CHAPTER 1
Note 1: ‘nabi’. If the third radical is one of those termed ‘mutes’, it is customarily omitted and instead the second letter is doubled. Thus 
by the omision of the mute 
becomes 
and then 
and 
becomes 
whence 
—utterance or speech. Similarly 
becomes 
or 
). Therefore R. Shlomo was quite correct in interpreting this word as 
, and was wrongly criticised by ibn Ezra, whose knowledge of Hebrew was not profound. It should further be noted that the word 
—prophecy is of general application, and embraces every kind of prophesying, whereas other nouns are more specific and refer to a particular kind of prophesying. This point, I believe, is familiar to all scholars.
Note 2: ‘its professors cannot be called prophets’. That is, interpreters of God. For an interpreter of God is one who has a revelation of God’s decrees which he interprets to others who have not had this revelation, and who accept it solely in reliance on the prophet’s authority and the confidence he enjoys. Now if those who listen to prophets were themselves to become prophets just as those who listen to philosophers become philosophers, the prophet would not be an interpreter of divine decrees; for his hearers would rely not on the testimony and authority of the prophet but on the divine revelation itself and on their own inward testimony, just as the prophet does. Similarly, sovereign powers are the interpreters of their own sovereign right, since the laws that they enact are upheld only by their own sovereign authority, and are supported only by their own testimony.
Note 3: ‘that the prophets were endowed with an extraordinary virtue exceeding the normal’. Although some men possess gifts that nature does not bestow on others, they are not said to surpass human nature unless the gifts that are peculiar to them are such as cannot be understood from the definition of human nature. For example, a giant is of unusual size, but his size is still human. It is granted to few to be able to compose poetry extempore, but this is still a human gift, as also is the gift whereby someone, while wide awake, imagines certain things as vividly as if they were actually present before him. But if someone were to possess a quite different means of perception and quite different grounds of knowledge, he would assuredly surpass the bounds of human nature.
CHAPTER 3
Note 4: ‘Patriarchs’. In chapter 15 of Genesis we are told that God said to Abraham that he would be his protector and would give him an exceedingly great reward; to which Abraham replied that he had nothing very much to look forward to, since he was childless and stricken with years.
Note 5: ‘their security’. It is clear from Mark ch. 10 v. 21 that to achieve eternal life it is not enough to keep the commandments of the Old Testament.
CHAPTER 6
Note 6: ‘Since God’s existence is not self-evident’. We doubt the existence of God, and consequently everything else, as long as we do not have a clear and distinct idea of God, but only a confused idea. Just as he who does not rightly know the nature of a triangle does not know that its three angles are equal to two right angles, so he who conceives the divine nature in a confused way does not see that existence pertains to the nature of God. Now in order that we may conceive God’s nature clearly and distinctly, we have to fix our attention on certain very simple axioms called universal axioms, and connect to them those attributes that belong to the divine nature. Only then does it become clear to us that God necessarily exists and is omnipresent, and only then do we see that all our conceptions involve God’s nature and are conceived through God’s nature, and, finally, that everything that we adequately conceive is true. But for this see the Preface to my book entitled ‘The Principles of Philosophy Demonstrated in a Geometrical Manner.’
CHAPTER 7
Note 7: ‘impossible to devise a method’. That is, impossible for us who are not used to this language and lack a systematic account of its phraseology.
Note 8: ‘conception’. By things comprehensible I mean not only those which can be logically proved but also those which we are wont to accept with moral certainty and to hear without surprise, although they can by no means be proved. Anyone can comprehend Euclid’s propositions before they are proved. Similarly, I call comprehensible those narratives, whether of future or past events, that do not exceed human belief, and likewise laws, institutions and customs, although they cannot be proved with mathematical certainty. But mysterious symbols, and narratives that exceed all human belief, I call incomprehensible. Yet even among these there are many that yield to examination by our method, so that we can perceive the author’s meaning.
CHAPTER 8
Note 9: ‘Mount Moriah’. Thus named not by Abraham, but by the historian, who says that the place which in his day was called ‘in the mount of the Lord it shall be revealed’ was called by Abraham ‘the Lord will provide.’
