Глава 25

Laws: on fairness in court; on corporal punishment of the guilty; about humane treatment of draft animals; about levirate marriage; about wrestling techniques that are harmful to the health of a person and his offspring; about the correctness of weights and measures; command for the destruction of the Amalekites. Deut.25:1. If there is a dispute between people, then let them bring them to court and judge them, let them acquit the right one, and condemn the guilty one; On the organization of the court, see Deut. 16:18–20, 17:8–13. Deut.25:3. You can give him forty blows, and no more, so that from many blows your brother will not be disfigured before your eyes. To prevent infatuation on the part of the executioner, the rabbis of later times decreed that the maximum measure of corporal punishment should be 39 blows. On this basis, Ap. Paul, having been repeatedly sentenced to corporal punishment by the Jewish court, was subjected to “forty stripes minus one” (2 Cor 11.24). Deut.25:4. Do not muzzle the ox when he threshes. “The highest meaning of this was clearly shown to us by the divine apostle (1 Cor 9.9-11). But the meaning that appears at first glance is also pious. For it is unfair not to taste the fruit for someone who has cultivated the land and threshes the sheaves with difficulty” (Blessed Theodore, Commentary on Book Deuteronomy, issue 31). Deut.25:5. If brothers live together and one of them dies without having a son, then the wife of the deceased should not marry a stranger, but her brother-in-law should come to her and take her as his wife and live with her - Deut.25:6. and the firstborn whom she bears will remain in the name of his brother who died, so that his name will not be blotted out in Israel. Deut.25:7. If he does not want to take his daughter-in-law, then his daughter-in-law will go to the gate, to the elders, and say: “My brother-in-law refuses to raise the name of his brother in Israel, he does not want to marry me”; Deut.25:8. then the elders of his city must call him and persuade him, and if he stands and says, “I don’t want to take her,” Deut.25:9. Then let his daughter-in-law go to him in the sight of the elders, and take his boot off his foot, and spit in his face, and say: “This is what they do to a man who does not build a house for his brother [in Israel]”; Deut.25:10. and his name in Israel shall be called the house of him who had no shoes. An exception to the prohibited marriages in close degrees of kinship is a marriage with the wife of a deceased childless brother, the so-called levirate (levif - brother-in-law) marriage, which had as its goal the maintenance of “the names of the deceased in Israel.” In the absence of a brother, the childless widow had to be taken in by her closest relative. By making a levirate decree, Moses did not introduce a new law, but only imparted legal force to an ancient custom that existed among the Jews and some other peoples. The first biblical example of a levirate marriage is found in the family of the son of the patriarch Jacob, Judah (Gen. 38.1). True, Moses somewhat weakens the obligation to fulfill the ancient custom, but surrounds this retreat with such formalities that have the nature of an indirect incentive to ensure that these deviations are not too frequent (cf. Blessed Theodoret, question 32 on book Deuteronomy). Deut.25:11. When men are fighting among themselves, and the wife of one [of them] comes up to take her husband away from the hands of the one who is beating him, and reaches out her hand and grabs him by the private part, Deut.25:12. then cut off her hand: let not thine eye spare [her]. In addition to its immorality, the prohibited wrestling technique is dangerous to health and may be harmful to the offspring of the victim. Deut.25:13. There should not be double weights in your kitty, larger and smaller; Deut.25:14. There shall not be two ephahs in your house, the larger and the smaller; Deut.25:15. you must have a precise and correct weight, and you must have a precise and correct ephah, so that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God is giving you [as an inheritance]; Deut.25:16. For everyone who practices iniquity is an abomination to the Lord your God. The nominal weight of the weight and the nominal volume of the efa must correspond to their actual size. Deut.25:17. Remember what Amalek did to you on the way when you came out of Egypt: Deut.25:18. how he met you on the way, and beat up all those who were weak from behind you, when you were tired and weary, and he did not fear God; Deut.25:19. Therefore, when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies on all sides, in the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to take possession of, blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; don't forget. See Ref. 17.8–16. Later, the Amalekites were defeated by Saul (1 Samuel 15.1–8) and finally destroyed under Hezekiah (1 Chronicles 4.41–43). You might be interested in: