בן הכות, “deserves to be punished by physical lashes;” the expression is similar to בן מות, “deserving of the death penalty,” the word בן here with the vowel chirik under the latter ב, is similar to the one in the name of Joshua, i.e. יהושע בן נון, “Joshua, son of Nun,” or אגור בן יקה, in Proverbs 30,1.

והכהו לפניו, “and he has to strike him in his presence.” The man carrying out the court’s judgment must do so in the presence of the judge who had convicted the sinner. (Compare Talmud, tractate Makkot folio 22.)

כדי רשעתו, “according to the measure of his wickedness.” This sounds somewhat indefinite, as if the judge could impose different penalties of lashes for different sins. The conclusion of the Talmud is that under no circumstances must the number 39 be exceeded. Possibly, the degree of force used to apply the lashes varies with different sins.

ארבעים, “forty;” the number 40 is symbolic of the forty days Moses spent on Mount Sinai when he received the Torah, so that it takes forty lashes to cleanse the sinner of the guilt he had accumulated by having deliberately violated a negative commandment by committing an act which must be interpreted as rebellious. (Tanchuma Bamidbar section 23.)

יכנו, “he will beat him;” on his body, not on the garment or garments he is wearing. The part of the body where these lashes are to be applied is between the shoulders of the sinner.

לא יוסיף, “he must not exceed this number;” why was this repeated seeing that we read it already in Deuteronomy 4,2, where it appeared as a general rule? According to the Rabbis, it means that whereas the sages do not have the right to increase this mode of punishment, they may impose fewer lashes, such as when the health of the sinner is fragile, and similar considerations. This is also why the Rabbis divided the areas of the body to which these lashes are to be applied, to shoulder, chest, and the upper back where it joins the shoulder.

לא תחסום שור בדשו, “do not muzzle the ox while it is engaged in treading corn.” Rashi claims that this wording is meant to exclude human beings. You may muzzle the mouth of a human being under such circumstances {Sifri) If you were to argue that seeing that the Torah permitted human labourers engaged in assisting the owner in harvesting his vineyard, the Torah had made it plain that while so engaged the labourer could eat to his heart’s content, (Deut.23,25) the Rabbis stated that if the owner of the vineyard had muzzled his labourer to prevent him from eating any of his grapes, he does not have to compensate him for this financially, it is plain that our verse applies only to animals? [The Talmud, tractate Baba Metzia folio 91, states that if a farmer had violated this commandment and muzzled his ox while it was threshing, he is assessed a certain amount of monetary fine depending on the size of the animal involved, i.e. more for an ox than for a donkey, since the former eats more. The Torah does not excuse a human being from a trespass involving the penalty of 39 lashes, however. Had the Torah not written both the verse in Deut 23,25, and our verse here, I would have thought that the Torah excuses the employer of a human being only from the penalty of being subjected to lashes, but not from the financial compensation due for being denied his rights. Therefore the Torah wrote both verses to make sure that we understand that only animals are subject to this legislation and the penalty for violating it. The critical words are respectively: כנפשך “according to your heart’s desire,” and: בדשו, “while engaged in threshing.”According to Rash,i we must question why the Torah writes: בדשו, ”when he is busy threshing;” surely the rule of not muzzling someone’s mouth applies also before the ox had started to thresh, otherwise nobody would bother to observe this commandment! Besides, why was the ox singled out as an example for this commandment, surely it applies to other animals engaged in performing work with food also? The example of the ox was chosen as it is the animal that is used for such tasks more than any other. The law applies, of course, also to other animals that can be used to do threshing, It does not apply to human beings, even if these were used for threshing corn, as this is not a normal occupation for which human beings are used. The word בדשו is chosen as it applies to an activity that is as yet not completed, you may not use the product until other commandments have been fulfilled, such as tithing, setting aside challah. But it applies to activities preparing nature’s products to serve man as food, working with dough, etc. These are products that are not yet even “owned” in the full sense of the word by the farmer himself until he has given the appropriate portions to the priests, the Levites, the poor, the orphans and the widows. Anyone engaged in such a process must not be denied partaking of the product while working with it. The exception is: milking cows and making cheese. [no part of those need to be shared with the poor or the priests. Ed.]

כי ישבו אחים יחדו ,“when brothers live together, etc.” the word: [“together” here is not to be understood in terms of space but in terms of time, i.e. both are alive at the same time. They share time on earth. In addition,] only brothers who share the same father are referred to in the legislation about to be revealed here. [We are familiar with the basic principle about the levirate marriage from Tamar and the sons of Yehudah in Genesis chapter 38, long before the Torah was given to the Jewish people. Ed.] That there are distinctions between brothers from the father and brothers from the mother, we know from when Joseph’s brothers on their arrival in Egypt described themselves by saying that they were all the sons of one father. (Genesis 42,11)

ומת אחד מהם, “and one of them died;” the letter א, has the vowel patach;

יבמה בא עליה ולקחה, “her husband’s brother shall go into her and take her as a wife;” this is a positive commandment, whereas previously this woman had been out of bounds for him as a possible wife, now she is not only permitted, but it is considered a good deed to marry her. This is the preferable solution to this widow’s problem, although the Torah offers an alternate solution, also. This is indicated by the fact that the widow has not returned to her previous status before she had become married to her deceased husband, i.e. free to marry other men. Our author refers the reader to his commentary on Leviticus 6,9 where he compared the situation to the words .

