iteral observations
appearing among the Jews, though their real or mystical signification,
i.e. the constant remembrance and observation of the laws of God by
Moses, be frequently inculcated in all the sacred writings.

[20] Here, as well as elsewhere, sect. 38, of his Life, sect. 14, and
of the War, B. II. ch. 20. sect. 5, are but seven judges appointed
for small cities, instead of twenty-three in the modern Rabbins; which
modern Rabbis are always but of very little authority in comparison of
our Josephus.

[21] I have never observed elsewhere, that in the Jewish government
women were not admitted as legal witnesses in courts of justice. None
of our copies of the Pentateuch say a word of it. It is very probable,
however, that this was the exposition of the scribes and Pharisees, and
the practice of the Jews in the days of Josephus.

[22] This penalty of "forty stripes save one," here mentioned, and
sect. 23, was five times inflicted on St. Paul himself by the Jews, 2
Corinthians 11:24

[23] Josephus's plain and express interpretation of this law of Moses,
Deuteronomy 14:28, 29; 26:12, etc., that the Jews were bound every third
year to pay three tithes, that to the Levites, that for sacrifices at
Jerusalem, and this for the indigent, the widow, and the orphans, is
fully confirmed by the practice of good old Tobit, even when he was a
captive in Assyria, against the opinions of the Rabbins, Tobit 1:6-8.
[24] These tokens of virginity, as the Hebrew and Septuagint style them,
Deuteronomy 22:15, 17, 20, seem to me very different from what our later
interpreters suppose. They appear rather to have been such close linen
garments as were never put off virgins, after, a certain age, till they
were married, but before witnesses, and which, while they were entire,
were certain evidences of such virginity. See these, Antiq. B. VII. ch.
8. sect. 1; 2 Samuel 13:18; Isaiah 6:1 Josephus here determines nothing
what were these particular tokens of virginity or of corruption: perhaps
he thought he could not easily describe them to the heathens, without
saying what they might have thought a breach of modesty; which seeming
breach of modesty laws cannot always wholly avoid.

[25] These words of Josephus are very like those of the Pharisees to our
Savior upon this very subject, Matthew 19:3, "Is it lawful for a man to
put away his wife for every cause?"

[26] Here it is supposed that this captive's husband, if she were before
a marr