You shall not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but shall fear your God: I am the LORD.
Read Chapter 19
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Deaf. The word Kophos, used by the Septuagint, means also the dumb, as these defects are generally found in the same person. Nothing can be more base, than to attack those who are unable to defend themselves. Solon forbids anyone "to speak ill of the dead "though he may receive an injury from his children. Those who undermine and ruin the reputation of the absent, are no less to be condemned.
To speak evil of the deaf is to disparage one who is absent and does not hear. To put a block before the blind is to do a thing that is proper of itself but which affords an occasion of scandal to one who fails to understand the propriety of it.
