Reference: SCOURGE
American
Or Whip. The punishment of scourging was very common among the Jews. Our Savior was subjected to this barbarous and ignominious torture, which was at times so sever as to end in death, Joh 19:1. Moses limits the number of stripes to forty, which might never be exceeded, De 25:1-3. The Jews afterwards, in order to avoid in any case exceeding forty, and thus breaking the law, were accustomed to give only thirty-nine stripes, or thirteen blows with a scourge of three thongs. There were two ways of giving the lash: one with thongs or whips made of rope-ends, or straps of leather sometimes armed with iron points; the other with rods or twigs. The offender was stripped from his shoulders to his middle, and tied by his arms to a low pillar, that he might lean forward, and the executioner the more easily strike his back; or, according to the modern custom in inflicting the bastinado, was made to lie down with his face to the ground, De 25:2. Paul informs us, 2Co 11:24, that at five different times he received thirty-nine stripes from the Jews; and in the next verse, shoes that correction with rods was different from that with a whip; for he says, "Thrice was I beaten with rods." The bastinado with rods was sometimes given on the back, at others on the soles of the feet.
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Watsons
SCOURGE or WHIP. This punishment was very common among the Jews, De 25:1-3. There were two ways of giving the lash: one with thongs, or whips, made of ropes' ends, or straps of leather; the other with rods, or twigs. St. Paul informs us, that at five different times he received thirty-nine stripes from the Jews, 2Co 11:24, namely, in their synagogues, and before their courts of judgment. For, according to the law, punishment by stripes was restricted to forty at one beating, De 25:3. But the whip, with which these stripes were given, consisting of three separate cords, and each stroke being accounted as three stripes, thirteen strokes made thirty-nine stripes, beyond which they never went. He adds, that he had been thrice beaten with rods, namely, by the Roman lictors, or beadles, at the command of the superior magistrates.