I. The meanness of the conduct here rebuked. Dishonourable dealing, commercial sharp-practice, trading upon the defects of others, issuing delusive prospectuses to entrap the unwary, traducing our fellows behind their backs so that they cannot learn and answer the charges brought against them--all such action deserves our reprobation and avoidance. The natural ills of humanity call for commiseration and help, rather than for ridicule and maltreatment. Where weakness has been self-incurred, where ignorance is wilful, there is less need of sympathy. Let our young people be early imbued with the feeling that it is wrong to trample upon the defenceless.
II. The way to guard against invasion of the rights of others. “But shalt fear thy God.”
1. Reverence for Jehovah is the best security against violation of His statutes. Remember, that to transgress is to grieve our heavenly Father, to show ourselves unmindful of His claims.
2. The omniscience of Jehovah should restrain from the commission of unfair deeds. He hears every word and sees every act, though the deaf and the blind cannot. Let not mean, cowardly performances expect to pass unnoticed, unpunished.
III. The comfort the weak may derive from the knowledge that they are under the protection of god. He is seen to cherish them, to make provision for their need; He puts His strong right arm around them, shelters them under His wing. We cannot believe that His fostering care is denied to any class of the infirm, in body, mind, or spirit. (S. R. Aldridge, B. A.)
Protection of the infirm
Persons stricken with some defect which renders them helpless, stand under God’s special protection; it would be heartless and impious to “curse the deaf,” who is unaware of the attacks made upon him, which may involve calumnies, and which he is unable to rebut; and it would be cruel indeed to “put a stumbling-block before the blind,” to whom every right-minded man should be eager to “serve as eyes”; a crime like the latter was publicly cursed on Mount Ebal; and in both eases the law warns the offender, “Thou shalt fear thy God,” who hears if there is no other ear to listen, who sees if there is no other eye to see, and who, to punish thy wickedness, can strike thee with the same afflictions: hence the same menace, “Thou shalt fear thy God,” is repeated with respect to thetreatment of old and infirm men, of poor persons, of dependents, and servants. Philo inveighs vehemently against the inhumanity here forbidden, and observes that those who are guilty of it, “would not spare even the dead, in the excess of their cruelty, but according to a common proverb, would slay the slain again.” Jewish tradition applies the second command of our verse figuratively to insidious advice or false information given to a man who is in ignorance or perplexity, whether on some question of learning or on some matter of business. The law of Man inflicts a pecuniary fine upon any one who taunts a person with being one-eyed or lame or deformed. (M. M. Kalisch, Ph. D.)
No advantage to be taken of incapacity
This base action of reviling or cursing a deaf person is here condemned. But that is not all; there is something more forbidden by this law; for it seems to be of a proverbial nature, and the general meaning is, Thou shalt not take the sordid advantage of a man’s incapacity to defend himself, and hurt him either in his body, his fortunes, or his reputation. To abuse an absent person, to calumniate people in secret, to attack another’s reputation in the dark and in disguise, to defame those who are dead, to hurt in any manner those who are unable to help and redress themselves, all this may be called, To curse the deaf. (J. Jortin, D. D.)
The absent not to be slandered
So did St. Augustine, that worthy father, abhor this vice, that over his table where he dined he wrote two verses, to tell all them that sat with him, if they carped at any person absent, that table was not for them, nor the guests welcome to him. (Bp. Babington.)