ויבמה, “and he will perform the ritual of the levirate marriage with her.” This is one of the words which allows for two ways to interpret them. It is similar to Exodus 27,3, לדשנו, and other similar words. The meaning of the expression: ויבמה, therefore is: ”the period of suspended status of potential levirate marriage will come to an end” and “he will make her his wife” in the full sense of the word.

ועלתה יבמתו השערה, “his deceased brother’s widow will proceed to the gate” (where the elders are in session) she will be walking behind her brother in law.

השערה, it is a rule that the place where the elders are holding their deliberations is on an elevation relative to the rest of the town’s streets. (Sifri)

להקים לאחיו שם בישראל, “he refuses to establish a name for his deceased brother in Israel.” The addition of the word: בישראל “in Israel,” prompted the sages to declare that the levirate marriage legislation does not apply to the two brothers who were conceived before their parents converted, but who were born after their parent’s conversion so that they were Jews from birth. (Sifri) Nevertheless, the ritual described here would not be necessary for the widow of such a husband and she is free to marry any Jewish man of her choice.

ועמד, “and her brother-in-law is required to stand up;” he is required to do this in order that all the elders present can hear his refusal clearly;

וחלצה נעלו, “she will loosen his shoe;” this shoe must be made from leather, as we know from Ezekiel 16,10: ואנעלך תחש, “and I shod you in Tachash leather. [The skins of the animal from which this leather was made was used as the upper layer of the coverings of the Tabernacle, Exodus 26,14. Ed] This procedure has to be performed on the right foot of the brother-in-law, seeing that whenever the word רגל, foot or leg, is used without any other adjective, the right foot is meant. (Talmud tractate Yevamot folio 104)

וחלצה נעלו, according to the plain meaning of the text this procedure enables her to become the heir of her deceased husband, as her brother-in-law who would normally inherit his estate had refused to “inherit” the whole estate, i.e. his widow also. The best known example in the Bible of the procedure is the story of Ruth and Boaz, in Ruth chapter 4. In answer to the heretics criticising this procedure as demeaning for women, this procedure may be understood as follows: “if you wish to perform your duty to marry me, I will serve you like a maid serves her master.” ...

When he replies that he is not willing to do so, she will spit out in front of him to signal that she thinks his refusal by rejecting her is disgusting. She hints by her action that as of now she considers him as not worth any more than the spittle she has ejected from her mouth.

וענתה ואמרה, she will reply and say: she does this in order 1) to shame her brotherinlaw, and b) to put her mind at rest.

אשת האחד, “the wife of the one,” (of the two men fighting one another) as opposed to the wife of the messenger from the court. (According to the Sifri, the altercation may have been the result of one of the men having been convicted of receiving 39 lashes, and the wife attacks the messenger from the court who was supposed to carry out the sentence.) The text wants to make plain that this is not the scenario here.

והחזיקה במבושיו, “and she takes hold of his private parts;” seeing that the Torah singles out the man’s private parts I might have thought that the woman will be punished only for the fact that she chose to attack those parts; in order to show that this was only one example, but the same applies to other parts of the body, the word והחזיקה, “she takes a firm hold,” has been added.

וקצותה את כפה, “you shall cut off her hand;” this penalty excludes the wife of the court messenger who had been sent to beat a condemned person. If this person attacks her husband (the court messenger) and she defends him by taking hold of that person’s private parts, she will not be convicted. (Talmud tractate Baba Kamma folio 28) [After looking up the folio quoted in the Talmud, I have come to the conclusion that the point that the Talmud is making there is that if an authorised messenger from the court is attacked and forced to defend himself, he will not be held culpable even if he had attacked the other party by hurting his private parts when he had no other option. Ed.]

גדולה וקטנה, “large or small.” Rashi comments here that the Torah speaks of two stones used as weights, both having the same markings. The deception practiced by this is that when selling, the merchant uses the smaller stone when weighing the goods for his customer, whereas when he is buying he is using the larger stone when weighing what is due to him. When the Torah writes that we are not to have two weights, the meaning is that when these two stones, one weighing 1.25 liter (a weight used in those days) and the other .75 liter, are both put on one side of the scale, together show the weight of 2 liter; but one is smaller and the other, larger - thus hiding the deception when they are each used independently. This is what he meant when Rashi wrote that “the larger stone contradicts the smaller stone.”

בכיסך, not literally in your pocket, but in the place where weights are normally kept. (Ibn Ezra)

ויזנב בך, “and attacked the hindmost of you.” Amalek chased after the Jewish people until he caught up with the slowest moving ones. (Ibn Ezra) [The people had not yet been organised into army groups, etc., as we learned in the Book of Numbers. Ed.]

הנחשלים, as if spelled הנחלשים, “the weakest of them.”

ואתה עיף ויגע, “while you were tired and worn out.” There is no reason for your being surprised at his taken advantage of you at that time, as he exploited the fact that you were worn out from long marches. (Mechilta) Another interpretation of the words: ולא ירא אלוקים, “he displayed no fear of G-d,” these words are addressed by Moses to the Jewish people; he tells them that if they at the time had observed the commandments that they already knew about, Amalek could not have done them any harm and could not even have caught up with them.

!תמחה, “blot out!” do so before Amalek can attack the Temple. When the Torah, in Exodus 17,14 had written that G-d had said that He would blot out Amalek, it referred to the period after Amalek had successfully attacked the Temple. (early version of Tanchuma)