The Pulpit Commentary — Deuteronomy — Section 386

EXPOSITION. times also with thorns (Jndg. viii. 7, 16); CHAPTER XXV. sometimes with whips and scorpions, i.e. LAWS RELATING TO ConronAL PUNISHMENT, scourges of cord or leather armed with sharp LETI!lATE llu.nnaGES, AND WEIGHTS Al.'D points or hard knots (l Kiugs xii. 11, 14). MEASURES. • Though the culprit was la.id on the ground, it does not appear that the bastina.do was Vere. J-3.-The first and second verses psed among the Jews as it is now among should be read e.s one sentence, of which the the Arabs; the back and shoulders were the protasis is in ver. l and the apodosi.8 in parts of the body on which the blows fell ver. 2, thns : If there be a strife between (Prov. x. 13; xix. 29; xxvi. 3; Isa. L 6). men, and they come to judgment, and they According to his fault, by a certain number ; (i.e. the judges) give j1ldgment on them, litera.lly, according to the requirement of his and justify the righteous, and oondemn the crime in number; i.e. according as his wicked, then it shall be, if the wicked de- crime deserved. The number was fixed at serve to be beaten (literally, be the son of forty, probably because of the symbolical blows), that the judge, etc. It is assumed significance of that number as a measure that the judges shall pronounce just judg. of completeness. The rabbins fixed the ment, and appo,tion to the guilty party his number at thirty-nine, apparently in order due punishment ; and then it i.8 prescribed that the danger of exceeding the number how that is to be inflicted. In the presence prescribed by the Le,w should be diminish eel of the judge the mun wns to be cast down, ( cf. 2 Cor. xi. 24); but another reason is und th(; adjudged number of blows were to 11ssigned by Maimonides, viz. that, ae tho be givt:n him, not, however, exceeding forty, instrument of punishment was e. scourge lest the mo.n sl,ould be rendered coutempti- with three tails, each strolce counted for bl., in the eyes of the people, as if he were three, and thus they could not give forty, but e. mere slave or brute. This punishment only thirty-nine, unless they exceeded the was usually inflicted with a stick (Exod, forty (Maimon., 'In Sanhedrin,' xvii. 2). :ui. 10; 2 Sam. vii. 14, elc.), o.s is still the Ver. 4.-The leaving the ox unmuzzled ca.ioe a.mong the Arabs o.nd Egyptians; some- when treading out the corn was in order lltt. xtv. 1-19.] TllE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY. 393