“You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in his lawsuit.
By this law also, God exhorts His people to exercise the duties of humanity towards brute animals, in order that they may be the more disposed to assist their brethren; for we must bear in memory what Paul teaches, where God commands oxen to be kindly treated, viz., that He does not care so much for them in this, as for mankind.
Here are, I. Cautions concerning judicial proceedings; it was not enough that they had good laws, better than ever any nation had, but care must be taken for the due administration of justice according to those laws. 1. The witnesses are here cautioned that they neither occasion an innocent man to be indicted, by raising a false report of him and setting common fame against...
Commenting on Exodus 23:1-9
Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor in his cause. As the poor man was not to be favoured when his cause was bad through an affected pity for him as a poor man, so his judgment was not to be wrested or perverted, when his cause was good, because of his poverty; which is too often the case, through the power of...