The Torah · Old Testament
Deuteronomy 25
Limits on punishment, family duty and honest measures
General context
Judges must distinguish the innocent from the guilty and supervise any beating according to the offence, with forty blows as the maximum. An ox must not be muzzled while it threshes. When brothers live together and one dies without a child in the KJV's wording, his brother is to marry the widow so the firstborn preserves the dead brother's name. If he refuses after the elders speak to him, the widow publicly removes his shoe and spits in his face. A separate rule commands cutting off the hand of a wife who seizes another man's genitals while intervening in a fight. Honest weights and measures follow. The chapter closes by commanding Israel to remember Amalek's attack on the weary stragglers and, after receiving rest, erase Amalek's remembrance.
Cited passages: Deuteronomy 25:1, Deuteronomy 25:2, Deuteronomy 25:3, Deuteronomy 25:4, Deuteronomy 25:5, Deuteronomy 25:6, Deuteronomy 25:7, Deuteronomy 25:8, Deuteronomy 25:9, Deuteronomy 25:10, Deuteronomy 25:11, Deuteronomy 25:12, Deuteronomy 25:13, Deuteronomy 25:14, Deuteronomy 25:15, Deuteronomy 25:16, Deuteronomy 25:17, Deuteronomy 25:18, Deuteronomy 25:19
Deuteronomy 25 (KJV)
1If there be a controversy between men, and they come unto judgment, that the judges may judge them; then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked.
2And it shall be, if the wicked man be worthy to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down, and to be beaten before his face, according to his fault, by a certain number.
3Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed: lest, if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee.
4Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.
5If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband’s brother unto her.
6And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel.
7And if the man like not to take his brother’s wife, then let his brother’s wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, My husband’s brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of my husband’s brother.
8Then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak unto him: and if he stand to it, and say, I like not to take her;
9Then shall his brother’s wife come unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother’s house.
10And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.
11When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets:
12Then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her.
13Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small.
14Thou shalt not have in thine house divers measures, a great and a small.
15But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
16For all that do such things, and all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the Lord thy God.
17Remember what Amalek did unto thee by the way, when ye were come forth out of Egypt;
18How he met thee by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary; and he feared not God.
19Therefore it shall be, when the Lord thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it.
This page shows the King James Version. In the app, reading opens in the Berean Standard Bible unless you have chosen another translation. The reader includes five translations: the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), the King James Version (KJV), the World English Bible (WEB), the Bible in Basic English (BBE), and the American Standard Version (ASV). Search covers three of them: Berean Standard, King James, and World English. Basic English and American Standard readers search the King James words.
Historical context
The court's forty-blow ceiling is explicit; this passage does not reduce it to thirty-nine. In the brother's-marriage case, the KJV says the dead man has no child, while the ASV and BBE say no son. The surviving brother's continued refusal leads to a public act of shame, not a narrated forced wedding. The KJV and ASV specify spitting in his face; the BBE describes putting him to shame without that explicit action. The weights rule addresses keeping both large and small standards, and requires a just weight and measure. The final instruction is tied to the remembered attack and future rest in the promised land.
Cited passages: Deuteronomy 25:3, Deuteronomy 25:5, Deuteronomy 25:6, Deuteronomy 25:7, Deuteronomy 25:8, Deuteronomy 25:9, Deuteronomy 25:10, Deuteronomy 25:13, Deuteronomy 25:14, Deuteronomy 25:15, Deuteronomy 25:16, Deuteronomy 25:17, Deuteronomy 25:18, Deuteronomy 25:19
Literary context
Concern for a person's standing appears in different forms: excessive blows would degrade a brother, refusal to maintain a dead brother's name brings public shame, and dishonest measures violate fair dealing. These are distinct cases, not interchangeable penalties. The ending joins two commands that pull in opposite verbal directions: remember Amalek's attack, and blot out Amalek's remembrance. The instruction not to forget fixes that violent obligation in Israel's memory.
Cited passages: Deuteronomy 25:3, Deuteronomy 25:6, Deuteronomy 25:7, Deuteronomy 25:8, Deuteronomy 25:9, Deuteronomy 25:10, Deuteronomy 25:13, Deuteronomy 25:14, Deuteronomy 25:15, Deuteronomy 25:16, Deuteronomy 25:17, Deuteronomy 25:18, Deuteronomy 25:19
Key moments
- Forty, and no more (Deuteronomy 25:3). A judicial beating has a stated maximum so the punished brother is not degraded by excess.
- An ox may eat while working (Deuteronomy 25:4). The ox treading grain must not be muzzled.
- The widow brings the refusal to the gate (Deuteronomy 25:7). She may call on the elders when her husband's brother refuses the duty described in the law.
- A just weight (Deuteronomy 25:15). The household must use honest weights and measures.
- Remember the weary stragglers (Deuteronomy 25:18). Moses recalls Amalek striking those left weak at the rear of the journey.
For reflection
The punishment limit warns against making a brother seem worthless. What can that warning reveal about the way a community speaks of someone it has judged to be in the wrong?