Note 10: ‘before David conquered that people’. From this time until the reign of Jehoram, when they gained independence (2 Kings ch. 8 v. 20), the Idumaeans had no king. Governors, appointed by the Jews, took the place of kings (1 Kings ch. 22 v. 47), and therefore the governor of Edom is called ‘king’ (2 Kings ch. 3 v. 9). There is some doubt as to whether the last of the Idumaean kings had begun his reign before Saul became king, or whether in this chapter of Genesis, Scripture intended to list only the kings who were unconquered until their death. However, it is plain folly to attempt to include Moses, who by the divine will established a Hebrew state very different from monarchy, in the list of Hebrew kings.
CHAPTER 9
Note 11: ‘exceptions’. For example, in 2 Kings ch. 18 v. 20 the text has the second person, ‘Thou hast said—but they are no more than words—etc.’, whereas in Isaiah ch. 36 v. 5 we have ‘I have said—but they are no more than words—that war needs counsel and courage.’ Again, in verse 22 the text of Kings reads ‘But ye may say unto me’, the verb being in the plural, whereas Isaiah has the verb in the singular. Furthermore, the words in Kings, same chapter, verse 32, ‘a land of oil olive and of honey, that ye may live and not die: and hearken not to Hezekiah’ are missing in Isaiah. There are many other differences of reading of this kind, and no one can determine which is to be preferred.
Note 12: ‘remarkable change’. For example, in 2 Sam. ch. 7 v. 6 we have 
—’and I have continually wandered with tent and tabernacle’; but in 1 Chron. ch. 17 v. 5 we have (
)—‘and I have been from tent to tent and from tabernacle’, with a change of 
to 
to 
and 
to 
. Again in verse 10 of the same chapter of Samuel we have 
—to afflict him’, while in verse 9 of the quoted chapter of Chronicles we have 
—’to wear him down’. For anyone who is not quite blind or completely mad a single reading of these chapters will reveal many discrepancies of this kind, some of considerable importance.
Note 13: ‘the time here mentioned must refer … to a quite different time’. That this passage refers to the time when Joseph was sold is not only evident from the context itself but can also be inferred from the age of Judah, who was then in his twenty-second year at the most, if one may base one’s calculation on his preceding history. From the last verse of Genesis ch. 29 it is clear that Judah was born ten years after the patriarch Jacob began to serve Laban, and Joseph fourteen years. Now since Joseph was seventeen years old at the time he was sold, Judah could not have been more than twenty-one. So those who believe that Judah’s long absence from home took place before Joseph was sold are seeking to delude themselves, and are more concerned for the sanctity of Scripture than for accuracy.
Note 14: ‘while Dinah was scarcely seven years old’. The opinion advanced by some that Jacob wandered about between Mesopotamia and Bethel for eight or ten years savours of the ridiculous, if I may say so without disrespect to ibn Ezra. Jacob had good reason for haste, not only because he no doubt longed to see his aged parents, but also for a most important purpose, to fulfill the vow he had made when he fled from his brother (Gen. ch. 28 v. 20, ch. 31 v. 13 and ch. 35 v. 1), a vow which God also bade him fulfill, promising to help him to return to his country. However, if these considerations seem mere conjectures rather than cogent reasoning, let us grant that Jacob, driven by a more malignant fate than Ulysses, spent eight or ten or even more years on this short journey. Even so, our objectors cannot deny that Benjamin was born in the last year of this wandering, that is, according to their view and their theory, when Joseph was fifteen or sixteen or thereabouts; for Jacob parted from Laban seven years after Joseph was born. Now the period of time from Joseph’s seventeenth year until the patriarch travelled to Egypt does not exceed twenty-two years, as I have shown in this chapter. Thus at that point of time—that is, when he set out to Egypt—Benjamin was twenty-three or twenty-four years old at the most, at which time, in the early flowering of his life, he must have been a grandfather (see Gen. ch. 46 v. 21, and compare with Num. ch. 26 v. 38, 39, 40 and with 1 Chron. ch. 8 v. 1 and the verses that follow); for Belah, his firstborn, had already begotten two sons, Ard and Naaman. This is surely no less absurd than to maintain that Dinah was seven years old when she was violated, not to mention the other absurdities that are entailed by this manner of arranging history. Thus it is clear that unscholarly attempts to solve difficulties produce further difficulties, confusing and clouding the question even more.
