Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes less one.
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Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Forty stripes save one. The Lord had ordered, in Deut. xxv3 , that the number of stripes should not exceed forty. The Jews, to make sure of obedience to this precept, used to inflict on criminals one less.
The Jews had power under the Romans to inflict punishments, not indeed capital, but corporal, such as flogging See Mark xiii. 9. The law, in Deuteronomy xxv. 3. permitted, but did not command, forty stripes to be inflicted; it strictly forbad that number to be exceeded.
Why, save one? There was an ancient law that he who had received more than the forty should be held disgraced among them. Lest then the vehemence and impetuosity of the executioner by inflicting more than the number should cause a man to be disgraced, they decreed that they should be inflicted, save one, that even if the executioner should exceed, he might not overpass the forty, but remaining within the prescribed number might not bring degradation on him that was scourged.
There was an ancient law that anyone who received more than forty lashes would be permanently disgraced among the Jews. So in order to prevent this from happening as a result of the impetuosity of the executioner, the law decreed that the forty lashes should be inflicted excepting one, so that even if the executioner overdid it he would not go past forty.
