BOOK 5 OF 66 · LAW · KING JAMES BIBLE

Deuteronomy 25

Deuteronomy book home•Chapter 25 of 34•19 verses

Chapter overviewAt a glance + deeper study

REVIEWED OVERVIEW

Deuteronomy 25 Overview

Moses continues civil and household laws: judges must keep corporal punishment proportionate; an ox may not be muzzled while it works; a deceased man’s brother has responsibility to preserve his name through the widow; an indecent intervention in a fight receives judgment; dishonest weights and measures are condemned. The chapter closes by commanding Israel to remember Amalek’s attack on the weak and eventually blot out Amalek’s remembrance.

DeuteronomyBook

25Chapter

19Verses

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Before you read Deuteronomy 25

Coming from

Chapter 24 emphasized restraint in divorce, pledges, wages, criminal responsibility, and care for the poor.

In this chapter

Chapter 25 protects proportional justice, laboring animals, family inheritance, bodily dignity, honest commerce, and national memory of Amalek’s hostility.

Leads into

Chapter 26 turns to worshipful confession when Israel brings firstfruits and the third-year tithe, closing the main law collection with covenant affirmation.

Key understandingExplore deeper

The levirate provision seeks to preserve the dead brother’s name and inheritance within Israel. The humiliating sandal ceremony publicly marks refusal of that family duty. The command not to muzzle the ox is agricultural law in context, but the New Testament explicitly draws a principle from it concerning support for human laborers in ministry. Amalek’s attack is remembered because it struck the faint and weary from behind during the exodus journey.

Major truths in this chapterExplore deeper

Truth 1

Punishment must be proportionate; lawful discipline has limits.

Truth 2

Those who labor should not be denied the benefit necessary to sustain their work.

Truth 3

Family and inheritance obligations matter within Israel’s tribal land system.

Truth 4

Dishonest commercial measures are an abomination because ordinary trade is accountable to God.

Connections to the rest of ScriptureExplore deeper

Connection 1

1 Corinthians 9:9–10 and 1 Timothy 5:18 quote the ox command and explicitly apply its principle to supporting human laborers.

Connection 2

Matthew 22:23–33 refers to the levirate law in the Sadducees’ question about resurrection.

Connection 3

Exodus 17:8–16 records Amalek’s attack, while 1 Samuel 15 later addresses Saul’s failure concerning Amalek.

What is clear, and where care is neededExplore deeper

Keep this clear 1

Paul’s inspired use of the ox law authorizes the labor-support principle; interpreters should not assume every civil law contains an unstated allegory.

Keep this clear 2

Levirate marriage belongs to Israel’s inheritance structure and is not a universal Christian marriage command.

Keep this clear 3

The Amalek command is a specific historical judgment and not a standing authorization for modern ethnic warfare.

Read Deuteronomy 25 watching for…

The maximum number of stripes allowed in judicial punishment.

The short ox command and its later New Testament use.

The purpose of preserving a dead brother’s name.

The demand for honest weights and measures.

Why Amalek’s attack was especially shameful.

Chapter outline5 sections

1-4Punishment must be just and the working ox must not be muzzled 5-10A brother is to preserve his dead brother’s name through the widow 11-12A wife who intervenes indecently in a fight is judged 13-16Israel must use honest weights and measures 17-19Israel must remember Amalek and blot out his remembrance

If there be a controversy between men, and they come unto judgment, that the judges may judge them; then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked.

And it shall be, if the wicked man be worthy to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down, and to be beaten before his face, according to his fault, by a certain number.

Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed: lest, if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee.

Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.

If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto her.

And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel.

And if the man like not to take his brother's wife, then let his brother's wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, My husband's brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of my husband's brother.

Then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak unto him: and if he stand to it, and say, I like not to take her;

Then shall his brother's wife come unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother's house.

And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.

When men strive together one with another, 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:

Then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her.

Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small.

Thou shalt not have in thine house divers measures, a great and a small.

But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

For all that do such things, and all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the LORD thy God.

Remember what Amalek did unto thee by the way, when ye were come forth out of Egypt;

How he met thee by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary; and he feared not God.

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 inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it.