Deuteronomy 25:11 -

Notes

Deuteronomy 25:11–12 NASB95

11 “If two men, a man and his countryman, are struggling together, and the wife of one comes near to deliver her husband from the hand of the one who is striking him, and puts out her hand and seizes his genitals, 12 then you shall cut off her hand; you shall not show pity.

[EXP] Two Israelite men are fighting when one of their wives appears in order to help her husband. As punches are thrown and bodies roll over one another, the wife reaches out her hand to take hold of her husband’s opponent. When she does, she grabs the man by his genitals. Was this an accident? No. It was intentional because this wife would know that as a physically weaker woman she had to go for a physically stronger man’s immediate weakness. No matter the reason, the woman who did this was to lose her hand. God’s people were to show no pity in this regard. They were to make no exceptions to this.

This seems like a harsh punishment until we realize that the wife in question didn’t just do something indecent. She actually attacked the future offspring of the man she grabbed.

This would indeed be a serious event because the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham was contained in the offspring of Israelite men.

God had promised Abraham that he would have descendents as numerous as the stars in the sky, as numerous as the sand on the seashore, as numerous as the dust of the earth.

In reaching out to attack a man in this way, this woman attacked the very promise of God and, therefore, had to pay the price.

But how does this relate to coveting?

I think it relates to coveting in the same way that the forty lashes of Deuteronomy 25:1-3 relate to coveting.

Remember that in that passage a guilty man could only receive forty lashes. Anything more than that would rob the guilty of his dignity as a human being. Should one lash the guilty more than forty times they would not be desiring justice but coveting vengeance which belongs to God.

In the same way, the wife who defends her husband in vv. 11-12 does nothing wrong by defending her husband. It’s the way she defends her husband that is wrong. By grabbing her husband’s opponent by his genitals, she attacks not only the man but his future offspring as well. In other words, she doesn’t just desire to get even with her husband’s attacker, she desires to get over on him—to do something worse to him. It seems to me that she is not desiring justice, which would have meant that her attack stopped at the man, but she was coveting vengeance, which is seen in her attack upon his offspring.

Deuteronomy 25:13–16 NASB95

13 “You shall not have in your bag differing weights, a large and a small. 14 “You shall not have in your house differing measures, a large and a small. 15 “You shall have a full and just weight; you shall have a full and just measure, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you. 16 “For everyone who does these things, everyone who acts unjustly is an abomination to the Lord your God.

[EXP] In the ancient world, one way to cheat people was by the intentional mislabeling of weights and measures.

For example, weights and measures were used in the buying and selling of grain. Let’s say that a merchant wanted to increase his profits by buying grain at a low price and selling grain at a high price. To do this he would use a mislabeled weight or a mislabeled measure.

When he was purchasing, he would pull out his balance scale to weigh the grain he was buying. On one side of the balance would be what appeared to be a 10 pound weight when it was really 12 pounds. When grain was added to the other side of the balance, it would take 12 pounds of grain to match the weight of what appeared to be ten pounds on the other side. This would mean that the merchant got 12 pounds of grain for the price of 10 pounds and the seller was none the wiser.

When he was selling, the merchant would do the opposite. He would take a weight that appeared to be 10 pounds when in fact it was 8 pounds. He would put his mislabeled weight on one side of his balance and begin to add grain to the other side. It would only take 8 pounds of grain to equal the weight of what appeared to be a 10 pound weight on the other side.

As the passage makes clear, the dishonest individual could easily do the same with dishonest measures.

The Israelites, however, were not to do this sort of thing. They were to have “full and righteous” or “full and fair” weights and measures. If their weight said 10 pounds, it was to be 10 pounds. If their measure said 1 gallon, it was to be one gallon. The Promised Land was to be known as a land of righteous or fair dealing. This would lead to Israel living long in the land. All who did the opposite—who cheated others—were acting dishonestly and were an abomination to the Lord.