Chapter 09. Punishments for Incest and Murder (Talmudic Tract: "Sanhedrin") (Judaic Texts)

[Rules and regulations concerning those to whom burning and those to whom slaying applies. Who is considered a murderer deserving capital punishment and who is to be exiled. Those who recovered after they were diagnosed to die; killing some other one instead of those whom he had intended]

MISHNAS I. TO VI. Punishment of burning applies to one man who has intercourse with a woman and her daughter, and to a daughter of a priest, etc. Punishment with the sword applies to a murderer and to the men of a misled town. If one pressed down a person while he is in water, or in fire, preventing him from coming out, he is guilty, etc. If one bound a person, and he died thereafter of hunger, he is not guilty of a capital crime. If, however, he put him in a sunny place, and he died because of the sun, he is guilty.

Ball-players�if one threw a ball with the intention of killing some one, he is to be put to death, and if it was unintentional, he is to be exiled, etc. All agree that if one kills a person whose windpipe and larynx (gullet) are cut or whose skull is fractured, he is free (for it is considered as if he attacked a dead man). If one strikes a person with a stone or with his fists, and he was diagnosed (by the physicians of the court) to die, and thereafter he improved, etc. Capital punishment does not apply to one who intended to kill an animal and killed a man, an idolater and killed an Israelite, etc.; but it does apply to one who intended to strike a person on the loins with an article which was sufficient for this purpose, and he strikes him to death on his heart, etc. A murderer mixed up among others�all of them are free, etc. If it happen that the persons sentenced to deaths of different kinds, and are so mixed that it is not known who comes under this kind of death and who under another, all of them must be executed with the more lenient death. If one committed a crime which deserves two kinds of death, he must be tried for the more rigorous one. Ezek. xviii. must not be taken literally, but "the mountains he eats not" means that he does not live upon the reward of the meritorious acts done by his parents; "his eyes he lifts not up to the idols" means that he never walked overbearingly, etc.,

MISHNAS VII. TO IX. He who receives stripes, and relaxes into the same crime, the court takes him to the kyphos. He who kills a person not in the presence of witnesses is taken to the kyphos and is fed on scant bread and water. If one steals a kisvah, or one curses his neighbor, invoking God as a "carver," zealous people (like Pinchas) have a right to strike him when caught in the act. What is this punishment if there were no zealous men? Answer to this, it happened that it was read before R. Kahan in a dream, etc. In a case where there is a violation of the Holy Name the honor of the master must not be considered. "If a priest performs the service while he is defiled," etc. "If a common Israelite served in the Temple," etc.,