Passage

Deuteronomy 25.1

Book: Deuteronomy · NASB95

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV (ASV)

"1. If there be a controversy between men, and they come unto judgment, and the judges 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 wickedness, by number. 3. Forty stripes he may give him, he shall not exceed; lest, if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee." (Deuteronomy 25:1-3, ASV)

WEB (WEB)

"1. If there is a controversy between men, and they come to judgment, and the judges judge them; then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked."

"2. It shall be, if the wicked man is worthy to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down, and to be beaten before his face, according to his wickedness, by number. 3. He may sentence him to no more than forty stripes. He shall not give more; lest, if he should give more, and beat him more than that many stripes, then your brother will be degraded in your sight." (Deuteronomy 25:1-3, WEB)

KJV (KJV)

"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 thy brother should seem vile unto thee." (Deuteronomy 25:1-3, KJV)

YLT (YLT)

"1. 'When there is a strife between men, and they have come nigh unto the judgment, and they have judged, and declared righteous the righteous, and declared wrong the wrong-doer,"

"2. then it hath come to pass, if the wrong-doer is to be smitten, that the judge hath caused him to fall down, and [one] hath smitten him in his presence, according to the sufficiency of his wrong-doing, by number; 3. forty [times] he doth smite him, he is not adding, lest, he is adding to smite him above these, many stripes, and thy brother is lightly esteemed in thine eyes." (Deuteronomy 25:1-3, YLT)

Setting

Speaker: TBD
Audience: TBD
Location: TBD
Time period: TBD

Theological reading

Patristic / early-church-father exegesis, to be added.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word; see Lexicon Roadmap.

TBD
TBD
TBD
TBD

Quoted in

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.