“A wise man, old in wisdom, or a prince, or a president of a tribunal, who has sinned, is never to be excommunicated publicly, unless he have done as Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and his companions. But when he commits other sins, he is to be flogged in private. For it is said, ‘Therefore shalt thou fall in the day, and the prophet also shall fall with thee in the night,’ (Hos. iv. 5,) _i.e._, although he fall, cover him as it were with the night. And they say to him, ‘Honour thyself, and abide in thy house.’ (2 Kings xiv. 10.) In like manner, when a disciple of a wise man makes himself guilty of excommunication, it is unlawful for the tribunal to be too quick, and to excommunicate him hastily.” (Ibid. c. vii. 1.) The rabbies have endeavoured to justify this different legislation for the learned and unlearned by a verse of the Bible, but their interpretation of that verse is quite erroneous. When God says, “Therefore shalt thou fall in the day, and the prophet shall also fall with thee in the night,” he is not speaking of the learned and unlearned, nor of the different way in which their sins were to be punished, but of the destruction which was coming upon Israel, as may be seen in Kimchi’s Commentary. He interprets the verse thus— וכשלת היום אמר כנגד ישראל בעבור מעשיך תכשל ותפול , היום ר׳׳ל חזמן הזה בקרוב תבוא מפלתך , וכן וחרה אפי בו ביום ההוא , ביום ההוא שורש ישי והדומים להם , ענינם עת וזמן , וכשל גם נביא עמך לילה נביא שקר המתעה אותך יכשל עמך כמו האדם נכשל בלילה בחשכה וכן תרגם יונתן ׃