Aligned sentence by sentence
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Introduction. Know that every law God sent down upon Moses our teacher was sent down to him together with its interpretation.
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God would dictate to him the text, and then state to him its interpretation and its explanation and all that the firmly fixed text comprised.
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And the manner of his teaching it to Israel was as I shall describe to you.
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He would go into his tent, and the first to come in to him was Aaron; Moses would recite to him the text that had been sent down upon him a single time and teach him its interpretation.
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Then Aaron would withdraw and seat himself at the right hand of Moses our teacher.
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After that Eleazar and Ithamar his sons would enter, and Moses our teacher would recite to them likewise, just as he had recited to Aaron; then the two of them would withdraw, one seating himself at the left of Moses our teacher and the other at the right of Aaron.
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Then, after that, the seventy elders would enter, and Moses would teach them likewise, just as he had taught Aaron and his sons.
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Then, after that, the multitude of the people would enter—everyone who sought the Lord—and he would recite to them as well, until the whole assembly had heard it from him.
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So Aaron had heard that text four times from Moses, his two sons had heard it from him three times, the elders twice, and the rest of the people once.
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Then Moses would withdraw from them.
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Aaron would then recite that text which he had retained—which he had heard from Moses four times, as we have described—to all who were present;
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and Aaron too would then withdraw.
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So the two sons had now heard it four times as well: three times from Moses and once from Aaron.
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Then Eleazar and Ithamar too, after Aaron's withdrawal, would recite that very text which they had heard four times, as we have explained, to all who were present, and they too would withdraw from the teaching.
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So the seventy elders had now heard that text four times as well: twice from Moses, once from Aaron, and once from Eleazar and Ithamar.
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Then the seventy elders too, after that, would recite that text to the multitude a single time,
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so that the people had now heard that text four times as well: once from Moses, a second time from Aaron, a third time from his sons, and a fourth from the seventy elders.
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Then the people would disperse, each teaching the other what they had heard from the messenger, and they would write the text down in scrolls.
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And the chiefs would spread out among all of Israel for teaching and instruction, until they had retained that text and mastered its reading.
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They would then teach also the interpretation of that text sent down from God—and that interpretation comprised many meanings.
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So they would write down the text and retain the [oral] transmission. This is what the Sages, peace be upon them, call the Written Torah and the Oral Torah.
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And the Sages, peace be upon them, said in the *baraita*: "*And the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai* (Lev 25:1)—what does Scripture teach by saying 'on Mount Sinai'? Was not the entire Torah spoken from Sinai? Rather, it is to tell you: just as with the [law of the] Sabbatical year, its general principles and its particulars and its fine points were spoken from Sinai, so too with all the commandments—their general principles and their particulars and their fine points were spoken from Sinai" (Sifra, Behar 1:1; cf. BT Zevachim 115b).
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By way of example, let me tell you: God said to him, *In booths you shall dwell seven days* (Lev 23:42), and then informed him that this *sukkah*
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is incumbent upon males and not females, that it does not obligate the sick or travelers;
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that its roofing may be only from what grows from the ground;
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that it may not be roofed with wool or silk or with vessels, even if these are made from what grows from the ground, such as mats and garments;
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that one is to eat and drink and sleep within it throughout the seven days;
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that its floor space may not be less than seven handbreadths in length by seven handbreadths in width;
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and that its height may not be less than ten handbreadths.
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So when the messenger, peace be upon him, came, he sent down this law and its interpretation.
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Thus all six hundred and thirteen are laws together with their interpretation: the laws written down in [scrolls'] texts, and the interpretation orally transmitted.
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Then, at the end of the fortieth year, on the New Moon of Shevat, he gathered them—peace be upon him—and said to them, "The time of my death has drawn near;
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so whoever has heard from me a transmission and has forgotten it, let him come, and I will verify it for him; whoever has had a question become unclear to him, let him come, and I will clarify it for him."
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Scripture said, *Moses undertook to expound this Torah, saying* (Deut 1:5).
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And thus the Sages stated in Sifrei: "Whoever forgot a single law, let him come and study it again; and whoever has [something] to explain, let him come and explain" (cf. Sifrei Devarim, Devarim 1).
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So they verified the transmissions from him and acquired the interpretations all through that period from the New Moon of Shevat until the seventh of Adar.
