820 
i E W. 
mandmcnt, is prmifhed with death. This is mere rabbinic 
fubtlety.; the ealier and the furer way of proving it would 
have been to have recurred to Exod. xxi. 16. where Heal¬ 
ing of men is exprefsly declared to be capital. The fe¬ 
cond part is of things that teach from the end : to this 
the author of the Halicoth fays nothing, as thinking it 
Efficiently plain. Schickard, who was very well (killed 
in thefe matters, thinks that by the end here is not meant 
the final caufe of logicians, but a leading-clauie at the 
end of a law, from which the fenfe of that law is to be 
determined. As thus, Levit. xiv. 34. God threatens to 
• vilit fome houfes with leprofy: The Talmudifts tell us 
• that mud-walls were exempted from the plague, becaufe, 
ver. 45, they are commanded “to break down the lioufe, 
the Hones of it, and the timber thereof, and all the mor¬ 
tar of the houfe.” Now, fay thefe doctors, fince, in the 
end or conclufion of the law about leorous houfes, they 
are required to pull down the houfe, with the Hones, 
•timber, and mortar, thereof, this fiiows that no houfes 
came within that law, and confequently no houfes were 
ever vifited with leprofy, but what were made of the ma¬ 
terials there fpecified. Bechinath Happcrujhim, p. 109. 
XIII. When two texts conlradiEl one another , and a third 
conies and weighs than both down. Thus, Exod. xix. 20. it 
is faid that “ the Lord came dowm upon Mount Sinai j” 
and yet, Exod. xx. zz. “ The Lord faid unto Mofes, Thus 
■.thou flialt lay unto the children of Ifrael, Ye have feen 
;that I have talked with you from heaven.” Thefe two 
paiTages are perfectly reconciled by what Mofes fays to the 
people of Ifrael, Deut. iv. 36. “Out of heaven he made 
thee to hear his voice, that he might inHruct thee ; and 
upon earth he ffiowed thee his great fire, and thou heardeH 
bis words out of the fire.” Halic. 01 am. p. 171. The next 
infiance which the Talmudifis bring is very ingenious. 
When David commanded Joab to number the people, he 
brought in the njamber of the men of Ifrael to be 800,000 
men that were fit to bear arms ; z Sam. xxiv. 9. Now 
in the account which we have of this fame tranfaclion in 
1 Chron. xxi. 5. the number of the men of Ifrael is faid 
to be 1,100,000 men ; here we fee is a difference of 300,000 
men, which we cannot well lay upon a corruption in the 
Hebrew’ text, fince the copy which the feventy-two inter¬ 
preters ufed has the fame difference; fo that the reading 
is the fame there with that in our Hebrew Bibles. Now 
this difagreement is folved by the Talmudifis thus : It 
appears by 1 Chron. xxvii. 1. that every month there were 
24,000 men who waited in their turns to do the king’s 
bufinefs. In king David’s time, every body knows, that 
they divided their year into twelve months as we do; 
24,000 multiplied by 12 makes 288,000 ; that brings the 
number within 12,000, of whom they luppofe every 
captain to have 1000 for his own ufe. Now (fay they) 
.thele, being already engaged i.i the king’s fervice, were 
omitted in one account, and ir.ferted in the other. Bo- 
chart ( Hierozoic . Parti, lib. 11. cap. 37.) thinks this fo- 
lution is right. Some very confiderable interpreters are 
of opinion that there is nothing at all in this, becaufe 
there is no foundation for it in Scripture ; and therefore 
they go the fhorteft way to work, and fancy the copies in 
-one or both places, but rather that in the Chronicles 
•which enlarges the account,- are faulty; but, if they are, 
they have certainly been fo for many centuries ; for not 
only the Septuagint, but the vulgar Latin, agree in the 
fame numbers. The rabbis, and particularly the Tal¬ 
mudifts, often trifle, but they do not always; yet, becaufe 
they do fo too often, learned men are very apt to run 
them down at all adventures: but fince the moft eminent 
men among them were men of admirable parts, and 
thoroughly (killed in the biblic ftyle, and perpetually bu¬ 
ffed in the fame dlfqnifitions, their interpretations of texts 
of Scripture, when they ftaft notions with which we are 
unacquainted, are not always to be defpifed. 
