In the Law and in practice capital punishment was inflicted for offences against any of the first seven ordinances of the Decalogue — that is, upon persons guilty of apostasy (Dt 13^"^), idolatry (17^), blasphemy (Lv 24'", 1 K 21'^), Sabbath -breaking (Nu 15^^), disobedience to parents (Dt2P'), murder (Lv 24-1), unchastity (Dt 222i- 24), as well as for practising sorcery (Lv 20^''), for kidnapping (Ex 21'"), and for special offences (Jos 7). An ox which gored a man in the course of a bull-fight was not stoned (Baba kamma, iv. 4 ; Ex 2p8). In each of the above cases the penalty takes the form of stoning, though this is not explicitly mentioned in the case of murder, of kidnapping, or of unchastity on the part of a married Avoman (Dt 22^2). Stoning was thus the regular means of executing criminals among the Hebrews, as strangling was with the later Jews. Both processes avoided the shedding of blood, and reduced the risk of vengeance on the part of the relatives.
In the narrative Jn S^'^^, which is generally re- garded as spurious, not being part of the text of the best MSS, the scribes were therefore justified in stating that ' Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned,' the reference being to Dt 2223- 24 This would imply that the woman was betrothed merely, but not married, tlie mode of execution in the case of a married woman not being specified (Dt 2222), a,nd being, in fact, at the time strangling {Sank. 516 : ' A daughter of Israel who is married, by strangling, who is betrothed, by stoning'). T. H. Weir.
STORM See Sea of Galilee, p, 591.
STRANGER.— The AV has only the one render- ing— ' stranger ' — for five difterent words in the Greek. It is the natural translation of the term which has the most general signification — f^cos (Mt 25^5- *^ 2V etc.) ; and there is no other word in English to express the exact force of dWdrpLos (Mt 1725-26, Jn IQS; cf. 10i2_t.iie dXUrpLos is the one 'whose own the sheep are not'). For dWoyevris the proper equivalent is ' alien,' as in Lk 17'* (RVm). For wdpoLKos and TrapeirLdTj/xos RV rightly uses ' sojourner ' (Ac 72^, 1 P 2" ; cf. Lk 24^8, 1 P l\ He IP^). These words indicate a sentiment Avhich is (1) racial or national (Mt 1725-26 ^hg kings of the earth take tribute from ' strangers,' not from sons), (2) humanitarian (Mt 25^^ ' I Avas a stranger, and ye took me in'), and (3) religious (1 P 2" ' I beseech you as sojourners and pilgrims to abstain,' etc.).
Generally, however, it may be said that the connexion in which the Avords occur in NT is illustrative of the difference betAveen the current JeAvish conception of the stranger in the time of Christ, and that Avhich is suggested by the Gospel. Jesus found His countrymen steeped in the idea that all foreigners Avere ' dogs,' that ' the peoples ' Avas a term almost synonymous Avith ' the heathen,' and that only under rigid conditions and upon sufferance might a non-JcAV obtain any of the privileges considered to be the Divine right of a JeAv. He left His followers possessed of the thought, hoAvever unconscious they might be of all that it involved, that to Him the Samaritan and the Gentile, the man outside the pale and the man of no caste, Avere as much the objects of His mission as the favoured son of Abraham. ' Stranger,' to the average Jcav, Avas the name for one Avith Avhom he miglit have commercial dealings and certain social
or political relations, but Avith Avhom religious affinity or felloAVship Avas practically impossible ; to Jesus it meant one avIio had a special claim upon Him and His (Mt 25^5ff.) The impression Avhich He created Avas not merely that Christianity meant a deepening and extending of that sense of the sacred duty of hospitality and kindness Avhich already existed in the JeAvish mind, as it does throughout the East (Ex 23" 222', Lk 19^% Dt JQ18. 19^ jgp ytf g^(5_ . (,f_ ^j^g practice existing among the Essenes, Jos. BJ 11. viii. 4, 5), but that it involved a complete change of the attitude Avliich assumed that a difi'erent treatment Avas to be meted out to the stranger from that Avhich Avas naturally shoAvn to one's OAvn kith and kin (Mt 5'*^'*^ etc.). See, further, artt. Cosmopolitanism, Hospi- tality, Gentiles, Universalism.
It is further to be noticed that Christianity gave a neAv signification to the Avord ' stranger. ' The way had been prepared by the use of the HebrcAv Avord ' Ger ' (LXX. irdpoiKos, see artt. ' Ger ' in DB and ' Stranger ' in Encyc. Bibl. ), Avhich designated the sojourner who dwelt within the gates of Israel, and Avho, while having a certain status there and a temporary home, belonged to another country. The fact also that the Jcavs themselves had from the time of Abraham so often been sojourners in a land not their oAvn (Ac 7^-29, He IP), and the lessons taught by the dispersion in post - exilic times, led to that metaphorical use of the term Avhicli has entered so largely into religious speech and poetry. The follower of Christ saAv in it a description of himself as of one Avho was absent from his proper country, and whose citizenship Avas in heaven (Ph 32").^ When St. Peter Avrites to the ' sojourners of the* Dispersion '(1 PP), and beseeches them ' as sojourners and pilgrims ' to abstain from fleshly lusts (2"), he is diverting the term from a geographical to a spiritual sense (cf. 1'^). The Avriter of the Epistle-t© the Hebrews has the same thought, ' For we have not here an abiding city, but Ave seek after the city Avhich is to come ' (13^^, cf. 1113-16).