First, a law is given concerning the punishments of transgressors, that those who are not to be punished by death or money, but by beatings, shall be punished according to the measure of their transgression, only this shall not exceed forty [strokes]. The cause is given: lest your brother be despised and abominable before you. He wills, therefore, that the punishments shall not be inflicted according to our will or out of revengefulness, but according to a moderate rule and with regard to respectability. This is befitting for a righteous community.
Secondly. "Thou shalt not bind up the mouth of the oxen that thresh" [, this is commanded], that they, being exercised by kind conduct toward the beasts, may become the more benevolent toward men. But it is a proverbial saying, which Paul richly interprets in 1 Cor. 9:9 ff. so that he says: "Does God take care of the oxen? Although God cares for the oxen, he does not write this for the sake of the oxen, since they cannot read, so that Paul's opinion is: This saying will be
This is not only understood by the oxen, but in general by all workers, that they should live from their work, as Christ also says [Luc. 10, 7.]: "A worker is worth his wages. Therefore, he who does not give a worker his living, or does not also give him all kinds of good things, Gal. 6,2 ) 6. is the one who ties the mouth of the ox that is threshing.
Third. The law that one should take the surviving wife of the brother and raise up seed for the deceased brother was given for a very good reason. First, the reason given in the text is so that the generations would not perish but be increased, which serves to elevate a community and make it stronger. Secondly, that in this way God provides for widows and the wretched [female] sex, that they should be taken in and fed, since a single (per sese) woman is a weak and wretched vessel, and even more so a widow who is both abandoned and despised.
2) In the issues: 6n1. 5.
But he compels this demonstration of love by an exceedingly great disgrace, that he should be called a barefooter, and one should spit before him: Fie on you! that he should be worthy that all should despise him and spit at him on the earth and say: You are a fie on you, because he does not want to build up or increase the community in which he lives and whose rights he enjoys. But the unshod foot shall be a sign of shame and a cause of eternal disgrace, that he is worthy to be barefooted also, that is, without gender (familia) and subordinates signified by the shoe, since he makes himself a barefooter by this one act of not wanting to edify his brother's gender, so that the sign is similar to the act by which he sins.
Fourth. A woman's hand shall be cut off without mercy, who, to save her husband, seizes by the shame another man who contends with him. Truly a foolish law, as it reads. But this is to say that a woman, because she is fainthearted, is wont to do harm where we are most hurt. For example, such a tongue, which is ready (levis) to speak evil and to revile, easily injures the good reputation, since it attacks first of all that of which we are to be ashamed. This means the bodily seizure of shame, by which the person of the man is also greatly injured and violated (cogitur), and yet it is a feminine violence, which is even more effective (vincit) than the strength of a man; to say nothing of the shamefulness and shamelessness, which this law also condemns in a woman, although in this case it is useful and necessary for the woman and the man, so that the general opinion of this law could be that one should not do evil, so that good may come from it.
Fifth. Right weight and right measure must be maintained in a community, so that the poor and the neighbor are not cheated. This also applies generally to all commutationes in all contractuum, that the seller give just and equal (aequa) goods for the money of the buyer. For here the
The people's greed has led to unbelievable unworthiness and artifice in altering, adulterating, dressing up and decorating the goods, so that it must be no small matter of concern that the authorities take good care of the community in this respect.
Finally, he commands that the Amalekites be utterly destroyed under heaven because of the cruel outrage that they not only did not refresh those who were weary on the way, but even killed those behind them with shameful deceit.
But that he commands the Amalekites to be destroyed, he does not do so that they should avenge themselves, but God avenges himself through the hands of Israel. Otherwise, if He had wanted them to seek their own vengeance, He would not have delayed it so long, since those who had been injured had long since died, but He would have allowed them to avenge themselves immediately at the same time. Therefore, we are taught here that only this is true vengeance, which is not carried out according to our will, but at God's command and for God's sake, so that we alone are instruments of God's vengeance, and do not presume anything of vengeance, as you see here.
Secret interpretation.
The exactly determined measure of the blows, so that the brother does not go around in a terrible way, means that the flesh is to be chastised in such a way and the sin is to be punished in such a way that its vices are oppressed, not that it itself is destroyed. The number "forty" also means elsewhere all stages and the epitome of the killing of the old man in the Scriptures.
That one should not bind up the mouth of the ox that threshes, can also mean, in addition to the simile (metaphoram), of which we have said that it means that the servants of the Word are entitled to a living from their office, according to the secret interpretation (allegorice), that a teacher should not be forbidden to preach the Word freely, by which he consumes stubble and hay, that is, converts the godless people and incorporates them into Christ.
The brother's wife left behind is the synagogue or the church which the deceased
Christ left in the world as a barren woman, because he did not receive from her the children of the law. We therefore receive her and impregnate her with the Word, so that she may bear children not to us or to our name, but to Him and to His name, so that, though we teach the people, we do not teach them otherwise than in the name of Christ, so that the children begotten by the Word may not be called Pauline, Apolline, or Petrine, but Christians alone, that we may build His house, not our own.
But whoever does not want to do this, the church should accuse him as one who wants to teach for himself and not for Christ, who does not want to please God but men, who does not want to draw the disciples to Christ but to himself. Therefore she should publicly take off his shoe, that is, deprive him of the authority to teach, and make the declaration that his word is not "a doing of the gospel" [Eph. 6:15], as Paul says, so that all may know that he does not walk rightly, booted in the gospel truth, as Paul did to Peter. Further, let it spit out before him, that it may bring him into contempt by the opprobrium of the name of heretic, that he may be called a barefooter, that is, a heretic who walks not in the shoes of the gospel.
The two men who quarrel with each other are the law and the gospel, or rather the teachers and ministers of the law of works and the gospel of grace. These are constantly arguing about works and righteousness. The woman who has the shame of the other man
The one who takes hold of it is the wise people, who want to settle this dispute by forbidding to teach and [enjoining] to teach in a certain way, thereby hindering the ministry of the word. Their hand shall be cut off without mercy, that is, their work and conduct shall be utterly rejected, because this dispute will not be ended for eternity unless God is judge. Wrath and strife shall indeed be cut off where it concerns the matter of love, but in matters of faith it can never and must never be cut off, because there must be divisions [1 Cor. 11:19].
That two weights are forbidden and equal weights are commanded, that is, that a sincere nature (simplicitatem) is maintained in the church, so that we have one mind and opinion, which Paul often mentions [1 Cor. 13:11].
That the Amalekites are to be slain means that by the word of the Spirit those are to be slain who not only do not comfort the weak in faith and those who are weary in the way of God and those who are wearied by many tribulations, but add to it the pain of the wounds and kill the wounded. The 109th Psalm, v. 16, gives you an example of this, saying: "Because he had so little mercy" 2c., therefore [Ps. 69, 29] they "shall not be written with the righteous" 2c. For it shall be declared unto them that they are worthy of eternal death, as indeed they are.