Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/257



"Therefore shalt thou stumble in the day." This refers to Israel, and means on account of thy deeds thou shalt stumble and fall. This day; that is, in this time; thy fall shall soon come. And so we read, "Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day." (Deut. xxxi. 17.) And again, "In that day there shall be a root of Jesse," (Isaiah xi. 10,) where day means time and period. And the prophet also shall fall with thee in the night, that is, the false prophet who deceiveth thee shall stumble with thee, as men stumble in the night in darkness; and so the Targum of Jonathan has it. (Kimchi, Comment. in Hos. iv. 2.) Kimchi and Jonathan, then, both testify that the oral law gives a false interpretation of this verse. This is in itself rather awkward for a law that professes to have been given by God, but still more so when it is made the basis of most unjust and partial legislation, to save the learned from the punishment which an unlearned man would have in similar circumstances to suffer. No one can deny that the learned and unlearned are here placed on very unequal terms. If an unlearned man provoke a rabbi, he may be excommunicated by that individual without either judge or jury, or even the form of a trial. But if a learned man makes himself liable to the same punishment, even a court of justice has not the power to pronounce the sentence. Who can doubt that the rabbies made these laws for their own convenience? Can any one believe that God has given this law, which makes the learned a privileged class of persons, who, though guilty of the same offence as the working classes, is to be spared, whilst they are to be punished? God is no respecter of persons, and therefore no such law can be from him.

The extreme injustice of this mode of legislation will appear still more from considering the nature of the punishment:—