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Then, before his death, he began the copying, and he copied thirteen scrolls of the Torah, all on parchment, from the beginning—*Bereshit*—to *before the eyes of all Israel* (the closing words of Deut 34:12).
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He gave a scroll to each tribe so that they might follow it, and the thirteenth he gave to the Levites, saying to them, *Take this scroll of the Torah* etc. (Deut 31:26).
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Then he ascended the mountain at midday on the seventh of Adar—as the tradition has verified—and that was death in our regard, for our being deprived of him, but life in his regard, for his having ascended to it.
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And thus they said, peace be upon them: "Moses our teacher did not die, but ascended and ministers on high."
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The discussion of this is exceedingly, exceedingly long, and this is not its place.
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When he died, peace be upon him, he had committed to Joshua what had been sent down upon him of the interpretation; so Joshua and the people of his age delved into it as jurists.
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Everything transmitted from him—whether from Joshua himself or from one of the elders—is not subject to dispute, and no disagreement arose concerning it.
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And whatever was not heard from the prophet, peace be upon him, by way of any pronouncement concerning the branches [of the law], the ruling was derived for it by analogical reasoning through the thirteen canons sent down upon him at Sinai—namely, "the thirteen hermeneutical principles by which the Torah is expounded" (Sifra, Introduction; Baraita of R. Ishmael).
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Among those things derived, there were matters concerning which no disagreement arose; rather, there was consensus upon them.
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And among them there was that concerning which disagreement arose between the two reasoners: one reasoned by an analogy and it held firm with him, and the other reasoned by an analogy and it held firm with him.
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For dialectical analogies are liable, in their reasonings, to this very contingency.
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And when such disagreement arose, the majority was followed, in accordance with God's word, *after the many to incline* (Exod 23:2).
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Now know that prophecy is of no avail in the inquiry into the interpretation of the Torah and the derivation of the branches by the thirteen principles.
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Rather, what Joshua and Phinehas would do in the matter of inquiry and analogical reasoning is the very thing that our Rabbi and Rav Ashi do.
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The distinction of the prophet, and his function in the law—whatever function he has—that, upon my life, is among the great and mighty foundations upon which the religion's reliance and basis rest.
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I see that this is a place where I ought to clarify this foundation.
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And that is possible only after dividing up the claimants to prophecy, and [explaining] by what means prophecy is established as valid—for this too is a great foundation about which a whole multitude of the common people have erred, and indeed a number of their elite as well.
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For they suppose that prophecy cannot be established as valid for one who claims it unless he performs a wonder resembling one of the wonders of Moses our teacher and breaks the natural order—necessarily so—as Elijah did in reviving the son of the widow (1 Kgs 17:17–24), or like the signs that became renowned from Elisha.
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But this is an unsound foundation.
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For everything that Elijah and Elisha and other prophets did of wonders, they did not do it in order to establish their prophecy, since their prophecy had already been established as valid for them beforehand;
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rather, they performed those wonders because they had need of them, and through their nearness to God He fulfilled their desire, as the righteous were promised: *You shall decree a thing, and it shall be established for you* (Job 22:28).
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Prophecy is established as valid, rather, by what I shall describe in this discourse of mine that I have taken up. So I say, first,
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that the rules of our law concerning the prophets are as I shall describe. And that is: claimants to prophecy fall into two categories—either one who prophesies in the name of idolatry, or one who prophesies in the name of the Lord.
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Prophecy in the name of idolatry falls into two categories.
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The first category is that a prophet should arise and say that such-and-such a star sent down upon him its spiritual influence, saying to him, "Worship me thus," or, "Call upon me thus."
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Likewise, that he should call [people] to an idol or to one of the talismans and say that it informed him of such-and-such and told him such-and-such, or commanded him that we should command its worship in such-and-such a manner—as the prophets of Baal and the prophets of Asherah used to do (cf. 1 Kgs 18:19).
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The second category is that he should say that a revelation came to him from God [bidding] that such-and-such an object of worship be worshiped, or that such-and-such a spiritual being be drawn down in such-and-such a manner;
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and he describes one of the modes of worship and acts that the adherents of that cause perform—just as has been established with us in the law. This too is one who prophesies in the name of idolatry.
