-19 The Amalekites had attacked Israel in the Sinai Desert and consequently had come under God’s judgment (Ex 17:8-16). There would be a time of reckoning when Amalek, like all of the Lord’s unrepentant enemies, would come under the destruction of holy war (1Sm 15; cp. Dt 7:1-6).