Ramban (Nachmanides) on the Torah

IF THERE BE A QUARREL BETWEEN MEN. According to the tradition of our Rabbis that stripes are administered to those who are guilty of having violated negative commandments [and not in civil cases, the question arises] what is its [the stripes’] connection with a quarrel between two people? He who eats n’veilah (carrion) in his home is liable to stripes! So also he who sows his field or his vineyard with diverse seeds, or he who cohabits with any of the women forbidden by a plain prohibitive law [i.e., one not involving the court-imposed death-penalty], and all the rest of the negative commandments [are all typical of the transgressions punishable by stripes. All involve negative commandments, not civil suits as is the case in the verse before us.] Additionally, what is the meaning of the phrase and they shall justify the righteous [since a civil case does not involve questions of wickedness and righteousness]? Therefore, the Rabbis have interpreted the verse as referring to plotting witnesses. Scripture says: “In case, If there be a quarrel between two men, and they come high unto judgment and they will judge them through the testimony of two witnesses, as we have been commanded. [Afterwards, two other witnesses came to court and testified that the first pair of witnesses were elsewhere at the time when the event they testified about allegedly took place. Thus the person found guilty as a result of the original testimony is shown to be ‘righteous’ while the plotting witnesses have been proven ‘wicked.’] Then the judges will justify the righteous [through the second pair of witnesses] and condemn the wicked contrary to the first judgment; then it shall be if the wicked man [i.e., the first pair of witnesses] deserve to be beaten. ” This applies to where the command and ye shall do unto him, as he had purposed to do unto his brother as well, but Scripture implicitly excludes the offspring from liability [for it says, and ye shall do unto him, but not to his offspring] as he had ‘purposed to do unto his brother.’ Therefore the witnesses are scourged for their false testimony (Makkoth 2 a-b). cannot be carried out upon them — such being the case if they testified [against a priest] that he is the son of a divorced woman [and therefore not qualified to be a ministering priest in the Sanctuary], or that he is a slave or a bastard [who is prohibited from the priesthood or from marriage to a Jew], or if they testified against someone that he transgressed one of the negative commandments [which are punishable by stripes] — in all these cases they [the plotting witnesses] are punishable by stripes. It is possible that there be a quarrel between men resulting in stripes — such as where someone assaulted his fellow [causing a damage of] less than a perutah, [a small coin], there are no stripes. But if the damages are less than a prutah, he is punishable by stripes. (Kethuboth 32b). or that he cursed his fellow with the Name of G-d, or that someone exacted a utensil necessary for the preparation of food as security for a loan, and similar cases. Scripture speaks of the common occurrence that the party to a dispute [with his fellow] will bring him to court and he will be punished with stripes because of him. Now, the reason for the forty stripes, according to the Midrash, 28. is because he transgressed against the Torah which was given in forty days and he caused death upon himself who was formed in the forty days following conception; let him, therefore, be given forty stripes, and be freed of his punishment [of death]. I have already mentioned the subject of levirate marriage and the secret thereof, as well as of Chalitzah (the loosening of the shoe) and its reason.

AND IT SHALL BE THAT THE FIRSTBORN THAT SHE BEARETH SHALL SUCCEED IN THE NAME OF HIS BROTHER THAT IS DEAD. It [the true purport thereof] is not the simple meaning that they call the first son by the name of the dead, Reuben or Shimon as his name was, for in the case of Boaz it says thus, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren, and yet they did not call the child born [to Boaz and Ruth] Machlon. But this verse by way of the Truth, [the mystic teaching of the Cabala], is an assurance and thus it is to be understood in its simple sense. And our Rabbis found support in this verse for the following laws: that the eldest [surviving] brother contracts the levirate marriage, that a sterile woman may not be contracted for such marriage, nor the wife of a eunuch since his name was “blotted out” [when he was yet alive]. Now, all these are but Scriptural supports [for laws of levirate marriage], because the laws of the sterile widow and the widow of the eunuch are derived from the very essence of the Scriptural section [and are not derived from the Scriptural supports quoted].

REMEMBER WHAT AMALEK DID UNTO THEE. I have already mentioned the Midrash which the Rabbis interpreted in the Sifra:. “I might think that it means, ‘in your heart.’ But when Scripture states, thou shalt not forget, forgetfulness of heart is already stated. How then can I fulfill the injunction Remember? It must mean ‘by verbal utterance.’” It is also stated in the Sifre, 296. “Remember what Amalek did unto thee means verbal [remembrance]. Thou shalt not forget means [remembrance] in the heart.” But I know not what is this remembrance through the spoken word. If it is to say that we are to read the section of Amalek in public, then we might deduce therefrom that the duty of reading on the second [Sabbath in the month of Adar the section] Remember what Amalek did unto thee is by law of the Torah! 685:7, where this opinion is mentioned. So also we shall have in that case a Scriptural support for the reading of the Scroll [of Esther on Purim]! The correct interpretation appears to me that the verse states that you are not to forget what Amalek did to us until we blot out his remembrance from under the heavens, and that we are to relate it to our children and to our generations, saying to them, “Thus did the wicked one do to us and therefore we have been commanded to blot out his name.” Similarly, in the affair of Miriam, we were commanded to make it known to our children and relate it to the generations. And although it would have been appropriate to conceal it in order not to speak of the shortcomings of the righteous, yet Scripture commanded that it be made known and revealed so that the admonition against slander be put in their mouths because it is a great sin and causes many evils, and people are in the habit of stumbling therein, just as the Rabbis have said: “All people are [suspect] of a shade of slander.” Ki Thavo