Thefe are the thirteen ways of reasoning which are 
i’o celebrated among the rabbis; their notion that they 
are Halacak le Mofchek miffinai, or a Conftitution, as they 
2 
call it, of Mofes, which he brought with him from Mount 
Sinai, is certainly founded in error. It ferved them, 
however, for many ufeful purpofes, and helped to given 
fandlion to many of their forced interpretations of Scrip¬ 
tural texts, by which they endeavoured to fupport their 
traditions. But yet this logic of theirs is by no means 
defpifable; and there is not one Angle mode of the whole 
thirteen, but may fometimes be ufed to explain difficulties 
which frequently occur in the law of Moles. 
Exclufive of the written law, the Jews had another, 
which they denominated the oral, or the fecond, law. It 
confifts either in explanation of the fenfe of the written 
law, or in cuftoms, which are fo many guards to fecure the 
more exaft obfervance of it. They pretend., that Mofes 
is as well the author of the fecond law as of the firft. The 
honour the rabbis do their traditionaLor oral law is indeed 
very great; for, according to Maimonides, “Mofes,at the 
time he received the law from God, received the inter¬ 
pretation of it alfo.” The fame rabbi informs us, that, 
when “Mofes retired into his tent, Aaron came to him, 
and learned of him the law which God had given to him, 
and the interpretation of it; and then he Hood up, and 
placed himfelf at his right-hand. After Aaron came in 
Eleazar and Ithamar his fons, and Mofes repeated to them 
the fame things which he had faid to Aaron. Then 
came the feventy elders, and Mofes gave them the fame 
leffon which he had given Aaron and his children. And 
laft of all came all the people to feek the Lord, and to 
learn of Mofes the law, and its interpretation. The chief 
among the people divided among the elders the care of 
teaching both the text of the law, and the explanation of 
it; but the text was written, and the interpretation was 
preferved by tradition. And hence it is, that the fages, 
peace be to their fouls, divide the laws into two forts, 
the one written and the other oral.” Some of the rabbis 
have been remarkably rigorous -in their interpretations of 
the law, while others have been noticed for the oppofite 
extreme ; and hence that diverfity of opinions which has 
prevailed among their doftors, and occafioned infinite 
difputes. 
It was in order to flop the courfe of thefe difputes, and 
to hinder the oral law, which was not written, from be¬ 
ing loft, that, after the deftruftion of the temple, the Jews 
drew it up in a volume called Mifckna, a term which the 
Greeks render by deuterojis, i. e. the fecond law. The 
compiler of it was rabbi Jehudah. A great while before 
his time, and even before the birth of Chrift, the two 
rabbis Hillel and Schammai had fet up two fchools in 
direft oppofition to one another; and “ever fince the dif- 
ciples of thefe two rabbis began to multiply, ((ays Mai¬ 
monides,) as they did not confider things thoroughly, the 
divifion between them has much divided Ifrael, and has 
made, as it were, two laws of the law of Mofes.” “This 
book, lays the fame author, was received by all the Jewiffi 
world ; every one tranfcribed it, and every one taught it 
in Ifrael, that the oral law might not be loft.” The Mifch- 
na, though a very little volume, contains both the ca¬ 
non and civil law of the Jews. Rabbi Jehudah, as before 
obferved, was the compiler of it, about A. D. 180. This 
do< 5 lor was born at Sephoris in Galilee ; and, having ac¬ 
quired a great reputation, and being long employed in 
compofing differences and deciding difputes that hap¬ 
pened among thole of his nation concerning the fenfe of 
the lav/; and likewife feeing the danger they were in, left 
the Jews, difperfed through fo many provinces, might at 
laft recede from the traditions of their fathers, or forget 
fome part of the rites of their nation ; he judged it better 
to reduce them to writing than to trull to their me¬ 
mories. 
The Mifchna is divided into fix parts: The firft is con- 
verfant about the diltinfHon of feeds in a field, the trees, 
fruits, tythes, See. The fecond regulates the manner of 
obferving the feftivals. The third treats of women, and 
matrimonial cafes. The fourth, whofe title is Ioffes, takes 
cognizance of fuch fuits as arile from trade, and ihows 
