xxvi. Parable (9t17). Thus, The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them, and they said unto the olive-tree, Reign thou over us' ( Judg. ix. 8), where it is the Israelites and not the trees who said to Othniel, son of Kenaz, Deborah and Gideon reign over us. So also the remark, And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city' (Dent. xxii. 57), is parabolic, meaning that they should make their testimony as clear as the cloth (comp. Kethuboth, 46 a).
xxvii. The preceding often explains what follows mann PO). Thus, 'And the Lord said unto Jehu, Because thou hast done well, executing that which is right in mine eyes . . thy children of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel' (2 Kings x. 3o), is to be ex plained by what precedes. Because Jehu destroyed four generations of the house of Ahab—viz., Ornri, Ahab, Joram and his sons, as is stated (comp. ver. 13)—therefore shall four generations of his house remain on the throne.
xxviii. Antithetic sentences often explain each other by their parallelism ono pnrrer n-onz). Thus in Is. xxx. 16, But ye said, No; for we will flee upon horses; therefore shall ye flee, and ride upon rapid runners; therefore shall your pursuers run ;' the words wherewith they have sinned are put in parallelism with the words of punishment, couched in the same language and in similar expressions.
xxix. Explanations are obtained by reducing the letters of a word to their numerical value n1):12 Nnuna torrntm and substituting for it anotherzoord or phrase of the same value, or by transposing the letters (nrnui For an stance of the first we must refer to the reduction 1t1)+5,14, to 318, given in the preceding section. The second part of this rule is illustrated by ex amples, which show that several modes of trans posing the letters were resorted to. Thus ')VV, Skeshaeh, is explained by 511, Babel (Jer. xxv. 26; li. 41), and +np 15 by (ibid. li. I), by taking the letters of the alphabet in their inverse order; 'i, the first letter, is expressed by 11, the last letter of the alphabet ; Z, the second letter, by 11, the last but one ; ) by 1; 1 by p ; 11 by V, and so on. This principle of commutation is called .Atbash (11"tt V".1), from the first two specimen pairs of letters which indicate the interchange. Or the commuta tion is effected by bending the alphabet exactly in the middle and putting one half over the other, and the interchange is t for 5, 1 for b, for ].
This mode is termed /Maw (13"2 from the first two specimen pairs of letters which indicate the interchange (comp. Nedarim, 32 a; Sanhedrin,
22 a).
xxx. An explanation is to be obtained by either dividing a word into several words, or into syllables, and transposing these syllables, or into letters and taking each letter as an initial or abbreviation of a word This rule is termed pp-co 1'V-fro inn and is illustrated by the word brnax being divided into D'13 pun 2i1, the father of many nations; by being divided into 50 and 17, and the latter transposed into 11, viz., 'soft and grindable ; and by every letter of Tirb) (1 Kings ii. 8) being taken as standing for a word, viz., =It.:1) adulterer, Moabite, 1= n111 murderer,V =1111 apostate, and n=nzpn abhorred (comp. Sabbath, los a).
xxxi. Words and sentences are sometimes trans posed (M1 1li1ND Nine, wpm). Thus I Sam.
iii. 3, And ere the lamp of God went out, and Samuel was lying in the temple of the Lord,' the words 7+1m, in the temple of the Lord, which. are placed later in the sentence, evidently belong to MY, went out, since no one was allowed to sit down in the temple except the kings of the house of David, much less to lie down. So also in Ps. xxxiv., where ver. 18 must be taken up to ver. 16 (comp. Kiddushin, 78 b; Baba Kama, 106).
xxxii. Whole sentences are sometimes transposed (nl'in= Nine" -vain rpm). Thus, e.g., the record, And he said unto him, Take me a heifer of three years old,' etc. (Gen. xv. 9, etc.), ought properly to precede chap. xiv., inasmuch as it is anterior in point of time. This reversed order is owing to the fact that the Scriptures for some reason put certain events which occurred earlier in time after later occurrences (comp. Berachoth, 7 b, with Pessachim, 6 b).
Besides these thirty-two rules, the following laws of interpretations must also be mentioned i. Deduction from ?uxtaposition.—When two laws immediately follow each other, it is inferred that they are similar in consequences. Thus it is said in Exod. xxii. 58,59, Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Whosoever ]ieth with a beast shall surely be put to death ;' whence it is inferred that these two enactments are placed close to each other to indicate the manner of death a witch is to suffer, '.-hich the Scriptures nowhere define. Now, as he who cohabits with an animal is, according to the Halacha based upon Lev. xx., to be stoned to death, hence it is concluded that a witch is to die in the same manner.