Page:Keil and Delitzsch,Biblical commentary the old testament the pentateuch, trad James Martin, volume 1, 1885.djvu/937

 not be reached with the sticks was expressly forbidden, in the interest of the strangers, orphans, and widows, as well as gleaning after the vintage. The command with regard to the corn-harvest is repeated again in the law for the feast of Weeks or Harvest Feast (Lev 23:20); and in Deu 24:19 it is extended, quite in the spirit of our law, so far as to forbid fetching a sheaf that had been overlooked in the field, and to order it to be left for the needy. (Compare with this Deu 23:24-25.)

verses 11-13
The Israelites were not to steal (Exo 20:15); nor to deny, viz., anything entrusted to them or found (Lev 6:2.); nor to lie to a neighbour, i.e., with regard to property or goods, for the purpose of overreaching and cheating him; nor to swear by the name of Jehovah to lie and defraud, and so profane the name of God (see Exo 20:7, Exo 20:16); nor to oppress and rob a neighbour (cf. Lev 6:2), by the unjust abstraction or detention of what belonged to him or was due to him, - for example, they were not to keep the wages of a day-labourer over night, but to pay him every day before sunset (Deu 24:14-15).

Verse 14
They were not to do an injury to an infirm person: neither to ridicule or curse the deaf, who could not hear the ridicule or curse, and therefore could not defend himself (Psa 38:15); nor “to put a stumblingblock before the blind,” i.e., to put anything in his way over which he might stumble and fall (compare Deu 27:18, where a curse is pronounced upon the man who should lead the blind astray). But they were to “fear before God,” who hears, and sees, and will punish every act of wrong (cf. Lev 19:32, Lev 25:17, Lev 25:36, Lev 25:43).

Verse 15
In judgment, i.e., in the administration of justice, they were to do no unrighteousness: neither to respect the person of the poor (πρόσωπον λαμβάνειν, to do anything out of regard to a person, used in a good sense in Gen 19:21, in a bad sense here, namely, to act partially from unmanly pity); nor to adorn the person of the great (i.e., powerful, distinguished, exalted), i.e., to favour him in a judicial decision (see at Exo 23:3).

Verse 16
They were not to go about as calumniators among their countrymen, to bring their neighbour to destruction (Eze 22:9); nor to set themselves against the blood of a neighbour, i.e., to seek his life. רכיל does not mean calumny, but, according to its formation, a calumniator (Ewald, §149e).

Verse 17
They were not to cherish hatred in their hearts towards their brother, but