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For this designation encompasses both the one who says that [the heavenly body] itself commanded its own worship, or [the worship] of some [other] of the things, and the one who says that God commanded the worship of some of the created beings.
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So when we hear from the claimant either of these two summonses, and the evidence is established against him as the ruling of the law prescribes, then his sentence is that he be put to death by strangulation,
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in accordance with His exalted word, *and that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death* (Deut 13:6).
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No attention is to be paid to his claim, nor is a sign to be demanded of him;
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and even were he to perform wonders, to establish this claim, more astonishing than any we have ever heard, he is [still] to be strangled.
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No attention is to be paid to those wonders, for the cause of the firmness of those wonders is what Scripture states: *for the Lord your God is testing you* etc. (Deut 13:4).
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For the testimony of the reason that gives the lie to his claim is stronger than the testimony of the eye that beholds his wonder, since it has been demonstrated, among the people of intellect, that none ought to be magnified or worshiped save the One who brought the existents into being and is alone in the most perfect of perfections.
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One who prophesies in the name of the Lord also falls into two categories.
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The first category is that he should prophesy in the name of God and call [people] to Him and urge His worship, and [yet] say that God has added to the laws a [new] law, or subtracted from them a law—from the total of the laws upon which the Torah scroll comprises.
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And there is no difference between his addition or subtraction in the texts, or his addition or subtraction in the orally transmitted interpretation.
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As for his addition or subtraction in the texts: it is, for example, that he should say, "God told me that the *orlah* prohibition is two years only, and that after two years it is permitted to eat the planted fruit,"
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or that he should say, "God told me that for four years its eating is forbidden," in place of His exalted word, *Three years it shall be uncircumcised for you; it shall not be eaten* (Lev 19:23), and the like.
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Or [it is] that he should alter in the transmission anything whatsoever, even though the plain sense of the text supports him—
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for example, that he should say that the Torah's statement *and you shall cut off her hand; your eye shall not pity* (Deut 25:12) means literal severing of the hand, and that it is not the fine for [public] humiliation, as the transmission has it;
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and he ascribes that to prophecy and says, "God told me that His statement *and you shall cut off her hand* is according to its plain sense."
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This one too is to be put to death by strangulation, for he is a false prophet and has ascribed to God what He did not say to him.
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No attention is to be paid to this one's sign or wonder either.
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For the prophet [Moses], who confounded all the inhabitants of the world with his wonders, and in whose veracity and the faith in whom God lodged within our hearts—as He, exalted, guaranteed in His statement *and in you they will believe forever* (Exod 19:9)—
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has already informed us, on God's behalf, that no legislation will come from before God other than this.
That is His exalted word, *It is not in the heavens, that one should say, Who will go up for us to the heavens* etc., *nor is it across the sea*
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... *for the matter is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart* (Deut 30:12–14).
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His statement *in your mouth and in your heart* means thereby the texts retained in the mouth, or the analogies derived by inquiry, which are among the faculties issuing from the heart.
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And he forbade us also addition to it or subtraction from it, saying, *You shall not add to it, nor subtract from it* (Deut 13:1).
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And for this reason they said, peace be upon them: "No prophet is permitted to innovate anything henceforth" (BT Shabbat 104a; Megillah 2b).
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So once we know, from his claim, that he is a liar against God and has ascribed to Him what He did not say to him, his execution is incumbent, as Scripture states in His word, *But the prophet who presumes* etc. ... *that prophet shall die* (Deut 18:20).
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The second category is that he should call [people] to God and urge His law, and command the people to comply with the Torah without addition and without subtraction,
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as the last of them said: *Remember the Torah of Moses my servant, whom I commanded at Horeb for all Israel, statutes and ordinances* (Mal 3:22).
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And he promises good things to whoever complies with it, and threatens with punishment whoever transgresses against it, as Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and others did;
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and he commands with commands and forbids with prohibitions in [matters] other than the law—
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for example, that he should say, "Make war on such-and-such a town" or "on such-and-such a nation now," as Samuel commanded Saul concerning the war on Amalek at that time (1 Sam 15);
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or he forbids a killing, as Elisha forbade Joram to kill the army of Hazael that was [trapped] in Samaria, as became renowned (2 Kgs 6:21–23);
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and as Isaiah forbade bringing the water inside the wall (cf. Isa 22:9–11);
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and as Jeremiah forbade Israel to go out from Jerusalem (Jer 38:2–3); and whatever resembles this manner.