Note 15: ‘he here begins to relate of Joshua’. That is to say, the terms used and the order of narration differ from those employed in the book of Joshua.
Note 16: ‘Othniel, son of Kenaz, was judge 40 years’. Rabbi Levi ben Gerson1 and some others believe that these 40 years, which Scripture declares to have been passed in freedom, should be calculated from the death of Joshua and thus include the preceding 8 years when the people were subject to Cushan Rishathaim, while the following 18 years should be included in the total of the 80 years when Ehud and Shamgar were judges. In the same way, they think that the other years of subjection are always included in the years which Scripture declares to have been passed in freedom. But Scripture expressly computes how many years the Hebrews passed in subjection and how many years in freedom, and in chapter 2 v. 18 it expressly tells us that the Hebrews always enjoyed prosperity in the time of the Judges. So it is perfectly clear that our Rabbi (in other respects a man of great learning) and the others who follow him, when trying to solve such difficulties, are not so much explaining Scripture as emending it.
This is also true of those who maintain that, in the summation of years which Scripture here makes, only the years of a properly administered Jewish state were taken into account, while the periods of anarchy and subjection, being unhappy interludes in the history of the Jewish state, must have been ignored. Now Scripture does indeed pass over in silence the periods of anarchy, but the years of subjection are narrated quite as fully as the years of independence, and are not erased from Jewish history, as is wildly suggested. Ezra—whom we have shown to be the author of these books—in 1 Kings ch. 6 intended to include in that complete total all the years from the exodus from Egypt to the fourth year of Solomon’s reign, a fact so clear that no biblical scholar has ever doubted it. For, leaving aside for the present the precise wording of the text, the genealogy of David given at the end of the book of Ruth and in 1 Chron. ch. 2 fails to account in full for such a large figure as 480 years. Nahshon was chief of the tribe of Judah in the second year after the exodus (Num. ch. 7 v. 11, 12), and thus died in the wilderness along with all those who at the age of 20 were capable of military service; and his son Salmon crossed the Jordan with Joshua. Now this Salmon, according to the said genealogy, was David’s great-great-grandfather. If we subtract from this grand total of 480 years the 4 years of Solomon’s reign, the 70 years of David’s life and the 40 years spent in the wilderness, we find that David was born 366 years after the passage of the Jordan, and that his father, grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather must each have begotten children when they were 90 years old.
Note 17: ‘Samson was judge’. Samson was born after the Philistines had subjugated the Hebrews. There is some doubt as to whether the 20 years here mentioned should be reckoned among the years of independence, or whether they are included in the immediately preceding 40 years when the people were under the yoke of the Philistines. For my part, I am of the opinion that it is more probable and more credible that the Hebrews recovered their freedom at the time when the most eminent of the Philistines perished along with Samson. My only reason for refusing to include Samson’s 20 years in the period of subjugation to the Philistines is this, that Samson was born after the Philistines had subjugated the Hebrews. There is a further reason, the mention made in the Tractate Shabbat of a certain book of Jerusalem where it is stated that Samson judged the people for 40 years. However, it is not a question of these years alone.
Note 18: ‘with absolute strictness’. Otherwise, they are not explaining the words of Scripture, but emending them.
Note 19: ‘Kirjath Jeharim’. Kirjath Jeharim is also called Baal Judah. Hence 
2 and some others think that the words ‘Baale Judah’, which I have here translated as ‘from the people of Judah’, signify the name of a town. But they are wrong, because 
is plural. Moreover, comparing the text of Samuel with the text of 1 Chronicles, we see that David did not arise and go forth from Baal, but that he went thither. If the author of 2 Samuel had intended to indicate the place whence David removed the ark, then the Hebrew would have run as follows: “Then David arose and set forth … etc. from Baal Judah, and took from there the ark of God.”
