Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
First, God decrees that judges judge justly; second, verse 4, that they not muzzle an ox while it is threshing, that a brother raise up seed for his deceased brother, and that a woman not seize a man's private parts in a quarrel; third, verse 13, that they have just weights, and that they blot out the name of Amalek.
Vulgate Text: Deuteronomy 25:1-19
1. If there is a dispute between some persons, and they appeal to the judges, they shall give the palm of justice to the one they perceive to be just; and condemn the impious one for his impiety. 2. But if they judge the one who sinned to be worthy of stripes, they shall lay him down and have him beaten in their presence. The number of stripes shall be proportioned to the measure of the sin: 3. yet only so that they do not exceed the number of forty, lest your brother depart shamefully mangled before your eyes. 4. You shall not muzzle an ox that treads out the grain on the threshing floor. 5. When brothers dwell together, and one of them dies without children, the wife of the deceased shall not marry another, but his brother shall take her and raise up seed for his brother; 6. and he shall call the firstborn son by his name, so that his name may not be blotted out from Israel. 7. But if he does not wish to take his brother's wife, who is owed to him by law, the woman shall go to the gate of the city, and shall appeal to the elders, and shall say: My husband's brother does not wish to raise up his brother's name in Israel, nor to take me as wife. 8. And immediately they shall summon him and question him. If he responds: I do not wish to take her as wife, 9. the woman shall approach him before the elders and shall remove the sandal from his foot, and spit in his face, and shall say: So shall it be done to the man who does not build up his brother's house. 10. And his name shall be called in Israel: The house of the unshod. 11. If two men quarrel with each other, and the wife of one approaches to deliver her husband from the hand of the one who is stronger, and stretches forth her hand and seizes his private parts: 12. you shall cut off her hand, nor shall you be moved by any pity for her. 13. You shall not have in your bag different weights, a greater and a lesser. 14. Nor shall there be in your house a larger and a smaller bushel. 15. You shall have a just and true weight, and your bushel shall be equal and true: that you may live a long time upon the land which the Lord your God shall give you. 16. For the Lord your God abhors the one who does these things, and He detests all injustice. 17. Remember what Amalek did to you on the way when you came out of Egypt: 18. how he met you and cut down the stragglers of your army, who sat down being weary and tired, when you were spent with hunger and toil, and he did not fear God. 19. Therefore when the Lord your God shall give you rest, and shall have subdued all the nations round about in the land which He has promised you: you shall blot out his name from under heaven. Take care not to forget it.
Verse 3: Not Exceeding Forty Stripes
3. YET ONLY SO THAT THEY NOT EXCEED THE NUMBER OF FORTY (the reason is added): LEST YOUR BROTHER DEPART SHAMEFULLY MANGLED BEFORE YOUR EYES. — So Paul: "Five times," he says, "I received forty stripes minus one," 2 Corinthians 11:24.
Verse 4: You Shall Not Muzzle the Ox
4. YOU SHALL NOT MUZZLE AN OX THAT TREADS OUT THE GRAIN ON THE THRESHING FLOOR — because it is fitting that laboring animals eat: therefore I forbid that the mouths of those threshing be closed with a muzzle, lest they eat from their own threshing. For they were accustomed in Palestine, as is still done in the Canary Islands and some regions, to thresh grain by oxen which, driven in a circle, trod out the crops with the hooves of their feet. That this is the literal meaning is clear from the words themselves, which impress this law upon the hard-hearted Jews.
You will object: In 1 Corinthians 9:9, the Apostle seems to exclude this meaning, for he says: "Does God have concern for oxen?" Abulensis responds that the Apostle adduces another literal meaning of this passage, and that the principal one, with which nevertheless our meaning here concerning oxen, which is less principal, is consistent, as if the Apostle says: God's less principal concern is for oxen; His principal concern is for preachers of God's word. But that these are not two literal meanings is clear; for the ox does not literally signify a preacher, but only a real ox, whereas it signifies a preacher only typologically: because namely the ox, born for labor, is a type of the preacher, who labors like an ox in the Lord's field. Therefore since this sentence is understood literally of real oxen threshing, it cannot be taken literally of preachers, but only typologically; otherwise every allegory would be a literal meaning, which is plainly false.
