Son. It seems reasonable that a land, which is placed in charge of a ruler who attends carefully to these things, will be well governed; and the people ought to show proper appreciation of his government. Still with your permission I shall now ask about certain matters that interest me concerning rightful verdicts. You referred to an order given by an emperor as to punishments decreed by a king (which looks to me like good law), that a man who had incurred the king’s wrath should be given a reprieve of forty days in the king’s custody, lest a verdict be rendered too quickly in his case and in violent anger; and it seems to me that a king will need to possess much good nature, if he is to spare a man in his anger. But even so righteous and holy a man as Moses was could not control his wrath on that day, when he came in anger to the people of Israel; for I am told that his wrath rose to such violence that he dashed the two tables of stone, which he bore in his arms and upon which God Himself had written the ten commandments of His law with His own fingers, against a rock and broke them into fragments in his fury; and rushing at once to arms, he and the men who were with him slew many hundred persons that day.^[315] I have also heard that David in sudden wrath ordered the man, who came from the battle in which Saul fell, bringing the tidings that Saul was dead, to be slain immediately;^[316] and he did not order him to be kept for further inquiry.

Father. Remember what I called to your attention in an earlier remark, namely, that these laws are intended for men who do not fall into such evident transgressions that a rightful verdict can condemn them to immediate death. But when Moses came away from God, he knew God’s wrath toward all the people of Israel, and consequently did a deed of kindness and not of hatred when by this chastisement he turned them from error and evil ways; just as I have told you that a king in punishing should be moved by kindness and not by hatred. For all penalties that are inflicted because of hatred are murder; while punishment inflicted for the sake of love and justice is a holy deed and not murder.