Let us now consider another somewhat different case. Death by burning is a horrible punishment, and was so recognized by the later Jewish lawyers, who contrived a legal fiction to do away with its literal infliction even on the scandalous criminals for whom it was intended. Hammurabi orders it twice. It would be very difficult to account by common Semitic custom or evolutionary methods for its being inflicted, if at all, only twice. Yet the laws of Moses inflict it twice also. If these arose independently, what is there from any intelligible point of view to demand its infliction at all—but, if at all, why twice and only twice? And that too in laws so similar? Well now, in both laws the incest of mother and son is one case. The heinousness of that crime may suffice to justify the hideous penalty. Hammurabi (§§ 157-8) clearly distinguishes incest with a man’s own mother and with a step-mother. Leviticus (xx. 14; xxi. 9) makes a curious specification of the case; whether to include other cases or not is not very clear. But evidently this great crime met the same unique punishment. Hammurabi’s second case is that of a votary, or vestal virgin, who left her cloister to open a wine shop or frequent it for strong drink. At first sight we might regard this as a protest against a vestal’s intemperance solely. But women did keep wine shops, and their conduct of them is regulated by the Code. We may recall the case of Rahab in Joshua ii. 1. The second case in Hebrew law is Lev. xxi. 9: the priest’s daughter who is unchaste is to be burned with fire. Now why are other women of the priest’s family not included? Is priest’s daughter to be taken, like the _mârat amêlim_ in the Code, to mean a woman of the priestly family? Or is it simply a priestess? Surely it is just a periphrasis, perhaps once a gloss on a word become obsolete, for a vowed woman like Jephthah’s daughter. There is at first sight not much likeness between the two second cases. But this one evidently puzzled the Jewish commentators, who probably had a traditional knowledge of the real meaning. First Josephus explains the crime not as mere unchastity but as ‘opening a tavern’. Was he thinking of Rahab the tavern-keeper who was also a harlot? Or had he an inkling that the crime was the same as Hammurabi had in view? The association of the tavern with immorality was close in Old Testament ideas. Perhaps Hammurabi also had it in mind, for unchastity would be specially revolting in a vestal virgin. Surely the priest’s daughter also was a votary. The Rabbis of the Talmud evidently suspected something disguised in the text, for they make a comment upon it which is truly surprising if the text be taken literally. They ask, Shall not a priestess or priest’s daughter be treated better than a tavern-keeper? They too knew that in some cases a tavern-keeper had to be burned. We ask, Why and where, if she were not also a vowed woman and in the Hammurabi Code? We need not assume that