I say therefore: The literal meaning concerns oxen, as I said; the typical meaning concerns preachers, which the Apostle gives — namely that sustenance must be given to them, and that they can live from the Gospel, just as an ox is fed from its threshing. Because God's principal concern was for these — namely that God principally intended by this law to signify typologically that preachers must be fed by the people — hence the Apostle says: "Does God have concern for oxen?" as if to say: God's principal concern in this law was not for oxen, but He had something higher in view — namely that I and my fellow heralds of the Gospel can live from it. The Apostle therefore here, as often elsewhere, argues not from the literal meaning, but from the allegorical; or rather from the literal meaning, he argues from the greater to the less, toward the allegorical, as if to say: If the ox lives from its threshing, then much more the preacher from his preaching. So Tertullian, book 5 Against Marcion, chapter 7, and Theodoret here, Question 31.
Verse 5: Levirate Marriage
5. WHEN BROTHERS DWELL TOGETHER — not in the same house or place, for this has little to do with the matter, says Abulensis; but as if to say: When brothers have lived together, so that when one dies, another survives. It is a catachresis; for brothers usually dwell together in the same house, or city, or at least province.
AND IF ONE OF THEM DIES WITHOUT CHILDREN, THE WIFE OF THE DECEASED SHALL NOT MARRY ANOTHER; BUT HIS BROTHER SHALL TAKE HER AND RAISE UP SEED FOR HIS BROTHER. — Tertullian, book 4 Against Marcion, chapter 34, translates: "if any brother dies without children, seed shall be furnished (that is, substituted) for him by his brother"; or, as Cajetan translates word for word, "the brother-in-law shall take her as his wife, and shall perform the levirate duty with her." For the duty of the brother-in-law was to marry his brother's wife, and from her to raise up seed for his deceased brother, which Cajetan from the Hebrew calls "levirating."
To raise up seed for a brother, therefore, is to beget offspring for the brother, or offspring that shall be considered to belong to the deceased brother, and be attributed to him.
Note: "Brother." Although Calvin understands "brother" as "kinsman," because, he says, Leviticus 18:16 forbids a brother from taking his brother's wife: nevertheless, because here no mention is made of kinsmen, and the name "brother" is always repeated, hence Abulensis, Cajetan, and others generally take "brother" here in its proper sense, and so the ancient Hebrews interpreted it, as is clear from Matthew 22:25, Mark 12:20, Genesis 38:8 and 11. Whence it is clear that this law was an exception to that of Leviticus 18, as I said there.
Hence it follows that this law obligated only the brothers of the deceased, not kinsmen. Brothers, I say, individually, each in his order; so that if the second brother likewise died without children, the third brother would have to marry the brother's wife; and if he died childless, the fourth brother would have to marry her, up to the last one, as is clear from Matthew 22:25. The remaining kinsmen, therefore, each in their order after the brothers, had indeed the right of kinship to the deceased's wife, and consequently to his inheritance; but if they did not wish to marry her and wished to yield the inheritance, they were not branded with the infamy of this law, as is clear from Ruth 4:6; the deceased's wife, however, was bound to marry none other than a brother or kinsman of her deceased husband, if he wished to take her. So Abulensis.
You will ask: What if the deceased brother had left a daughter, not a son; would the surviving brother have to marry the deceased's wife? Some think not: because this daughter would have married a man, from whom she would have borne offspring, who would have been named after the grandfather, and continued his family and name, as is clear from the daughters of Zelophehad, Numbers 27. But Abulensis and others more probably judge that in this case the brother had to marry the brother's wife; the reason is that a brother owed it to his brother to raise up seed: and "to raise up seed" means to beget male offspring who would propagate the deceased brother's name and line; for women never bear the name of their father or grandfather, but of their husband.
