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on the right hand of Moses; Eleazar and Ithamar entered, and Moses repeated to them all that he had communicated to their father: after which they arose, and seated themselves, one on the left hand of Moses and the other on the right hand of Aaron. Then went in the seventy elders, and Moses taught them in the same manner as he had taught Aaron and his sons. Afterwards entered the congregation at large, or all of them who were desirous of knowing the divine will; and to them also Moses recited the text and the interpretation, in the same manner as before. These two laws, as delivered by Moses, had now been heard, by Aaron four times, by his sons three times, by the seventy elders twice, and by the rest of the people once. this, Moses withdrawing, Aaron repeated the whole that he had heard from Moses, and withdrew : then Eleazar and Ithamar did the same; and on their withdrawing, the same was done by the seventy elders: so that each of them having heard both these laws repeated four times, they all had them firmly fixed in their memories.*

After

Toward the end of the fortieth year after the departure from Egypt, Moses assembled the people, announced the time of his death to be near, directed those who had forgotten any tradition he had delivered to come to him that he might repeat it to them anew, and invited them to apply to him for a solution of all questions in which they found any difficulty. The last month of his life was employed in giving these repetitions and explications to the

* Maimon. in Pocock. Porta Mosis, p. 5-7. Oxon. 1665.

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people, and especially to Joshua his successor; who was the second receiver of the oral law, and was charged with the transmission of it to the next generation. According to these explications, Joshua and the elders of his time gave sentence. Whatever they had received from Moses, was admitted without any controversy or disagreement: but if there was any branch respecting which nothing had been delivered by Moses, the decision proper to be made in such a case was discovered by fair inference from the original precepts, by the help of some of the thirteen rules given to Moses on mount Sinai, which are so many ways of argumentation to elicit the true sense of the law. In some cases of this kind, there was but one opinion, and the decision was received with universal consent: whenever there was a difference of sentiment, the opinion of the majority prevailed. Towards these explications of the law, and the deductions drawn from it by the thirteen rules, no assistance was contributed by the spirit of prophecy; but Joshua and Phineas proceeded merely in a way of disquisition and argumentation as Rabina and Rabbi Ashe did afterwards.*

A prophet might suspend any law, or authorize a violation of any precept, except those against idolatry, for a limited time. Thus, after the erection of the temple at Jerusalem, where alone sacrifices were thenceforth to be offered, Elijah, in order to confound the priests of Baal, offered a sacrifice upon mount Carmel; and God testified

* Ibid. p. 9-11.

his acceptance of it by consuming it with fire from heaven.* If a prophet of undoubted credentials should command all persons, both men and women, to light fires on the sabbath day, for the purpose of preparing instruments to arm themselves for war, and on the same day to kill the inhabitants of any place, to seize their wealth, and use their women according to their pleasure; it would behove all who have received the law of Moses, to rise up against that place without delay, at the prophet's command, and speedily and diligently to execute all that he should direct, without scruple or hesitation; believing that all these actions done on the sabbath day would be rewarded by God as acts of obedience to the prophet, obedience to whom has been enjoined by the Lord in an affirmative precept given by Moses: "Unto him shall ye hearken." Deut. xviii. 15. But a prophet had no power to abrogate, extend, or diminish any precepts of the written law, or any received traditional explication of them. Thus, if he should say, in opposition to the written law, (Lev. xix. 23-25.) that the fruit of newly planted trees might lawfully be eaten the third year, or might not lawfully be eaten the fourth year: or, if he should contradict any traditional explication, even though the letter of the text be in his favour; as for example, if he should say, that the denunciation of the law, (Deut. xxv. 12.) “Thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her," is not to be understood of a pecuniary fine, according to the traditional interpretation, but

* Ibid. p. 27, 28.

+ Ibid. 29, 30.

is to be taken according to the literal sense of the words in either of these or any similar cases, he ought to be strangled as a liar.*-In disquisition, and reasoning, and judgment in the law, prophets are on a level with other wise men of equal abilities who are not endued with the spirit of prophecy. If a thousand prophets, all equal to Elijah and Elisha, should offer an interpretation of any precept, and a thousand and one wise men should give a contrary interpretation of it, we are bound to abide by the opinion of the thousand and one wise men, and to reject the opinion of the thousand illustrious prophets.+

When Joshua died, all the interpretations which he had received from Moses, together with all that had been made in his time, whether settled by unanimous consent or determined by the opinion of the majority, were transmitted by him to the elders who survived him. (Josh. xxiv. 31.) Those elders conveyed them to the prophets, and by one prophet they were delivered to another: so that no age passed without inquiries being made into the meaning of the law, and conclusions being drawn from it; the men of every age taking the determinations of their predecessors as the foundations of their conclusions. Now respecting the foundations received by tradition, there never was any disagreement, down to the time of the men of the Great Synagogue; which consisted of Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah, Ezra the scribe, Nehemiah the son of

* Ibid. p. 14, 15.

+ Ibid. p. 32.

Chacaliah, Mordecai, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and others who were associated with these prophets; being in all one hundred and twenty of the most eminent and leading men of the nation; who followed the example of those in former ages, inquiring into the sense of the law, making decrees, and appointing constitutions. The last of this venerable assembly was Simeon the Just, who then filled the office of high priest, and who was the first of the wise men that are mentioned in the Mishna. After him followed a regular succession which terminated with Rabbi Jehuda Hakkodesh, or the Holy, a man of most eminent talent and virtue.*

From the time of Moses to the days of Rabbi Jehuda, no part of the oral law had ever been committed to writing for public perusal. In every generation, the president of the sanhedrim or the prophet of his age, for his own private use, wrote notes of the traditions which he had heard from his teachers; but he taught in public only by word of mouth and thus each individual wrote for himself an exposition of the law and the ceremonies it enjoined, according to what he had heard. With respect to the new decisions which were made in different ages, not according to any tradition, but according to any of the thirteen rules, their authority rested on the determination of the sanhedrim. Thus things were situated till the days of Rabbi Jehuda. He observed that the students of the law

* Ibid. 33-35. Some marvellous stories respecting this rabbi, his holiness and purity, life and death, are given in Wagenseil. Sota. Not. p. 999-1002.

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