Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/54

and making the idolater pay, was smitten with the leprosy. (2 Kings v. 20.) In like manner, when the Syrian host was miraculously led into Samaria, and the King of Israel proposed to act as a Talmudist and smite them, the man of God answered, "Thou shalt not smite them; wouldest thou smite those whom thou hast taken with thy sword and bow? Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master." (2 Kings vi. 21, 22.) This answer is important, as it not only furnishes an example, but exhibits the principle, according to which idolatrous captives, not Canaanites, were to be treated. The prophet appeals to the general rule, "Wouldest thou smite those whom thou hast taken captive with thy sword and bow? Even then, as they are not Canaanites, they ought not to be smitten: therefore, in this case much more, they ought to be treated with mercy. We have still another instance of a prophet acting contrary to the oral law, and in conformity with the New Testament interpretation. The prophet Jonah once saw idolaters "nigh unto death," and ready to sink in the great deep, but he had mercy on them, and pointed out the means of deliverance. When he fled from the presence of the Lord, the mariners in whose ship he sailed were idolaters; for when the storm raged, it is said, "They cried every man unto his god." In their anguish they said unto him, "What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us?" In other words, "What shall we do to save our lives?" Now if Jonah had been a Talmudist, it would have been plainly not his duty to have told them, but to have allowed the sea to rage on until the ship went to pieces, and he had the satisfaction of seeing the idolaters go to the bottom. This would have been an act of obedience to a precise command, and could have made no difference to Jonah. For, as to himself, there are two suppositions possible, either he knew that the Lord had prepared a fish to swallow him, or he knew it not. If he knew it, then he was secure of his own safety, and would have known that the fish could find him out just as readily if the ship went to pieces, as if the idolaters threw him into the sea. It would, therefore, have been doubly his duty to conceal from the idolaters the means of deliverance. On this supposition, Jonah's counsel to them can only be accounted for on the principle that he was not a Talmudist, but considered it his duty to save the lives of perishing idolaters, even when nothing was to be feared or to be gained. If, on the other hand, he did not know of the fish, he must have expected a watery grave, whether the idolaters threw him into the sea, or whether he waited until the ship went to pieces. In this case, also, if a Talmudist, it would have been his duly to have staged where he was, and if he perished, die in the fulfilment or the command, to show no mercy to ido-