Deuteronomy 25:3

The judge may give him forty blows, but he may not exceed that number; for if he should exceed that number and beat him with many more blows, then your fellow Israelite would be humiliated before your eyes.

Unlocked Literal Bible

In The King James Version

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.

In Context

2If the guilty man deserves to be beaten, then the judge will make him lie down and be beaten in his presence with the ordered number of blows, as was his crime.

4You must not muzzle the ox when he treads out the grain.

Read all of Deuteronomy 25

Cross References

Luke 15:30but when your son came, who has devoured your living with prostitutes, you killed for him the fattened calf.'

2 Corinthians 11:24From Jews I received five times the “forty lashes minus one.”

Matthew Henry on Deuteronomy 25:2-5

Stripes Not to Exceed Forty. ( b. c. 1451.) 1 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. 2 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. 3 Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed: lest, if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then… Read the whole commentary →

This Verse In Other Editions

Study Deuteronomy 25:3