to stretch or spread out · verb, hiphil imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular
judgment
מִשְׁפַּ֖טmish.Pat
H4941
properly · noun, common masculine singular construct
stranger
גֵּ֣רger
H1616
properly · noun, common masculine singular absolute
fatherless
יָת֑וֹםya.Tom
H3490
a bereaved person · noun, common masculine singular absolute
take
תַחֲבֹ֔לta.cha.Vol
H2254
to wind tightly (as a rope) · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular
widow’s
אַלְמָנָֽה'al.ma.Nah
H490
a widow · noun, common feminine singular absolute
raiment
בֶּ֖גֶדBe.ged
H899
a covering · noun, common masculine singular construct
pledge
חָבַלchâbal
H2254
to wind tightly (as a rope)
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Deuteronomy 16:19 Thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift: for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert…
Exodus 22:21-22 Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Exodus 23:6 Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor in his cause.
Deuteronomy 27:19 Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, fatherless, and widow. And all the people shall say, Amen.
Exodus 23:2 Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment:
Exodus 23:9 Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Deuteronomy 1:17 Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man; for t…
Job 29:11-17 When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me:
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Deuteronomy 24:14–end
Here, I. Masters are commanded to be just to their poor servants, Deu 24:14, Deu 24:15. 1. They must not oppress them, by overloading them with work, by giving them undue and unreasonable rebukes, or by withholding from them proper maintenance. A servant, though a stranger to the commonwealth of Israel, must not be abused: "For thou wast a bondman in the land where thou wast a stranger (Deu 24:18), and thou knowest what a grievous thing it is to be oppressed by a task-master, and therefore, in tenderness to those that are servants and strangers, and in gratitude to that God who set thee at liberty and settled thee in a country of thy own, thou shalt not oppress a servant." Let not masters be…
The fathers shall not be put to death for the children--The rule was addressed for the guidance of magistrates, and it established the equitable principle that none should be responsible for the crimes of others.
John Gill on Deuteronomy 24:17
Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless,.... Who are unable to defend themselves, and have but few, if any, to take their part; and therefore particular care should be taken by judges and civil magistrates to do them justice, or God will require it of them:
nor take a widow's raiment to pledge; nor anything else, as her ox or cow, Job 24:3; according to the Jewish canons (r), of a widow, whether she is poor or rich, a pledge is not taken; the reason given for which is, that it would raise an ill suspicion, and cause an evil report of her among her neighbours (s); and which is suggested by the Targum of Jonathan"neither shall any of you take for a pledge th…
Deuteronomy 24:16
16. The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.
16. Non interficientur patres pro filiis, neque filii interficientur pro patribus: quisque in peccato suo morietur.
Here also God manifests how great is His regard for human life, so that blood should not be shed indiscriminately, when he forbids that children should be involved in the punishment of their parents. Nor was this Law by any means supererogatory, because on account of one man's crime his whole race was often severely dealt with. It is not without cause, therefore, that God interposes for the…
The Church Fathers
You will not twist the judgment of the stranger or the orphan or the widow. You will not take the widow's dress as a pledge. Why do not you say: And you will not take their clothes as a pledge? What is the reason why it has been forbidden to twist the judgment of these three and, on the other hand, have only been forbidden to take the garment of the widow as a pledge, and not that of the others? The reason why it is recommended to make the judgments of all is because they have no one to defend them, nor the stranger, because he is in a foreign land, nor the orphan, that is, the pupil, because he has no parents, nor the widow, because He has no husband. On the other hand, when it is forbidden to wear the widow's dress as a pledge, I think that she warns elegantly that only those who are poor should be called truly widows. To this the Apostle also clearly alludes, when he says: But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let her first learn to practice the duties of piety with those of her own house and to correspond with her parents; because this is pleasing to the Lord. But the one who is truly a widow and is desolate, has placed her hope in the Lord and perseveres in her prayers night and day (1Tm 5,4.5). She calls the widow truly the one who does not support her, because she is deprived not only of her husband, but of descendants and of all help. Of course I would not call a desolate woman rich. The poor one does not have to take off the dress he has in pledge; because the law states that he is poor because he forbids his dress to be taken away from him. For the creditor would rather remove the money or anything else from the dress. But if one thought to think: if she had many unnecessary dresses, but superfluous, how is it understood that she is a true widow, that is, not only desolate, but also alien to a life in the midst of delights? About this widow the Apostle adds: The one who lives in the midst of delights, even when living, is dead (1Tm 5,6). And this widow opposes her to the real widow, and says that she is not a true widow. In wealthy widows, who have not remarried, continence is praised, its desolation is not proclaimed. For these widows are only deprived of a husband, not of other things.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Loan — The Mosaic law required that when an Israelite needed to borrow, what he asked was to be freely lent to him, and no interest was to be charged, although interest might be taken of a foreigner (Ex.…
Stranger — This word generally denotes a person from a foreign land residing in Palestine. Such persons enjoyed many privileges in common with the Jews, but still were separate from them. The relation of the…
Widows — To be treated with kindness (Ex. 22:22; Deut. 14:29; 16:11, 14; 24:17, 19-21; 26:12; 27:19, etc.). In the New Testament the same tender regard for them is inculcated (Acts 6:1-6; 1 Tim. 5:3-16) and…
Aliens · To be treated with justice — To be treated with justice
Creditor · LAWS CONCERNING — LAWS CONCERNING
Fatherless · Wrong not, in judgment — Wrong not, in judgment
Injustice · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Lending · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Orphan · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Pawn · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Warning against Injustice. - Deu 24:16. Fathers were not to be put to death upon (along with) their sons, nor sons upon (along with) their fathers, i.e., they were not to suffer the punishment of death with them for crimes in which they had no share; but every one was to be punished simply for his own sin. This command was important, to prevent an unwarrantable and abusive application of the law which is manifest in the movements of divine justice to the criminal jurisprudence of the lane (Exo 20:5), since it was a common thing among the heathen nations - e.g., the Persians, Macedonians, and others - for the children and families of criminals to be also put to death (cf. Est 9:13-14; Herod.…
True justice must be given (literally do not deprive of justice): The people of Israel were to vigorously resist discrimination against the weakest and most vulnerable people in society. Israel had been redeemed from such a status in Egypt, and their experience should help them realize how to treat others in similar circumstances (24:18).
Rashi on Deuteronomy 24:17
לא תטה משפט גר יתום THOU SHALT NOT PERVERT THE JUDGMENT OF THE STRANGER, OR OF THE FATHERLESS — and with regard to the well-to-do one has already been forbidden to do so (Deuteronomy 16:19): “Thou shalt not pervert judgment”, (which is a general prohibition including both poor and rich), but it (Scripture) repeats it regarding the poor in order to make one who perverts the judgment of the poor transgress two negative commands. Because it is easier to pervert the judgment of the defenseless poor than that of the rich, therefore Scripture lays down a prohibition regarding him a second time (Sifrei Devarim 281:1).
ולא תחבל NOR TAKE [A WIDOW’S GARMENT] TO PLEDGE — The term חבל refers to taking…
· Laws respecting: To have justice done to them in all disputes
— Laws respecting: To have justice done to them in all disputes
Widows · Should not be: Deprived of raiment in pledge — Should not be: Deprived of raiment in pledge
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