Note 20: ‘and was there three years’. Some commentators have emended the text as follows: “And Absalom fled and went to Talmai, the son of Ammihud, king of Geshur, where he remained for three years, and David wept for his son all the time that he was at Geshur.” Now if this is to be called interpretation, and if one can assume such licence in expounding Scripture, transposing entire phrases, adding to them and subtracting from them, then I declare that it is permissible to corrupt Scripture and to treat it as a piece of wax on which one can impose whatever forms one chooses.
CHAPTER 10
Note 21: ‘and perhaps after the restoration of the temple by Judas Maccabee’. This possibility—though it is more akin to certainty—is based on the genealogy from king Jeconiah, given in 1 Chron. ch. 3 and continuing as far as the sons of Elioneai, who were thirteenth in direct line from Jeconiah. It should be observed that Jeconiah had no children when he was imprisoned, but he had two children while in prison, as far as can be conjectured by the names he gave them. Now he seems to have had grandchildren—again making conjecture from their names—after his release from prison; and therefore Pedaiah (which means ‘God hath delivered’), who according to this chapter is said to be the father of Zerubbabel, was born in the thirty-seventh or thirty-eighth year of Jeconiah’s captivity, that is, thirty-three years before Cyrus gave the Jews permission to return. Therefore Zerubbabel, whom Cyrus put in charge of the Jews, seems to have been thirteen or fourteen years old at the most. But I have preferred to keep silent on these matters for reasons which our difficult times do not allow me to explain. A word to the wise is enough. If they will peruse with some care the list of the descendants of Jeconiah given in 1 Chron. ch. 3 from verse 17 to the end of the chapter, and compare the Hebrew text with the Septuagint version, they will have no difficulty in seeing that these books were published after the second restoration of the city by Judas Maccabee when the descendants of Jeconiah had lost the throne, and not before then.
Note 22: ‘he would be taken to Babylon as captive’. Thus no one could have suspected that Ezekiel’s prophecy contradicted Jeremiah’s prediction, as everyone suspected according to Josephus’ narrative. But the event proved them both right.
Note 23: ‘Nehemiah’. The historian himself testifies in chapter 1 verse 1 that the greater part of this book is taken from the book that Nehemiah wrote. But there can be no doubt that the passage from chapter 8 to chapter 12 verse 26, and also the last two verses of chapter 12 inserted as a parenthesis into the words of Nehemiah, were added by the historian who lived after Nehemiah.
Note 24: ‘Ezra’. Ezra was the uncle of the first high priest, Joshua (see Ezra ch. 7 v. 1 and 1 Chron. ch. 6 v. 13, 14, 15), and accompanied Zerubbabel from Babylon to Jerusalem (see Nehem. ch. 12 v. 1). But it appears that when he saw the state of confusion among the Jews, he returned to Babylon, as also did some others (Nehem. ch. 1 v. 2), and remained there until the reign of Artaxerxes when, being granted his request, he went for a second time to Jerusalem. Nehemiah, too, went with Zerubbabel to Jerusalem in the time of Cyrus. See Ezra, ch. 2 v. 2 and 63, and compare with ch. 10 v. 2 and ch. 12 v. 1 of Nehemiah. As to the translation of the word ‘Atirshata’ by ‘ambassador’, there is no authority for this, whereas it is quite certain that those Jews whose duty it was to attend the court were given new names. Thus Daniel was Balteshazzar, and Zerubbabel Sheshbazzar (see Dan. ch. 1 v. 7, Ezra ch. 1 v. 8 and ch. 5 v. 14). Nehemiah was called Atirshata, but by virtue of his office he was termed 
—procurator or president. See Nehem. ch. 5 v. 14 and ch. 12 v. 26.
