But the interpreters of Scripture found more in its pages than precept; the Torah taught other things besides directions for doing the divine will. It contained instruction about God Himself, about Israel's relation to Him, about the creation and divine providence as shown in past history, about human virtues and vices, and the divine approval or disapproval of them, and so on. It was the task of the interpreters to set forth this teaching, as well as the positive or negative precepts. It is probable that the early Sopherim described their work of interpretation as a whole by the word Haggadah; or, rather, that they used the cognate verb "higgid" to indicate that the Scripture "declared" so and so. But when they began to develop the special line of Halachah, the meaning of what had been the more general term was restricted so as to denote all the remainder that was not Halachah. This is, in practice, what Haggadah does mean, namely, interpretation of Scripture in all other directions except that of precept.[16] As a technical term, indeed, the actual word Haggadah may be no earlier than the first, or even the second, century of our era; but that method or process of interpretation which it was used to describe was in practice long before. [16] This is Bacher's explanation, as given in an article in the _J. Q. R._, 1892, p. 406 fol. His argument seems to me unanswerable. Haggadah, then, covers the whole field of scriptural interpretation except so far as it relates to precept; and this is why the contents of the Haggadah are so much more diversified than those of the Halachah. One might truly say that the Haggadah is the Pharisaic comment upon life as a whole in the light of Scripture, the element of duty being reserved for special treatment. If the Scripture could give even a hint upon any aspect of human nature, upon any phase of human experience, upon any attribute of God, upon any mystery of His providence, then the unfolding of the true meaning of that hint is Haggadah.