truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of

judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries' (Heb 10:26,27). In

point of fact, these terms of threatening correspond to two kinds of Divine punishment

frequently mentioned in the Old Testament. The one, often referred to in the warning

'that he die not,' is called by the Rabbis, 'death by the hand of Heaven or of God'; the

other is that of being 'cut off.' It is difficult to distinguish exactly between these two.

Tradition enumerates thirty-six offences to which the punishment of 'cutting off'

attaches. From their graver nature, as compared with the eleven offences on which

'death by the hand of God' was to follow, we gather that 'cutting off' must have been the

severer of the two punishments, and it may correspond to the term 'fiery indignation.'

Some Rabbis hold that 'death by the hand of God' was a punishment which ended with

this life, while 'cutting off' extended beyond it. But the best authorities maintain, that

whereas death by the hand of Heaven fell upon the guilty individual alone, 'the cutting

off' extended to the children also, so that the family would become extinct in Israel. Such

Divine punishment is alluded to in 1 Corinthians 16:22, under the well-known Jewish

expression, 'Anathema Maranatha'--literally, Anathema when the Lord cometh!

To these two Divine punishments corresponded other two by the hand of man--the

'forty stripes save one,' and the so-called 'rebels' beating.' The distinction between them

is easily explained. The former were only inflicted after a regular judicial investigation

and sentence, and for the breach of some negative precept or prohibition; while the

latter was, so to speak, in the hands of the people, who might administer it on the spot,

and without trial, if any one were caught in supposed open defiance of some positive

precept, whether of the Law of Moses or of the traditions of the elders. The reader of the

New Testament will remember such popular outbursts, when the men of Nazareth would

have cast Jesus over the brow of the hill on which their city was built (Luke 4:29), and

when on at least two occasions the people took up stones in the Temple to stone Him

(John 8:59; 10:31). It is a remarkable fact, that when the Lord Jesus and when His martyr

Stephen were before the Sanhedrim (Matt 26:59,68; Acts 7:57,58), the procedure was in

each case in direct contravention of all the rules of the Rabbinical criminal law. In each

case the sitting terminated in 'the rebels' beating,' both when they 'buffeted the Master'

and 'smote Him with the palms of their hands,' and when 'they ran upon' Stephen 'with

one accord, and cast him out of the city, and stoned him.' For the rebels' beating was

really unto death. The same punishment was also to have been inflicted upon Paul,

when, on the charge of having brought a Gentile beyond the enclosure in the court open

to such, 'the people ran together, and they took Paul, and drew him out of the Temple,'

and 'went about to kill him.' This summary mode of punishing supposed 'rebellion' was

probably vindicated by the example of Phinehas, the son of Eleazar (Num 25:7,8). On the

other hand, the mildness of the Rabbinical law, where religious feelings were not

involved, led to modifications of the punishment prescribed in Deuteronomy 25:2, 3.

Thus because the words were, 'by a certain number, forty stripes he may giv e him,'

instead of a simple direction to give the forty stripes, the law was construed as meaning

a number near to forty, or thirty-nine, which accordingly was the severest corporeal

punishment awarded at one time. If the number of stripes were less than thirty-nine, it

must still be some multiple of three, since, as the scourge was composed of three

separate thongs (the middle one of calf's leather, the other two of asses', with a reference

to Isaiah 1:3), each stroke of the scourge in reality inflicted three stripes. Hence the

greatest number of strokes administered at one time amounted only to thirteen. The law

also most particularly defined and modified every detail, even to the posture of the

criminal. Still this punishment, which St. Paul underwent not less than five times at the

hands of the Jews (2 Cor 11:24), must have been very severe. In general, we can only

hope that it was not so often administered as Rabbinical writings seem to imply. During

the scourging, Deuteronomy 28:58, 59, and at its close Psalm 78:38, were read to the

culprit. After the punishment he was not to be reproached, but received as a brother. 23