You will ask: What was the reason for this law? I answer: The first was to multiply families; for the brother raising up seed for his brother, first, was restoring his brother's family, then his own. Second, so that the widow might be provided for. Third, because in that age the desire for children was supreme, and the supreme sorrow of the dying was to die without offspring: this law served to alleviate that sorrow, whence even before this law, in the state of the law of nature, the same custom existed, as is clear from Tamar, Genesis 38:8 and following. Fourth, lest the inheritance of the tribes and families be confused. Fifth, so that the duty of fraternal charity and love would be sanctioned. Sixth, so that survivors would be reminded of their duty toward their deceased. Procopius gives a seventh reason, as does Julius Africanus in Eusebius, book 1 of the History, chapter 7: "Because," he says, "a certain and undoubted hope of resurrection had not yet deeply settled in the minds of the Jews, therefore they foreshadowed the future promise of the resurrection, by a kind of imitation, in this mortal and perishable hope of resurrection, so that the name of him who had exchanged life for death would not be utterly blotted out from all memory." For through seed raised up by the brother, the deceased in a certain way rose again.
St. Augustine gives an allegorical reason, book 22 Against Faustus, chapter 10, and from him Rupert: Every preacher of the Gospel, he says, ought to labor in the Church so as to raise up seed for his deceased brother, that is, Christ, who died for us, and what has been raised up should receive His name, so that it be called Christian, not Petrian or Paulian. So also St. Gregory, Part 1 of the Pastoral Rule, chapter 5.
Verse 6: The Firstborn Shall Bear the Name
6. AND HE SHALL CALL THE FIRSTBORN SON BY HIS NAME (the deceased brother's). — In Hebrew it is: "the firstborn shall stand in the name of his brother," that is, the firstborn shall be called the son, not of the father, but of his deceased uncle, and shall enter into his inheritance: the remaining sons whom he begets shall be counted as belonging to the begetting brother, and shall be called by his name, so that he too may leave his own line and family after him.
Verses 8-9: Refusal and the Sandal Ceremony
8 and 9. IF HE RESPONDS: "I DO NOT WISH TO TAKE HER AS WIFE," THE WOMAN SHALL APPROACH HIM, etc., AND SHALL REMOVE THE SANDAL FROM HIS FOOT, AND SPIT IN HIS FACE — as if to say: She shall mark him with infamy; for these are marks of a servile condition: for we hardly spit in the face of slaves. The removal of the sandal signifies the same thing: for slaves went barefoot, without sandals, as if to say: Such a man is unworthy to wear a sandal, that is, to move among the freeborn, because he has renounced his brother's wife, as well as the inheritance and family.
For it is the mark of a mean and vile spirit. Again, such a man is spat upon in the face and stripped of his sandals, so that the highest and lowest parts of the person are subjected to insult, and thus the whole man is branded with infamy, to signify that such a person has been stripped of all honor, from head to foot. So Abulensis, Oleaster, and Fevardentius on Ruth chapter 4.
Third, the sandal is as it were the house of the foot: because therefore this man wishes to build a house, that is a family, only for himself, not for his brother, he retains one sandal but loses the other.
"WHO DOES NOT BUILD THE HOUSE" — that is, the family; that is, who does not raise up offspring for his brother. So Leah and Rachel are said to have built the house, that is, the family, of Israel, Ruth 4:11.
Verses 11-12: A Woman Seizing in a Quarrel
11 and 12. IF, etc., THE WIFE SEIZES THE PRIVATE PARTS OF THE MAN (who is fighting with her husband), YOU SHALL CUT OFF HER HAND — both because this contact is shameful. So Vatablus and Cajetan, who says: "The law shudders that a woman should dare to injure the parts of a man which were directly designed for completing the female sex." For this seizure, done to inhibit the fight and brawl, was violent and harmful. Also because in the violent seizure of the private parts, the pain is so great that a man becomes immobile, and can very easily be killed by the other with whom he is brawling and fighting. So Abulensis.
Verse 19: Blotting Out Amalek
19. YOU SHALL BLOT OUT HIS NAME (Amalek's) FROM UNDER HEAVEN — as if to say: You shall strike the Amalekites so that no memory of them remains on earth among men, as we see that now none remains. So are blotted out those who persecute the faithful and the saints.