כי יהיה ריב בין אנשים, “if an argument between two men results in their taking their case to the court;” Nachmanides writes, basing himself on a long standing tradition, that the penalty of 39 lashes is administered for deliberate transgressions of negative commandments when no specific penalty has been decreed by the Torah. Why would the Torah expand on this penalty when speaking about a fight between two people, when the same penalty is applied for people who eat meat that has not been slaughtered, or who indulge in a number of other forbidden activities? Furthermore, what law did these two people break when they engaged in a fight? The whole structure of our verse, which speaks about exonerating someone after judgment had been given and labeling the second party as “wicked” is problematic. Why do we need a verse telling us that the person found “justified” be so declared as such by the judges? Such considerations prompted our sages to understand the whole paragraph as dealing with a scenario involving a second set of witnesses appearing after initial judgment having been given. This second set of witnesses challenges the witnesses on the basis of whose testimony the guilty party has been convicted by claiming that those witnesses had been with them in a different location at the time the fight was supposed to have occurred, so that they could not have witnessed that fight at all. Normally, in such a case the first set of witnesses would be given the penalty that they had intended to be applied to their victim. (Deut. 19,19) When this is impossible, such as when they claimed that seeing the accused party was the son of a legally forbidden union and could not partake of certain privileges reserved for children of legitimate unions, then the court will impose the penalty of 39 lashes, as it is impossible to change those witnesses’ legal status in the community. The judges, when reversing the conviction, will have to make a public statement that the party originally convicted of the crime in question had in fact been righteous and had remained righteous throughout. According to a homiletic approach the reason why the number of lashes is described as being “40,” (excluding the 40th), is that the guilty party had violated a commandment that Moses had been given during the 40 days he had been on Mt Sinai without food and drink. Moreover, by sinning, the guilty party had condemned himself to death as it takes 40 days in the womb of its mother for the embryo to begin to evolve into a living human being. The 40 lashes are intended to absolve the sinner from further guilt.

והיה הבכור אשר תלד יקום על שם אחיו, “and the firstborn male child whom she will give birth to will replace his deceased brother (the widow’s new husband).” Nachmanides writes that this verse cannot be taken at face value, as there is no requirement to give the newly born the same name as that of his deceased uncle. The reason the verse was written in this manner is that Hashem gives His assurance that if the levirate marriage is performed according to law and the lawgiver’s intention, the newly born will become a replacement on earth for his father’s deceased brother.

לא יהיה בכיסך אבן ואבן, “You must not have in your pocket two stones purporting to weigh the same but designed to deceive the customer.” Ibn Ezra explains that the word בכיסך is a reference to the pouch in which weights are kept. The word is derived from כסס, and is used in the sense of uniform weights in Proverbs 1,14 כיס אחד יהיה לכולנו, “let us all have a common purse.” It also appears in a slightly different form in Exodus 12,4 where it refers to the number of people arranging to receive equal shares of a Paschal lamb.

זכור את אשר עשה לך עמלק, “keep on remembering what Amalek has done to you.” Nachmanides writes, quoting our sages (Sifri) on our verse that the word זכור is to be understood as remembering by mouth, i.e. reading the appropriate verses in the Torah, whereas the words לא תשכח, at the end of the paragraph refer to remembering in one’s heart. Nachmanides continues that he does not understand what Sifri has in mind when he says that זכור refers to “remembering” by mouth. If it referred to the reading of the paragraphs in the Torah dealing with Amalek’s attack in a public reading, this is a long established custom on the Sabbath before Purim, (as well as the reading of the actual report in Beshalach which is read on the morning of Purim.) He therefore concludes that what is meant is that we (subsequent generations) must not forget what Amalek has done to us until the time comes when the memory of his erstwhile existence has been expunged from history. While Anmalek or his descendants still exist on earth, we must make sure that in educating our children we impress upon them who he was and what he hoped to accomplish, namely the extinction of the Jewish people by any means possible. The same holds true for what happened to Miriam. In spite of the fact that we normally gloss over shortcomings of our righteous forbears, in this case the moral ethical advantage to be derived from remembering that episode outweighs the danger of thereby detracting from Miriam’s many merits. The sin of badmouthing people is such that we must be on our guard against it at all times, and demonstrate by the example of Miriam that even the greatest people are liable to trip up. We, who cannot measure up to such people must therefore be especially on guard against becoming guilty of that sin.