Note 25: ‘that no canon of the Sacred Books existed before the Maccabees’. The Synagogue termed ‘the Great’ did not originate until after Asia had been subjugated by the Macedonians. As to the assertion made by Maimonides, R. Abraham ben David3 and others, that the presidents of the Council were Ezra, Daniel, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah etc., this is an absurd fiction, based only on a rabbinical tradition that the Persian empire lasted no more than 34 years. This is their only way of proving that the decrees of the Great Synagogue or Synod—which was composed of Pharisees only, and whose decrees were rejected by the Sadducees—were transmitted by prophets who had received them from other prophets all the way back to Moses, who had received them from God himself and had transmitted them orally, not in writing. But let the Pharisees cling to their belief with their wonted obstinacy. The wise, being well acquainted with the reasons for councils and Synods and knowing of the quarrels between Pharisees and Sadducees, can easily imagine the reasons for the summoning of that Great Synagogue or Council. This much is certain, that no prophets took part in that council, and that the decrees of the Pharisees, which they call ‘traditions’, derived their authority from that Council.
CHAPTER 11
Note 26: ‘we therefore think’. Translators here render 
as ‘concludo’—I infer, and they maintain that in Paul’s writing the word 
is synonymous with 
, whereas in fact the Greek 
has the same force as the Hebrew 
—to reckon, think, consider. This meaning is in full agreement with the Syriac text. The Syriac translation (if indeed it is a translation, which is a matter of doubt since we know neither the translator nor the time of publication, and the vernacular language of the Apostles was none other than Syriac) renders this text of Paul as ‘
’, which Tremellius correctly translates as ‘arbitramur igitur’—‘we therefore think’. For the word ‘
’ which derives from this verb means ‘arbitratus’—thinking. In Hebrew ‘
’ is 
reutha—‘will’. Therefore the Syriac word means ‘we will’ or ‘we think’.
Note 27: ‘the whole of Christ’s doctrine’. In effect, the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, related in Matthew, chapter 5.
CHAPTER 15
Note 31: ‘that simple obedience is a way to salvation’. That is, it is not reason but revelation that can teach us that it is enough for blessedness or salvation for us to accept the divine decrees as laws or commandments, and that there is no need to conceive them as eternal truths. This is made clear by what we have demonstrated in Chapter 4.
CHAPTER 16
Note 32: ‘promise in all good faith’. In a civil state, where what is good and what is evil is decided by the right of the whole community, it is correct to make a distinction between deception with good intent (dolus bonus) and deception with malicious intent (dolus malus). But in a state of nature, where everyone is his own judge and possesses the perfect right to prescribe and interpret laws for himself and even to repeal them if he thinks this is to his advantage, it is impossible to conceive that anyone can act with malicious intent to deceive.
Note 33: ‘everybody can be free as he wills’. A man can be free in any kind of state, for a man is free, of course, to the extent that he is guided by reason. Now (although Hobbes4 thinks otherwise) reason is entirely in favour of peace; but peace cannot be secured unless the general laws of the state are kept inviolate. Therefore the more a man is guided by reason, that is, the more free he is, the more steadfastly he will observe the laws of the state and obey the commands of the sovereign whose subject he is.
Note 34: ‘For nobody knows by nature’. When Paul says that men are without means of escape, he is speaking in merely human terms. For in chapter 9 v. 18 of the same Epistle he expressly teaches that God has mercy on whom he will and makes stubborn whom he will, and that men are without excuse not because they have been forewarned but because they are in God’s power like clay in the hands of the potter, who from the same lump makes one vessel to honour and another vessel to dishonour. As for the divine natural law whose chief commandment, as we have said, is to love God, I have called it a law in the same sense as philosophers apply the term ‘law’ to the universal rules of Nature according to which all things come to pass. For love of God is not obedience but a virtue necessarily present in a man who knows God aright, whereas obedience has regard to the will of him who commands, and not to necessity and truth. Now since we do not know the nature of God’s will, while we are quite certain that everything that happens comes to pass from God’s power alone, it is only from revelation that we can know whether God wishes to receive honour from men like some temporal ruler. Furthermore, we have shown that the divine commandments appear to us as commandments or ordinances only as long as we do not know their cause. Once this is known, they cease to be commandments, and we embrace them as eternal truths, not as commandments; that is, obedience forthwith passes into love, which arises from true knowledge by the same necessity as light arises from the sun. Therefore by the guidance of reason we can love God, but not obey him; for by virtue of reason we can neither accept divine commandments as divine while not knowing their cause, nor can we conceive God as a ruler enacting laws.
