In many passages in the Pentateuch it is stated that the one committing certain transgressions “will be cut off from his kinsfolk.”[129] Modern Biblical scholars understand the phrase as referring to the imposition of the death penalty by the court. The Karaites also understood _Kareth_ in this sense, through a comparison of Exod. xxxi, 14b with the parallel passages xxxi, 14a, 15 and Num. xv, 35. The one passage prescribes _Kareth_, the others prescribe death as the punishment for Sabbath profanation. Similarly _Kareth_ in Lev. xx, 3 is the equivalent of stoning, the punishment designated in the preceding verse for Moloch worship; and _Kareth_ for blasphemy in Num. xv, 30 is the equivalent of stoning mentioned as the punishment for the same crime in Lev. xxiv, 14. The fate of Achan,[130] of Naboth,[131] and of the adulteress,[132] would seem to show that the whole family of the convicted person could judicially be put to death. In some cases,[133] the death penalty is specified as well as the penalty of _Kareth_. None the less, the Rabbis consistently understand _Kareth_ to be not a death penalty inflicted by man but a punishment left in the hands of Heaven. Thus the Rabbis interpret _Kareth_ specifically as dying childless,[134] or as dying at 50 years, or, according to Raba, between 50 and 60 years, before completing the otherwise destined span,[135] or as the cutting off of the soul in the future life.[136] For this interpretation of _Kareth_ as a punishment by Heaven would speak the personal pronoun in the phrase, “_I_ will cut off,” the active form sometimes used.[137] For this would also speak the passages wherein the death penalty is threatened as well as _Kareth_, usually adduced as favoring the other interpretation of _Kareth_, if we understand them, as we well may, as threatening an alternative, _either_ the death penalty by the court _or Kareth_ by God. That this may be the meaning is clear from a careful reading of Lev. x, 1-5, wherein the Moloch worshipper is threatened with death by stoning at the hands of the people, or if the people do not so punish him, then God will cut him off. Such phrases as “they shall bear their sin,”[138] or “they shall bear their sin and shall die childless,”[139] or “they shall die childless,”[140] would also be most naturally understood as taking the right of punishment away from the human court and leaving it to Heaven. It has been suggested that the Niqtal form, usually translated as passive “and shall be cut off,” should be understood in a reflexive sense, “(that soul) cuts itself off.” But this explanation seems unlikely in face of the occurrence of the active forms “I will cut off” or “and I will destroy that soul from the midst of its people.”[137] Whatever be the preferable explanation of _Kareth_ in each passage in which the term occurs, the interpretation consistently given to it by the Rabbis is highly significant. Their tendency away from capital