and not exceed; lest if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother shall seem vile unto thee."[1] So scrupulous were the Jews in regarding this prohibition, that they always stopped one short, and inflicted forty stripes save one. In a single instance only did the law allow maiming, and that was in case of retaliation upon a criminal who had mutilated the body of another.
That the law was not animated by a vindictive spirit, appears from this very significant token — that it discouraged informers. Despotisms are always suspicious and cruel. They send out spies to watch the people. They bribe informers. But the Hebrew government was not vexatious or inquisitorial. It did not harass the people. Moses employed no secret police. He forbade the propagating of malicious rumors: "Thou shalt not go up and down as a tale-bearer among thy people." Informers were not allowed to approach the authorities, except in cases of idolatry or of unknown murder.
Such was the Criminal Law of the Hebrews — stern indeed, but not "inhuman" or unjust. Of course it will not find favor with sentimental apologists for crime: for it was not shorn of its terror by those easy pardons which take away the dread of punishment, and almost the sense of guilt. Moses believed in law, and that law was made to be obeyed. No law-breaker found indulgence from him. He punished disobedience with unsparing severity; the murderer and the blasphemer felt his iron hand. Yet never was a lawgiver more gentle to the children of sorrow, and "to all who are desolate and oppressed." Never did the awful form of justice seem bending with more of compassion for human weakness and infirmity, and for every grief and pain.
- ↑ Deut. xxv. 2, 3.
