No persons, under the antient Law, inflicted on themselves, with their own hands, voluntary flagellations, or received them from the hands of other persons.
FLAGELLATION, there is no doubt, is a method of coercive punishment very antiently used among Men. We find it mentioned in the Old Testament, in the fifth chapter of Exodus: it is said in that chapter, that the Ministers of Pharaoh, who required from the Israelites a certain number of bricks every day, having found them to have failed in supplying the usual number, ordered them to be flogged; and that the latter complained of this harsh usage.
V. 14. “And the officers of the children of Israel, which Pharaoh’s Task masters had set over them, were beaten[7], and demanded, Wherefore have you not fulfilled your task in making brick, both yesterday and to-day, as heretofore?”
15. “Then the Officers of the children of Israel came and cried unto Pharaoh, saying, Wherefore dealest thou thus with thy servants?”
16. “There is no straw given unto thy servants, and they say to us, Make brick: and behold we are beaten, but the fault is in thine own people.”—Now, I think that no commentary is necessary to prove that the flagellations mentioned here were not in any degree voluntary on the part of those who underwent them.
We also find mention made in Leviticus of the punishment of Flagellation: this is the punishment awarded, in the nineteenth chapter, against those who should be guilty of the sin of Fornication. “And whosoever lieth carnally with a woman that is a bond-maid, betrothed to an husband, and not at all redeemed, nor freedom given her, she shall be scourged; they shall not be put to death, because she was not free.”
The Hebrew words in the text, which are commonly translated by these, shall be scourged, are justly translated so, though in the version of the LXX. they are only translated by the words, shall be punished[8]; for the punishment used on those occasions was inflicted, as the learned Vatable observes, with thongs of ox-leather, that is to say, with scourges. To this I think it is needless to add, that the Israelites did not voluntarily impose on themselves the abovementioned scourgings, and that they never were suffered by any of them but much against their will.
In the xxvth chapter of Deuteronomy, the number of lashes which Offenders of any kind were to receive, was limited to forty. V. 2. “And it shall be, if the wicked may be worthy to be beaten, that the Judge shall cause him to lie down, and to be beaten before his face, according to a certain number.”
3. “Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed; but if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee.”