Under this method such particles as AN, NX, 03 were held to extend a law, and ἽΝ and ἸΏ, p> to restrict it. mx before ma’ in Dt 10% extended the command to fear God, so that it included also wise men (Pesachim 22>). 7x in Ex 8118 showed that the op tes) alate of the Sabbath did not apply to cases where life was in danger (Yoma 85>—Mielziner, op. cit. p. 124f.). Words were even interpreted according to the numerical value of the letters (Gematria). The ways of dying are inferred to be 9038 from ‘ issues of death '(n)xs1n) mentioned in Ps 682 (Berachoth 8). Letters might also stand for words (Notarikon). From ‘father of a multitude’ (po7 28 Gn 175) was drawn: ‘Father, chosen, lovely, king, distinguished, faithful (2’2n na 2K ἸΌΝ. pn} 75D). The words with which Shimei cursed David are drawn from ‘grievous’ (Ms) 1K 28), ‘adulterer, Moabite, murderer, oppressor, abomination’ (7331n Ws ΠΥΥῚ ‘32ND 73) eran xii. 5). Another device was change in the order of letters (Temoorah). Thus in Ps 212 ‘The king shall rejoice,’ refers to the Messiah, by transposing now’ (‘he shall rejoice ἢ into ΠΡΌ (‘ Messiah '"—Farrar, History of Interpretation, p. 102), A species of Temoorah called Atbash, the substitution of the last letter of the alphabet for the first, and so on, appears in Jer 25% 614, where ‘Sheshach’ (jez) is written for ‘Babel’ (533); cf. Jer 511, These and other similar methods of inter-
retation were carried to a great excess during the Middle Ages = the Kabbala, a Jewish system of Theosophy or sacred mysteries.
The homiletical midrdshim or haggdadéth differed from the Halakhéth in not being so much inferences from the text of Scripture as additions to the text. Many of the additions in 1 and 2 Ch, compared with the parallel narratives in 1 and2S and 1 and 2 K, illustrate their character, which is still further seen in the Targums (see art. TARGUM), and abund- antly exemplified in the Jewish legends concernir the patriarchs and other OT worthies in the Talmu and also in later Jewish treatises.* Examples of Haggadéth appear in the NT in the names JANNES Hck JAMBRES (2 Ti 38), in the rock that followed them (1 Co 10%), in the law given thro angels (Ac 7%, Gal 3", He 23), in the three and a half years of famine in the days of Elijah (Lk 4%, Ja 517), These are all additions to the OT narratives. The apocryphal books of Enoch, Judith, and Tobit are all examples of Haggddéth. For Haggadic inter- pretation were given 32 rules, and it shared in all the fancifulness of Halakhie interpretation.
A species of Haggadie interpretation is the alle- gorical, frequently called the Hellenistic from its use among Greek-speaking Jews. Philo, the Alexandrian philosopher, an early contemporary of Christ, used this method. The OT Scriptures were to him as a believing Jew not simply an authorita- tive revelation of religious truth, but of all truth, and hence by means of allegory he deduced from them the doctrines of Greek philosophy. which he also ardently held. He excluded the literal sense, and developed his allegorical interpretation on definite principles, regarding the former as the body and the latter as the soul of Seripture.+ (For his principles, ef. ag Sets Philo von Alexandria, 1875, pp. 160-197; Briggs, op. cit. pp. 434-436). Allegory appears essentially in many Rabbinical interpretations. A New Test. example is Gal 43:9)
Jewish interpretation during the early Rabbinic and Talmudic period, while not devoid of a certain ethical and spiritual value, is thus seen to have contributed really nothing to an understanding of the historical meaning of the OT. That idea appears almost, if not exclusively, foreign to its purpose. ‘Talmudic tradition claimed the interest of scholars, and had taken in popular estimate the place of the Scriptures.
(6) Later Rabbinical period.—In the 8th cent. arose a sect of Jews who rejected Talmudic tradi- tion as a sacred authority, and held to the letter of the OT. Hence their views were called Karaism, or religion of the text. This movement, however, did not supplant orthodox or Talmudic Judaism, and yet it gave a great impulse to the study of the OT, which resulted eventually in real grammatical and exegetical works, and the period from 900-1500 has been called the golden age of Jewish inter-
retation. Commentaries were written upon the
oks of the OT. The pioneer in this movement was Saadia (+ 942), the Gaon or head of the Jewish school in Babylonia, who, to render the Scriptures
* For a list of Haggadic literature, see art. ‘Midrash ’ by 8. M. Schiller-Szinnessy in Encycl. Brit.9,
+ Philo comments thus on Gn 28: ‘Virtue is called a Paradise metaphorically, and the appropriate place for Paradise is Eden ; and this means luxury: and the most appropriate field for virtue is peace, and ease, and joy, in which real luxury jially con- sists. Moreover, the plantation of this Paradise is represented as in the east; for right reason never sets, and is never extin- guished, but it is its nature to be always rising. And as I imagine the rising sun fills the darkness of the air with light, so also does virtue when it has arisen in the soul irradiate its mist and dissipate its dense darkness. ‘And there,” says Moses, “he placed the man whom He had formed”; for God being good, and having formed our race for virtue, as His work which was most akin to Himself, places the mind in virtue evidently in order, that it, like a husband, may cultivate and attend to nothing else except virtue’ (Allegories of the Sacred Laws, i. 4, C. Ὁ. Yonge’s transl.).