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So when the prophet claims prophecy and does not ascribe that to idolatry, nor adds to the law nor subtracts from it, but takes another tack, as we have described,
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then we need, at that point, to test him in order to verify his claim.
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For he whose claim is verified, compliance with everything he commands becomes incumbent, in the fine matters and the weighty;
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and whoever transgresses against any of his commands incurs death at the hands of Heaven, in accordance with God's word concerning the one who transgresses against the commands of the prophets, *I will require it of him* (Deut 18:19).
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And if his claim is not verified, he is to be put to death by strangulation.
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The verification of the prophet's claim is by what I am about to describe. And that is: when a person claims prophecy before us, as we have explained,
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and is fit for it—in being among the people of knowledge and religion and ascetic devotion and intellect and all the excellences of character,
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as is the principle with us, "Prophecy does not rest save upon one who is wise, mighty, and rich" (BT Shabbat 92a; Nedarim 38a)—
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and there are many further particulars on this subject that it is not now possible to encompass and discuss, with proof for each one of them from the texts of the books of Scripture and the words of the Sages
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then, when he is fit for it as he ought to be and has claimed it, we say to him, "Make us promises, and inform us of tidings of what God has taught you."
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So he gives tidings; and if all his promises come true, we know the truth of his prophecy.
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But if he proves false in any of the matters, even in the finest of them, we know that he is a liar.
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This is the text of the Torah concerning this test: *And if you say in your heart, How shall we know the matter that the Lord has not spoken?—when the prophet speaks in the name of the Lord and the matter does not come to be nor come about, that is the matter the Lord has not spoken; in presumption the prophet has spoken it* etc. (Deut 18:21–22).
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And likewise, even if he prove true to us in one prediction or two, we do not by that conclusively establish his prophecy as true; rather it remains in suspense with us until his veracity is borne out in everything he reports on God's behalf, time after time. And for this reason it came regarding Samuel, when he became renowned and it was established that everything he said held firm: *And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was confirmed as a prophet to the Lord* (1 Sam 3:20).
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There was no matter among them but that they would inquire of the prophets about it; and were it not that they used to inquire of the prophets in all their affairs, Saul would not have gone to inquire of Samuel about a she-ass that had been lost to him at the outset (1 Sam 9).
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There is no doubt that it was so. For God enriched us with the prophet [in dispensing us] from the astrologers and the diviners and the augurs;
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for we used to inquire of them in all our circumstances, the collective and the individual, and they would give us truthful tidings on God's behalf—just as those [astrologers and diviners] give tidings, tidings that may prove true and may not prove true.
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This is the statement of Scripture: *For these nations that you are dispossessing hearken to soothsayers and to diviners, but as for you—not so has the Lord your God granted you: a prophet from your midst, from your brethren, like me, will the Lord raise up for you* etc. (Deut 18:14–15).
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And for these meanings they used to call the prophet a "seer" (*ro'eh*), because he sees future matters before they come to be, as it says, *For the prophet of today was formerly called the seer* (1 Sam 9:9).
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Perhaps someone will suppose and say, "But if prophecy is established as valid for its claimant by the truthfulness of his predictions about future events, and if that is so, then the diviners and the astrologers and all the possessors of psychic faculties would [equally] be claimants to prophecy, for we observe them plainly and continually giving tidings of what will be."
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This—God knows!—is a great point, and it ought to be clarified, so that the distinction may be made plain between the tidings of the prophet on God's behalf and the tidings of the possessors of [psychic] faculties.
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So I say that the diviners and the astrologers and the people of that sort do give tidings of future events, but some of these prove true and some of them prove false, necessarily—and this is something we observe constantly.
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The people of that profession themselves attest to it and do not deny it; they only differ in degree, in that the falsehood of one person is less than the falsehood of another.
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As for proving true in all the particulars—that is impossible, and the possessors of these faculties do not claim it either.
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Rather, one of them might say that this year is a drought year and it will not rain at all, and there proves to be a little rain; or he says that rain will fall tomorrow, and it falls the day after; and the like.
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This is when he is exceedingly, exceedingly outstanding and one of the celebrated whose accounts are reported in the books.
