The Halakah is the outcome of this devotion in one aspect, the philosophical exegesis in another. In the one case Jewish jurisprudence and the body of legal tradition, in the other, philosophical ideas inspired by outer civilization, are attached to the text of the Bible by ingenious devices of association. The device is partly a pious fiction, partly a genuine belief; in other words, the teachers honestly thought that there was respectively a hidden philosophical meaning in the Bible and an oral tradition, supplementary to the written law and arising out of it; but on the other hand they would not have urged that their particular interpretation alone was portended by the Scriptures. This is shown in the Talmud by the fact that different rabbis deduced the same lessons from different verses, and contrary laws from the same verse; in Philo by the fact that he often gives various interpretations of one text in different parts of his work. All that was claimed was that knowledge and truth must be primarily referred to the Divine revelation, and all law and practice to the authority of the Mosaic code. Philo, then, in the same way as the rabbis, deduces all his teaching from the Bible, not because he holds that it was explicitly contained there, but because he desires to give to his philosophical notions Divine authority. Like the rabbis, again, he suggests definite rules of interpretation which may always be applied [Greek: kanones tês allêgorias].[119] He declares that every name in the Torah has a deep symbolical meaning, and symbolizes some power.[120] Thus the names of the sons of Jacob typify each some moral quality, and these qualities together make the perfect man and the perfect nation. Reuben is "the son of insight" [Hebrew: ru'bn], Simeon is learning [Hebrew: shm'-on], Judah [Hebrew: yhuda] stands for the praise of God.[121] It may be noted, by the way, that all these values show traces of Hebrew etymology. Again, the synonyms in the Bible are to be carefully studied, while even particles and parts of words have their special value and importance. And the skilful exegete may for homiletical purposes make slight changes in a word, following the rabbinical rule,[122] "Read not so, but so." Thus he plays upon the name Esau, and takes the Hebrew word as though it were written, not [Hebrew: 'eshaw] but [Hebrew: 'ashav], a thing made.[123] Whence he shows that Esau represents the sham (made-up) greatness, which is boastful and insolent and shameless. Philo is referring perhaps to Apion, the vainglorious anti-Semite, whom he often covertly attacks. Again, whenever there is repetition in the text, a deeper meaning is portended. Dealing with the verse, "Sarah the wife of Abraham took Hagar the Egyptian" (Gen. xvi. 3), Philo comments, that we already knew that Sarah was Abraham's wife: why, then, does the Bible mention it again? And following certain values which he has made, he draws the lesson that the study of