CHAPTER 17
Note 35: ‘as thereafter to be powerless’. Two common soldiers undertook to make one man Emperor of Rome in place of another, and they succeeded. Tacitus, Histories, Book 1.5
Note 36: ‘(Num. ch. 11 v. 28)’. In this passage two men are accused of prophesying in the camp, and Joshua urges their arrest. This he would not have done if it had been lawful for anyone to deliver God’s oracles to the people without Moses’ permission. But Moses thought fit to acquit the accused, and he rebuked Joshua for urging him to assert this royal right at a time when he was so weary of ruling that he preferred to die rather than continue to rule alone, as is clear from verses 14 and 15 of the same chapter. For he replied to Joshua thus: “Enviest thou for my sake? Would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets!” That is to say, would that the right to consult God were vested in the entire people, who would thus be sovereign. Therefore Joshua’s error lay not in the question of right but in the occasion of its exercise, and he was rebuked by Moses in the same way as Abishai was rebuked by David when he urged David to condemn to death Shimei, who was undoubtedly guilty of treason. See 2 Sam. ch. 19 v. 22, 23.
Note 37: ‘See Num. ch. 27 v. 21’. Verses 19 and 23 of this chapter are mistranslated in such versions as I have seen. These verses do not mean that Moses gave Joshua commands or instructions, but that he properly constituted or established him as captain. This turn of phrase is quite common in Scripture, as in Exod. ch. 18 v. 23, 1 Sam. ch. 13 v. 14, Josh. ch. 1 v. 9, 1 Sam. ch. 25 v. 30 and elsewhere.
Note 38: ‘to recognise any other judge than God’. The Rabbis imagine that what is known as the Great Sanhedrin was instituted by Moses, and many Christians share in this delusion. Moses did indeed choose seventy colleagues to assist him in the task of government, being unable to bear alone the burden of the whole people. But at no time did he enact a law establishing a college of seventy members. On the contrary, he commanded that each tribe should appoint judges in the cities that God had given them, to decide lawsuits in accordance with the laws that he had laid down. If it should happen that the judges themselves were in doubt as to the law, they were to approach the high priest, as being the supreme interpreter of the laws, or the judge who was at that time their superior (for he had the right to consult the high priest) so as to settle the question according to the high priest’s interpretation. If a lower judge should maintain that he was not bound to pass judgment in accordance with the opinion of the high priest as received from the high priest himself or from his own superior, he was to be condemned to death by whatever supreme judge had appointed him a subordinate judge. See Deut. ch. 17 v. 9. This person might be the commander-in-chief of all Israel, like Joshua, or he might be the captain of a single tribe (in whom, after the partition of the land was vested the right of consulting the high priest concerning the affairs of his tribe, of deciding on war or peace, of fortifying cities, of appointing judges and so on), or he might be the king, to whom all or some of the tribes had transferred their right.
In confirmation I could cite many instances from history, but I will confine myself to one of outstanding importance. When the Shilonite prophet appointed Jeroboam king, he thereby gave him the right of consulting the high priest and of appointing judges; in short, Jeroboam held over the ten tribes all the right that Rehoboam held over two tribes. Therefore Jeroboam could set up a supreme council of state at his court by the same right by which Jehoshaphat set up his council at Jerusalem (see 2 Chron. ch. 19 v. 8 on). For it is clear that Jeroboam, insofar as he was king by God’s command, and consequently Jeroboam’s subjects, were not required by the law of Moses to submit to the jurisdiction of Rehoboam, since they were not his subjects, and far less to the jurisdiction of the court established by Rehoboam at Jerusalem and subordinate to him. Thus a supreme court was established in each of the separate and independent divisions of the Hebrew state. Those who disregard the varied political arrangements of the Hebrews and fail to distinguish between them find themselves involved in many difficulties.
CHAPTER 19
Note 39: ‘and lawfully impeach’. Here particular attention should be paid to my discussion of right in Chapter 16.