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This is the sense of Isaiah's statement against Babylon: *Let them stand, now, and save you—the surveyors of the heavens, the gazers at the stars, who make known by the new moons some of what shall come upon you* (Isa 47:13); and the Sages said: "*some of*—and not all of."
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But the promises of the prophets are not so; rather, they prove true to the last of them, and nothing of them falls away—neither fine nor weighty—ever throughout time, in all that he reports on God's behalf;
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and for this reason, if anything of [his report] miscarries, we know his falsehood. This is the statement of Scripture: *For not a word of the Lord shall fall to the earth* (cf. 1 Sam 3:19; 2 Kgs 10:10).
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To this Jeremiah pointed, regarding the dreamers truthful in [their] vision who would report what their dreams disclosed to them, under the guise of prophecy—rebuking them, voiding their claim, when he said,
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*The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream; and the one who has My word, let him speak My word in truth: what has the straw to do with the grain? says the Lord* (Jer 23:28).
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The Sages explained the meaning of this statement: that prophecy is pure, with nothing of falsehood mixed into it, like the pure wheat free of straw;
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whereas dreams and what runs their course of intimations have falsehood mixed into them, like the straw that has grains of wheat in it.
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So they said: "Just as it is impossible for grain to be without straw, so it is impossible for a dream to be without idle matters" (BT Berakhot 55a).
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There remains here a great point that requires clarification, namely: when the prophet threatens evils upon peoples who deserved them—
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for example, that he should threaten them with famine, or the sword, or that their lands be made to sink, or thunderbolts descend upon them, or the like—
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and then nothing of that is established; rather they are pardoned and their circumstances proceed toward well-being:
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the prophet's falsehood is not thereby established, nor does he become a false prophet liable to execution. For God, mighty and exalted, *relents of the evil* (Joel 2:13; Jon 4:2).
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And often they repented and turned away from their disobedience; or God deferred [the punishment] in His knowledge and postponed it to a later time, as He did with Ahab, in His statement to him through Elijah:
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*I will not bring the evil in his days; in his son's days I will bring the evil upon his house* (1 Kgs 21:29); or He pardoned them on account of prior merits.
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It is not concerning a report of this kind that God says *and the matter does not come to be nor come about* (Deut 18:22).
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But if he promised good things to occur at a fixed time—saying that the truce will come in this year, and there proves to be strife;
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or saying that this year will be one of plentiful rain, and it proves to be a famine and a drought, and the like—then he is a false prophet, and the voidance of his claim and his falsehood are established.
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This is the one of whom God said, *in presumption the prophet has spoken it; do not be in dread of him* (Deut 18:22)—meaning, let not his religion and his goodness and his knowledge frighten you and turn you back from executing him,
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since he dared and made a grave claim and acted presumptuously against God.
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For when God promises peoples some good through a prophet, He must necessarily bring it about, in order to establish, exalted, their prophecy among the people.
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This is their statement, peace be upon them: "Every matter that issues from the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He, for good—even conditionally—is not retracted" (cf. BT Berakhot 7a; Shabbat 55a).
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As for Jacob's being afraid when God had [already] promised him good—as He said to him, *Behold, I am with you* etc. (Gen 28:15)—
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and we find that he [nonetheless] feared destruction, as it says, *And Jacob was greatly afraid* etc. (Gen 32:8);
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and the Sages said concerning that, that he feared on account of the force of a sin by which he might come to deserve destruction—this is their statement, "He reasoned: perhaps the sin will cause [it]" (cf. BT Berakhot 4a)—which indicates that God too may promise good and the sins prevail so that that good is not established: [in light of this]
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know that that occurs only in what is between God and the prophet. As for God's telling the prophet to promise the people unconditional good, and then the good is not established—
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that is void and does not happen; for there would [otherwise] remain no avenue by which prophecy could be verified, whereas He has given us in His book the principle that [a prophet] is to be tested by the truthfulness of his promises.
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To this great principle Jeremiah pointed in his disagreement with Hananiah son of Azzur,
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when Jeremiah was prophesying evil and destruction, and that Nebuchadnezzar would be victorious and triumphant and would destroy the Temple,
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while Hananiah son of Azzur was prophesying good and that the vessels of the House of the Lord that had been carried off to Babylon would be returned to Jerusalem.
