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Deuteronomy

About this book
Chapter 25

1 If controversy arises between people, they should go to court for judgment. When the judges hear the case, they shall exonerate the innocent but condemn the guilty.⁠ 2 Then, if the guilty person is sentenced to a beating, the judge shall force him to lie down and be beaten in his presence with the number of blows his wicked behavior deserves. 3 The judge may sentence him to 40 blows, but no more. If he is struck with more than these, you might view your fellow Israelite with contempt.⁠ 4 You must not muzzle your ox when it is treading grain. 5 If brothers live together and one of them dies without having a son, the dead man’s wife must not remarry someone outside the family. Instead, her late husband’s brother must go to her, marry her, and perform the duty of a brother-in-law.⁠ 6 Then the first son she bears will continue the name of the dead brother, thus preventing his name from being blotted out of Israel. 7 But if the man does not want to marry his brother’s widow, then she must go to the elders at the town gate and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to preserve his brother’s name in Israel; he is unwilling to perform the duty of a brother-in-law to me!” 8 Then the elders of his city must summon him and speak to him. If he persists, saying, “I don’t want to marry her,” 9 then his sister-in-law must approach him in view of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, and spit in his face. She will then respond, “Thus may it be done to any man who does not maintain his brother’s family line!” 10 His family name will be referred to in Israel as “the family of the one whose sandal was removed.” 11 If two men get into a hand-to-hand fight, and the wife of one of them gets involved to help her husband against his attacker, and she reaches out her hand and grabs his private parts, 12 then you must cut off her hand—do not pity her. 13 You must not have in your bag different stone weights, a heavy and a light one. 14 You must not have in your house different measuring containers, a large and a small one. 15 You must have an accurate and correct stone weight and an accurate and correct measuring container, so that your life may be extended in the land the Lord your God is about to give you.⁠ 16 For anyone who acts dishonestly in these ways is abhorrent to the Lord your God. 17 Remember what the Amalekites did to you on your way from Egypt,⁠ 18 how they met you along the way and cut off all your stragglers in the rear of the march when you were exhausted and tired; they were unafraid of God. 19 So when the Lord your God gives you relief from all the enemies who surround you in the land he is giving you as an inheritance, you must wipe out the memory of the Amalekites from under heaven—do not forget!

Texts in conversation

Compare Deuteronomy 25:17 and 1 Samuel 15:2

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

1 Samuel 15 echoes Deuteronomy 25, recalling Amalek’s attack after the exodus. The narrative connects Saul’s command to Israel's written memory and situates it within the larger Deuteronomistic history.

Passages

Deuteronomy 25:17

Hebrew Bible
16 For anyone who acts dishonestly in these ways is abhorrent to the Lord your God. 17 Remember what the Amalekites did to you on your way from Egypt, 18 how they met you along the way and cut off all your stragglers in the rear of the march when you were exhausted and tired; they were unafraid of God. 19 So when the Lord your God gives you relief from all the enemies who surround you in the land he is giving you as an inheritance, you must wipe out the memory of the Amalekites from under heaven—do not forget!
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Deuteronomy

1 Samuel 15:2

Hebrew Bible
1 Then Samuel said to Saul, “I was the one the Lord sent to anoint you as king over his people Israel. Now listen to what the Lord says. 2 Here is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies has said: ‘I carefully observed how the Amalekites opposed Israel along the way when Israel came up from Egypt. 3 So go now and strike down the Amalekites. Destroy everything they have. Don’t spare them. Put them to death—man, woman, child, infant, ox, sheep, camel, and donkey alike.’” 4 So Saul assembled the army and mustered them at Telaim. There were 200,000 foot soldiers and 10,000 men of Judah.
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Samuel

References

"... When the reader has established that to all appearances a perceived parallel is author-intended and intends to draw him or her to the other text, the question arises, what criteria do we have to determine the direction of dependence in textual parallels in the narratives? A related question concerns how to assess the phenomenon of shared phraseology in the narratives and Pentateuch that consists of recurrent use of a specific set of phrases and themes, disclosing a stylistic and conceptual relatedness. 1 Samuel 15:2–3 provides us with an example of an obvious literary connection between a narrative and a legal text in the Pentateuch ... Saul/the readers are expected to recognize and understand the veiled reference to a critical episode in the Amalekite-Israelite interrelationship that goes back to Israel’s very beginning as a people having experienced a recent liberation from slavery ..."
Carsten Vang, “Inner-Biblical Quotations in Old Testament Narratives: Some Methodological Considerations (e.g., 1 Sam 15:2 and Deut 25:17–19),” OTE 33.3 (2020): 515–537.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Deuteronomy 25:17 and 1 Samuel 15:2

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