ailed to assert
themselves. If a man incurs the penalty of death by stoning, he is in
the course of Providence either punished by a fatal fall from a roof or
slain by some beast of prey; if he has exposed himself to the penalty of
death by burning, it happens that he is either burned to death in the
end or mortally stung by a serpent; if the penalty of the law is that he
should be beheaded for his offense, he meets his death either from the
Government officer or by the hand of an assassin; if the penalty be
strangulation, he is sure to be drowned or suffocated.

_Sanhedrin_, fol. 37, col. 2.

When a person is in a state of apprehension and cannot make out the
cause of it (the star that presided at his birth and his genii know all
about it), what should he do? Let him jump from where he is standing
four cubits, or else let him repeat, "Hear, O Israel," etc. (Deut. vi.
4); or if the place be unfit for the repetition of Scripture, let him
mutter to himself, "The goat at the butcher's is fatter than me."

Ibid., fol. 94, col. 1.

It is written in 2 Chron. xxxiii. 7, "A carved image;" and again it is
written in verse 19, "Graven images." Rabbi Yochanan said, "At first he
made the image with one face, but afterwards he made it with four--four,
so that the Shechinah might see it from every point, and thus be
exasperated."

Ibid., fol. 103, col. 2.

Moses uttered four judgments upon Israel, but four prophets revoked
them:--(1.) First Moses said (Deut. xxxiii. 28), "Israel then shall
dwell in safety alone;" then came Amos and set it aside (Amos vii. 5),
"Cease, I beseech thee," etc.; and then it is written (verse 6), "This
shall not be, saith the Lord." (2.) First Moses said (Deut. xxviii. 65),
"Among these nations thou shalt find no ease;" then came Jeremiah and
set this saying aside (Jer. xxxi. 2), "Even Israel, when I went to cause
him to rest." (3.) First Moses said (Exod. xxxiv. 7), "Visiting the
iniquities of the fathers upon the children;" then came Ezekiel and set
this aside (Ezek. xviii. 4), "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." (4.)
First Moses said (Lev. xxvi. 38), "And ye shall perish among the
heathen;" then came Isaiah and reversed this (Isa. xxvii. 13), "And it
shall come to pass in that day that the great trumpet shall be blown,
and they shall come which were ready to perish."

_Maccoth_, fol. 24, col. 1.

When Akavyah ben Mahalalel appeared to four halachahs contradicting the
judgment of the wise on a