Deuteronomy 25:3-5
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
3 Forty lashes[a] may be given, but no more;(A) or else, if more lashes are added to these many blows, your brother will be degraded in your sight.
Treatment of Oxen.[b] 4 You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out grain.(B)
Levirate Marriage. 5 (C)When brothers live together[c] and one of them dies without a son, the widow of the deceased shall not marry anyone outside the family; but her husband’s brother shall come to her, marrying her and performing the duty of a brother-in-law.(D)
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- 25:3 Forty lashes: while the punishment is severe, the law seeks to limit it from being overly harsh and inhumane. Later Jewish practice limited the number to thirty-nine; cf. 2 Cor 11:24.
- 25:4 This is comparable in spirit to 22:6–7; Israelites are not to be grasping and calculating. St. Paul argues from this verse that laborers have the right to live on the fruits of their labor; cf. 1 Cor 9:9; 1 Tm 5:18.
- 25:5 When brothers live together: when relatives of the same clan, though married, hold their property in common. It was only in this case that the present law was to be observed, since one of its purposes was to keep the property of the deceased within the same clan. Such a marriage of a widow with her brother-in-law is known as a “levirate” marriage from the Latin word levir, meaning “a husband’s brother.”
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