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Jeremiah said to him, in disputing with him, upon the retained principles:
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"I, if my word is not established and Nebuchadnezzar is not victorious and the vessels of the House of the Lord are not returned as you claim, there is in that nothing that gives the lie to my prophecy—perhaps God will have mercy on them.
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But as for you, if your word is not established and the vessels of the House of the Lord are not returned, then it is established that your claim is void; and no prophecy is established for you until these promises of good that you make are established."
This is his statement: *But hear, now, this word that I am speaking in your ears and in the ears of all this people: the prophets who were before me and before you of old prophesied against many lands and against great kingdoms, of war and of evil and of pestilence.
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The prophet who prophesies of peace—when the word of the prophet comes to pass, the prophet will be known whom the Lord has truly sent* (Jer 28:7–9).
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He means by this statement that, as for those prophets who prophesied good and evil, it is not established—from the evil that they threatened—whether they proved true in their claim or false; their truthfulness is known only when they promise good and it is established.
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So when the prophet's prophecy has been verified, in accordance with the principle we have laid down, and his standing has become renowned—like Samuel and Elijah and others—
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then it belongs to that prophet to perform in the law an act that no one else can perform but he, which is what I am about to describe.
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And that is: when he commands the suspension of any commandment of all the positive commandments, or commands that one violate a prohibition of all the negative commandments,
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then compliance with his command in all of that is incumbent; and whoever transgresses against him incurs death at the hands of Heaven—except in [the matter of] idolatry.
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And that is the text of the Sages in the Talmud, their statement: "In all things, if a prophet says to you, Transgress the words of the Torah, hearken to him—except for idolatry" (cf. BT Sanhedrin 90a; Yevamot 90b).
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But on the condition that he not make that command perpetual and say that God commanded that such-and-such be done forever throughout time; rather, he commands it according to its [present] circumstance, at a [particular] moment and not at [another] moment.
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And the prophet himself is interrogated when he commands transgression against one of the laws by which God legislated for us through Moses,
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and he answers that this transgression is not permanent, but is to be complied with now only—similar to what a court does in a temporary ruling.
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[This is] like what Elijah did at Mount Carmel, where he offered up a burnt offering outside [the Temple] (1 Kgs 18) while Jerusalem [stood] and the Sanctuary was [already] built in it—
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which is an act that, were its doer to do it without the command of a prophet, [would render him liable to] *karet*. God forbade it in the text of Scripture, in His statement, *lest you offer up your burnt offerings in any place that you see* (Deut 12:13),
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and He bound its doer to *karet*, as He said concerning one who offers outside, *and that man shall be cut off from his people* (Lev 17:9).
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But he, peace be upon him—had he been asked, at the time of his offering at Mount Carmel, and had it been said to him, "What do you say: shall we do such an act as this permanently, throughout time?"—
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he would have said concerning that that it is not permitted, and that whoever offers outside is liable to *karet*; but this is being done now
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in order that we may make plain through it the falsehood of the prophets of Baal and the voidance of what is in their hands.
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And like what Elisha did in his command to Israel, in the raid on Moab, that they cut down the fruit-bearing trees—this is his statement, *and every good tree you shall fell* (2 Kgs 3:19)—
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whereas God forbade that in His statement, *you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them* (Deut 20:19).
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Had Elisha been asked, "Has this law lapsed, and is it permitted to us in the future to cut down the fruit-bearing trees at the besieging of towns?", he would have said, "That is not permitted; but this is being done now."
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And I shall here bring you down to a parable by which this principle may be carried through for you across all the laws.
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Suppose that a prophet whose prophecy had been verified for us, as we have described, were to tell us, on the Sabbath day,
that we should arise as a body, with mounts and men, kindle fires and prepare with them the implements of war, take up arms,
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and kill the people of such-and-such a place on this very day that is the Sabbath, and plunder their goods, and take their women captive:
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it would be incumbent upon us—we who are subject to the law of Moses—to rise to the task and not delay in what we are commanded,
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and to do all that he commanded with vigor and zeal, without doubt and without hesitation;
and to hold, with respect to everything we do on that day which is the Sabbath—of kindling fires and plying crafts and killing and warfare—
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that it is a commandment, for which we hope for reward from God, on account of our compliance with the command of the prophet,
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with whom it is a positive commandment that we comply with his command, as God commanded us through Moses, *to him you shall hearken* (Deut 18:15);
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and the transmission came to us, "In all things, if a prophet says to you, Transgress the words of the Torah, hearken to him—except for idolatry."
