Makkot

MISHNAH. HOW DO WITNESSES BECOME LIABLE [TO PUNISHMENT] AS ZOMEMIM?1 [IF THEY SAY:] ‘WE TESTIFY THAT N. N. [A PRIEST] IS A SON OF A WOMAN WHO HAD [FORMERLY] BEEN DIVORCED2 OR A HALUZAH,’3 IT IS NOT SAID [IN THIS CASE] THAT EACH [MENDACIOUS] WITNESS BE HIMSELF STIGMATIZED AS BORN OF A DIVORCEE OR HALUZAH; HE ONLY RECEIVES FORTY4 [LASHES]. [IF THEY SAY]: ‘WE TESTIFY THAT N.N. IS GUILTY OF [A CHARGE ENTAILING] BANISHMENT,’5 IT IS NOT SAID [IN THIS CASE] THAT EACH [MENDACIOUS] WITNESS SHOULD HIMSELF SUFFER BANISHMENT; HE ONLY RECEIVES FORTY [LASHES]. GEMARA. Should not the opening words of the Mishnah have been rather, ‘How do witnesses not become liable [to punishment] as zomemim?’ Moreover, since we read in a subsequent Mishnah: But if they [i.e. counter-witnesses] said to them, ‘How can you testify at all, since on that very day you were with us at such and such a place?’ these are condemned as zomemim,’6 does not ‘these’ imply that those in the foregoing instances are not treated as zomemim? — The Tanna had just been dealing with the last Mishnah in the preceding tractate [of Sanhedrin]7 to which this Mishnah is but a sequel, namely: ‘All zomemim are led forth to meet a talionic death save zomemim in an accusation of adultery8 against the [married] daughter of a priest, and her paramour, who are led forth to meet not the same death [as she], but another [manner of] death.’ Accordingly in our Mishnah we are provided with other instances of zomemim where the main law of retaliation is not enforced, but ‘a flogging of forty’ [lashes] is inflicted instead: [IF THEY SAY:] ‘WE TESTIFY THAT N. N. [A PRIEST] IS A SON OF A WOMAN WHO HAD [FORMERLY] BEEN DIVORCED OR A HALUZAH,’ IT IS NOT SAID THAT EACH [MENDACIOUS] WITNESS BE HIMSELF STIGMATIZED AS BORN OF A DIVORCEE OR HALUZAH; HE ONLY RECEIVES FORTY [LASHES]. What is the sanction for this [substitutive] penalty? — Said R. Joshua b. Levi: R. Simeon b. Lakish9 said that it is based on the text: then shall ye do unto him as he purposed to do;10 that is to say, punish him [the culprit] and not his [innocent] offspring.11 But why should not he alone be stigmatised, and not his offspring? — We must needs fulfil ‘as he had purposed to do’ and in such a case we should have failed to do so.12 Bar Pada13 says that the sanction [here, for the substitutive penalty of a flogging] may be obtained by an argument a fortiori.14 What do we find in the case of the ‘desecrator’?15 The ‘desecrator’ himself does not become ‘desecrated’ [by his forbidden association]. Is it not then logical [to argue from this] that a zomem who only came to [try and] ‘desecrate’ a person,16 but did not [in fact] desecrate him, should not become ‘desecrated’ himself? Rabina demurred to this argument, saying that if you admit this [kind of] deduction, you nullify [in effect] the law of retaliation for zomemim. 19 ff.) and their punishment is by the law of retaliation (Deut. XIX, 16ff.). from priestly office. (Lev. XXI, 6-8, 14-15; Ezek. XLIV, 22.) off’, sc., the shoe. Deut. XXV, 5-10) is designated Haluzah-widow, and is (Rabbinically) considered tantamount to a divorcee and consequently may not be married to a priest. Haluzah may be taken to mean either ‘discharged’, ‘withdrawn’ (cf. Hosea, V. 6); or, ‘drawer of the shoe’, v. M. Segal, Mishnaic Hebrew Grammar, 235. 155. recensions. The order is, however, different in our editions of the Babylonian Talmud, where it is not the last chapter, but the last but one (Chap. X, fol. 89a). Sanh. 50a seq.). The seducer of any married woman was to be strangled, v. 84b. On the traditional methods of execution, v. Sanh. VII. was the older of the two and could not have been the former's disciple; but this form of reporting does not invariably imply discipleship, v. Yad Malaki, sect. 74. thenceforth, also become stigmatized as ‘desecrated’, cf. p. 1, n. 2. to the more important or from the more important to the lesser, V. Glos. Note that we have here an instance of two tendencies in attempting to trace accepted principles back to their origins. Some seek their origin in the Bible, others again delight also in giving them a logical basis by deduction. 3. Josephus, Ant., XIII, 10, 5 — 6.