The next practical question Ibn Daud felt called upon to discuss was that of the possibility of the Law being repealed, abrogated or altered. This he found it necessary to do in order to defend the Jewish standpoint against that of Christianity in particular. How he will answer this question is of course a foregone conclusion. We are only interested in his manner of argument. He adopts a classification of long standing of the Biblical laws into rational and traditional. The first, he says, are accepted by all nations and can never be changed. Even a band of thieves, who disregard all laws of right and wrong as they relate to outsiders, must observe them in their own midst or they cannot exist. These laws bring people of different nationalities and beliefs together, and hence there can be no change in these. Nor can there be any alteration in that part of the Law which is historical in content. An event of the past cannot be repealed. It only remains therefore to see whether abrogation may possibly be compatible with the nature of the traditional or ceremonial laws. Without arguing like the philosophers that change of a divine law is incompatible with the nature of God, which is unchangeable, our sages nevertheless have a method of explaining such phrases as, "And it repented the Lord that he had made man" (Gen. 6, 6), so as to reconcile the demands of reason with those of tradition. Now if there were laws of the traditional kind stated in the Bible without any indication of time and without the statement that they are eternal, and afterwards other laws came to change them, we should say that the Lord has a certain purpose in his laws which we do not know, but which is revealed in the new law taking the place of the old. But as a matter of fact the Bible states explicitly in many cases that the laws are not to be changed, "A statute for ever throughout your generations" (Num. 10, 8, and _passim_). Arguments from phrases like, "Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth, etc." (Is. 1, 14), have no validity, for there is no indication here that sacrifices are abolished. The meaning of Isaiah is that sacrifices in conjunction with wrong living are undesirable. Our opponents also argue that Biblical expressions to the effect that the laws are eternal prove nothing, for we know of similar instances in which promises have been withdrawn as in the priesthood of Eli's family and the royalty of the house of David, where likewise eternity is mentioned. We answer these by saying, first, that in David's case the promise was withdrawn only temporarily, and will return again, as the Prophets tell us. Besides the promise was made only conditionally, as was that made to Eli. But there is no statement anywhere that the Law is given to Israel conditionally and that it will ever be taken away from them.