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For if he says to us, "Worship this talisman for today only," or "offer incense to this star for this hour only," he is to be put to death and not hearkened to.
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But as for a man who in his own conceit regards himself as religious, good, and an aged elder, and says,
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"I am an aged elder, of such-and-such an age, who has never once transgressed against any of the laws, yet shall I now arise on this day that is the Sabbath, and transgress against the prohibition [whose penalty is] stoning, and go off to war?
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I will do nothing of the kind, I will have no part of it; let it fall to someone other than me, for the people are many to comply with this command"—
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that man has gone against the word of God and is liable to death at the hands of Heaven, as one who transgressed against what the prophet commanded.
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For the One who legislated concerning the Sabbath legislated [also] compliance with the command of every prophet and what he fixes, and whoever transgresses against his command incurs what we have mentioned,
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which is His exalted word, *And it shall be, the man who will not hearken to My words that he speaks in My name—I will require it of him* (Deut 18:19).
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Yes—and whoever resolves a firm resolve on this Sabbath day, in the course of his doing these crafts, regarding something not needed for any part of the cooperation in complying with the command that the prophet commanded, incurs stoning.
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And if this prophet himself, who commanded us to do what he commanded on this Sabbath day, and we complied with his command, [were to say] that the Sabbath limit is two thousand cubits less a cubit, or two thousand and a cubit,
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and ascribes that to the side of revelation rather than the path of inquiry and analogical reasoning, then he is a false prophet and is to be killed by strangulation.
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By this measure judge the entire body of what the prophet commands you, and the entire body of what you find in Scripture of a prophet's command that contravenes some of the laws: this principle is the key to all of that.
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In this one [respect] alone the prophet is distinguished from the rest of the people in [the matter of] the law.
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But as for inquiry and analogical reasoning and jurisprudence in the law, he is like the rest of the Sages who are his peers, who have no prophecy.
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As for his offering an interpretation, while one who is not a prophet offers [another] interpretation, and the prophet saying, "God told me that my interpretation is the correct one"—
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he is not to be hearkened to. Rather, [were] a thousand prophets, all like Elijah and Elisha, [to] offer an interpretation, and a thousand-and-one Sages offer the contrary of that, *after the many to incline* (Exod 23:2):
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the practice follows the position of the thousand-and-one Sages, not the position of the thousand venerated prophets.
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And thus the Sages said: "By God! Even were Joshua son of Nun to tell it me with his [own] mouth, I would not heed him, nor would I hearken to him" (cf. BT Chullin 124a).
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Likewise too they said: "If Elijah should come and say, 'One performs ḥalitzah with a [soft] shoe,' we hearken to him; [with] a [hard] sandal, we do not hearken to him" (BT Yevamot 102a)—
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meaning by that that there is no addition or subtraction in the law by way of prophecy in any respect.
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And were a prophet to claim that God told him the ruling in such-and-such a [matter of] law is so-and-so, and that the analogy of so-and-so is the correct one,
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that prophet is to be killed, for he is a false prophet, as we have laid down.
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For there is no [further] sending-down after the first messenger, and no addition and no subtraction: *It is not in the heavens* (Deut 30:12).
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God did not refer us to the prophets; rather He referred us to the scholars, the people of analogical reasoning.
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He did not say "and you shall come to the prophet," but rather said, *and you shall come to the levitical priests and to the judge* etc. (Deut 17:9). The Sages have expatiated greatly, exceedingly, on this subject, and it is the correct [view].
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When Joshua died, peace be upon him, he committed what he had received in transmission of the interpretation—and what had been derived in his time and was not subject to dispute,
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and what was subject to dispute and was decided by the position of the majority—to the elders; and they are those of whom Scripture said, *and all the days of the elders who prolonged their days after Joshua* (Josh 24:31; Judg 2:7).
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Then those elders committed what they had received in transmission to the prophets, peace be upon them, and the prophets one to another.
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And there is no age but that jurisprudence and inference take place in it. The people of each generation make the words of those who preceded them a foundation, and derive from it and infer inferences; but the transmitted foundations are not subject to dispute.