In 2 Corinthians 11:24, Paul mentions, among a litany of other punishments, the fact that he received from the Jews “forty lashes minus one.” And he didn’t just receive this one time; he mentions that this was his punishment on five different occasions.
Obviously, the man just didn’t learn his lesson (insert sarcasm here).
It’s a harsh punishment. It’s not exactly the same thing that Jesus went through with his trial (as that one seemed especially brutal), but it’s still extreme.
The exact crimes worthy of a flogging are not given, with the exception of lying about your new wife (Deuteronomy 22:18). Other cultures in the area flogged people who destroyed their neighbor’s property, stole livestock, or backed out of a contract. In nearly every case, as is outlined here, the crime was deemed to be between two private individuals, not in matters of state affairs.
What’s curious about Deuteronomy’s punishment is that God limits the number of lashes to forty. Anything more would “degrade” the offender. Because of this, most commentaries put the actual cap at thirty-nine, lest the flogging unintentionally go past God’s limit.
That doesn’t mean that every punishment received thirty-nine lashes, however. It just means that the maximum number was forty. The magistrate determined the number of lashes based on the specific crime.
Other civilizations had no such limitation. In some cultures, depending on the crime, a person may be beaten up to one hundred times.
This is an important distinction. As you might know from the New Testament, Jesus’ punishment was carried out by the Romans, not the Jews. As such, He was beaten until the executioners simply decided enough was enough.
There’s a cruel touch of irony in that fact. Despite the law that the Jews followed saying not to go past forty lashes so you didn’t “degrade” someone, the Sanhedrin allowed Jesus to be punished by the Romans in order to degrade Him. It wasn’t just about punishment with Jesus—they were trying to send a message.
But the message that God wanted to send, even in the midst of punishment: Human life is valuable. Just because someone has committed a crime and deserves to be punished does not mean that they should lose their decency as well.
The Jews in Jesus’ day forgot that. I pray we as a society never do.