Stoning was the penalty for eighteen capital offenses:

The crime of false swearing requires special notice. This offense could not be classified under any of the above subdivisions because of its peculiar nature. The Mosaic Code ordains in Deut. xix. 16-21: "If a false witness rise up against any man to testify against him that which is wrong ... and, behold, if the witness be a false witness, and hath testified falsely against his brother; then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother ... and thine eye shall not pity, but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." Talmudic construction of this law awarded the same kind of death to him who had sworn falsely against his brother that would have been meted out to the alleged criminal, if the testimony of the false swearer had been true.

Imprisonment, as a method of punishment, was unknown to the Mosaic Code. Leviticus xxiv. 12 and Numbers xv. 34 seem to indicate the contrary; but the imprisonment therein mentioned undoubtedly refers to the mere detention of the prisoner until sentence could be pronounced against him. Imprisonment as a form of punishment was a creation of the Talmudists who legalized its application among the Hebrews. According to Mendelsohn, five different classes of offenders were punished by imprisonment:

(1) Homicides; whose crime could not be legally punished with death, because some condition or other, necessary to produce a legal conviction, had not been complied with.

(2) Instigators to or procurers of murder; such, for instance, as had the deed committed by the hands of a hireling.

(3) Accessories to loss of life, as, for instance, when several persons had clubbed one to death, and the court could not determine the one who gave the death blow.

(4) Persons who having been twice duly condemned to and punished with flagellation for as many transgressions of one and the same negative precept, committed it a third time.

(5) Incorrigible offenders, who, on each of three occasions, had failed to acknowledge as many warnings antecedent to the commission of one and the same crime, the original penalty for which was excision.[67]

Flagellation is the only corporal punishment mentioned by the Pentateuch. The number of stripes administered were not to exceed forty and were to be imposed in the presence of the judges.[68] Wherever the Mosaic Code forbade an act, or, in the language of the sages, said "Thou shalt not," and prescribed no other punishment or alternative, a Court of Three might impose stripes as the penalty for wrongdoing. Mendelsohn gives the following classification: