Deuteronomy 25:1

Sundry Laws

1 "¹If there is a dispute between men and they go to court, and the judges decide their case, ²and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked,

Deuteronomy 25:1 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 25:1

If there be a controversy between men
Between two or more:

and they come unto judgment;
into a court of judicature, bring their cause thither:

that [the judges] may judge them;
who were never less than three; the great sanhedrim at Jerusalem consisted of seventy one, the lesser court was of twenty three, and the least of all three only:

then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked:
acquit the one, whose cause is good, and condemn the other to punishment, who is guilty of a crime, and as that deserves; which is to do righteous judgment; the contrary to this is an abomination to the Lord, ( Proverbs 17:15 ) .

Deuteronomy 25:1 In-Context

1 "If there is a dispute between men and they go to court, and the judges decide their case, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked,

2 then it shall be if the wicked man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall then make him lie down and be beaten in his presence with the number of stripes according to his guilt.

3 "He may beat him forty times but no more, so that he does not beat him with many more stripes than these and your brother is not degraded in your eyes.

4 "You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing.

5 "When brothers live together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a strange man. Her husband's brother shall go in to her and take her to himself as wife and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her.

Cross References

• 1. Deuteronomy 17:8-13; Deuteronomy 19:17
• 2. Deuteronomy 1:16, 17

Footnotes

• [a]. Lit "the judgment"
• [b]. Lit "they judge them"