After this the Jewish world was prepared for anything, and it does
not surprise us to find such discoveries in the domain of ethical
culture as the doctrine that, for inflicting the forty stripes save
one upon those who broke the law, the lash should be braided of
ox-hide and ass-hide; and, as warrant for this construction of the
lash, the text, "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's
crib, but Israel doth not know"; and, as the logic connecting text
and lash, the statement that Jehovah evidently intended to command
that "the men who know not shall be beaten by those animals whose
knowledge shames them."
By such methods also were revealed such historical treasures as that
Og, King of Bashan, escaped the deluge by wading after Noah's ark.
There were, indeed, noble exceptions to this kind of teaching. It
can not be forgotten that Rabbi Hillel formulated the golden rule,
which had before him been given to the extreme Orient by Confucius,
and which afterward received a yet more beautiful and positive
emphasis from Jesus of Nazareth; but the seven rules of
interpretation laid down by Hillel were multiplied and refined by
men like Rabbi Ismael and Rabbi Eleazar until they justified every
absurd subtlety.
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