SECT. 13-17. ] IN PROMISES AND THREATENINGS. 505
“same day the taskmasters of the people and their officers ;’” and verses
13, 14, “ And the taskmasters hasted them, saying, Fulfil your works; SRC: and the officers of the children of Israel were beaten.” And they tell us in Midrash Rabba, on Exod. sect. 1, that one of these noghesim was over ten of the Israelitish officers, and one of them over ten Israelites ; whence was the following division of the people into tens and hundreds. And unto this, in the same place, they add a putid story of an exactor killed by Moses.
15. What was the authority of these, and how it was executed by them in Egypt, nothing is recorded. Probably, at the beginning of their works and afflictions, they were made use of only to answer for the pretended neglects or miscarriages of the multitude of their brethren, as Exod. v. 14.
After their coming up out of Egypt, during their abode in the wilderness, Moses presided over them with all manner of authority, as their lawgiver, king, and judge. He judged and determined all their causes, as is frequently affirmed, and that alone, until, by the advice of Jethro, he took in others unto his assistance, Exod. xviii. 13-26. And there is mention of four particular cases that he deter- mined,—one religious, one civil, and two capital, relating to reli- gion. In these he made especial inquiry of God. The first was about the unclean that would keep the passover, Num. ix. 7, 8; the second, about the daughters of Zelophehad, who claimed their father’s in- heritance, Num. xxvii. 1-5; the third, about the blasphemer, Lev. xxiv. 10-12; the last, about him that profaned the Sabbath, Num. xv. 832-34;—in which also, as the Jews say, he set a pattern to future judges, as determining the lesser causes speedily, but those wherein blood was concerned not without stay and much deliberation.
16. In the wilderness the body of the people was cast into a new distribution, of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens; all which had their peculiar officers or rulers chosen from amongst themselves, Exod. xviii. 25; Deut. i. 18-15. And Moses is said to choose them, because, being chosen by the people, he approved of them, as the places foregoing compared do manifest.. The principal distribu- tions of these, planting themselves together in the cities or towns of Canaan, however afterward they multiplied or were decreased, con- tinued to be called by the names of the “thousands of Israel” or Judah. So Bethlehem Ephratah is said to be “ little among the thousands of Judah,’ Micah v. 2. One of those thousands, that had their especial head and ruler over them, and their distinct go- vernment, as to their own concernments, among themselves, sat down at Bethlehem; which colony afterwards variously flourished or drew towards a decay.
17. After these things, by God’s appointment, was constituted the great court of the sanhedrin ; which because we have treated of
506 THE SANCTION OF THE LAW [EXERC. XXI.
apart elsewhere, with those lesser courts of justice which were insti- tuted in imitation of it, sufficiently to our purpose, I shall here wholly omit. Neither shall I need to mention their judges, raised up extraordinarily of God for the general rule of the whole people; nor their kings, continued by succession in the family of David; because their story in general is sufficiently known, and the especial consideration of their power, with the manner of the administration of it, would draw us too far out of the way of our present design. And these are they unto whom the Lord, in their several genera- tions, committed the execution of those punishments that he had allotted unto the transgression of the law.
18. The penalties themselves, with the especial causes of them, are lastly to be considered. And these in general were of two sorts; —first, ecclesiastical; secondly, civil. Ecclesiastical penalties, were the authoritative ewclusion of an offending person from the society of the church and the members of it. That such an exclusion is prescribed in the law, in sundry cases, hath in several instances been by others evidenced. Many disputes also have been about it, both concerning the causes of it, the authority whereby it was done, with its ends and effects; but these things are not of our present consider- ation, who intend only to represent things as they are im facto instituted or observed.
19. Of this exclusion the Jews commonly make three degrees, and that not without some countenance from the Scripture. The first they call "79, “niddui;’ the second nan, “cherem;” and the third snow, “shammatha.” That which they call niddui, from m3, “to expel, to separate, to cast off,” is with the most. of them the first and lowest degree of this separation and exclusion. And the persons who are to pronounce this sentence and put it into execu- tion are, according to the Jews, any court, from the highest or sanhe- drin of seventy-one at Jerusalem, to the meanest of their synagogues; yea, any ruler of a synagogue, or wise man in authority, might, according unto them, do the same thing. And many ridiculous stories they have, about the mutual excommunication and absolu- tion of one another by consent. The time of its continuanee, or the first space of time given to the person offending to repent, was thirty days; to which on his neglect he ‘was left unto sixty, and then to ninety; when, upon his obstinacy, he was obnoxious to the cherem. As the causes of it, they reckon up, in the Jerusalem Talmud, Moed Katon, twenty-four crimes, on the guilt whereof any one may be thus dealt withal: 1, He that despiseth a wise man,—that is, a rabbi, master, or doctor,—even after his death. 2. He that con- temneth a minister or messenger of the house of judgment. 8. He | that. calleth his neighbour “servant” or “slave.” 4, He to whom the judge sends and appoints a time of appearance, and he doth