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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Deuteronomy 25:11 - 25:19
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Correct Weights and Measures
v. 11. when men strive together one with another, become engaged in fisticuffs, 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,
v. 12. then thou, the constituted authority, shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her. This precept was here inserted in order to guard against a false freedom and familiarity of the female sex toward those of the opposite sex.
v. 13. Thou shalt not have in thy bag, usually a large leather sack or purse, divers weights, a great and a small, a set of large stones for purchases, a set of small ones for sales. This could be done both where stones and where scraps of iron were used by the merchants.
v. 14. Thou shalt not have in thine house divers measures, a great and a small, a large ephah or dry measure for purchases, a small ephah for sales.
v. 15. But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, each one, whether in the shop or in the house, complete, whole, holding just the amount which it was supposed to hold, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have, that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord, thy God, giveth thee, in the matter of receiving temporal blessings, Deu_4:26; Deu_5:16.
v. 16. For all that do such things, in making use of dishonesty in any form, and all that do unrighteously, any one guilty of deliberate wrong-doing, are an abomination unto the Lord, thy God. But this consideration shown the neighbor at home was not to degenerate into a false weakness and indulgence toward enemies whose extermination the Lord had decided upon.
v. 17. Remember what Amalek did unto thee by the way, when ye were come forth out of Egypt, Exo_17:8;
v. 18. how he met thee by the way, namely, at Rephidim near Horeb, and smote the hindmost of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary; and he feared not God. The inhumanity practiced by the Amalekites in thus injuring and destroying the stragglers of the Israelitish army showed that there was no fear of God in their ranks.
v. 19. Therefore 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 in heritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it. Cf 12:10; Exo_17:14; Deu_9:7. Israel, acting as God's agent, carried out this command at the time of Saul, 1 Samuel 15.