Josephus: Antiquities of the Jews, Books I–X

was the exposition of the Pharisees in the days of Josephus.]

[Whiston / edition note] 29 (return) [ What we render a witch, according to our modern notions of witchcraft, Exodus 22:15, Philo and Josephus understood of a poisoner, or one who attempted by secret and unlawful drugs or philtra, to take away the senses or the lives of men.]

[Whiston / edition note] 30 (return) [ This permission of redeeming this penalty with money is not in our copies, Exodus 21:24, 25; Leviticus 24:20; Deuteronomy 19:21.]

[Whiston / edition note] 31 (return) [ We may here note, that thirty shekels, the price our Savior was sold for by Judas to the Jews, Matthew 26:15, and 27;3, was the old value of a bought servant or slave among that people.]

[Whiston / edition note] 32 (return) [ This law against castration, even of brutes, is said to be so rigorous elsewhere, as to inflict death on him that does it which seems only a Pharisaical interpretation in the days of Josephus of that law, Leviticus 21:20, and 22:24: only we may hence observe, that the Jews could then have no oxen which are gelded, but only bulls and cows, in Judea.]

[Whiston / edition note] 33 (return) [ These laws seem to be those above-mentioned, sect, 4, of this chapter.]

[Whiston / edition note] 34 (return) [ What laws were now delivered to the priests, see the note on Antiq. B. III. ch. 1. sect. 7.]

[Whiston / edition note] 35 (return) [ Of the exact place where this altar was to be built, whether nearer Mount Gerizzim or Mount Ebal, according to Josephus, see Essay on the Old Testament, p. 168—171. Dr. Bernard well observes here, how unfortunate this neglect of consulting the Urim was to Joshua himself, in the case of the Gibeonites, who put a trick upon him, and ensnared him, together with the rest of the Jewish rulers, with a solemn oath to preserve them, contrary to his commission to extirpate all the Canaanites, root and branch; which oath he and the other rulers never durst break. See Scripture Politics, p. 55, 56; and this snare they were brought into because they "did not ask counsel at the mouth of the Lord," Joshua 9:14.]

[Whiston / edition note] 36 (return) [ Since Josephus assures us here, as is most naturally to be supposed, and as the Septuagint gives the text, Deuteronomy 33:6, that Moses blessed every one of the tribes of Israel, it is evident that Simeon was not omitted in his copy, as it unhappily now is, both in our Hebrew and Samaritan copies.]