Flagellation is the penalty of three classes of offenses:
(1) The violation of a negative precept, deadly in the sight of heaven.
(2) The violation of any negative precept, when accomplished by means of a positive act.
(3) The violation of any one of the prohibitive ordinances punishable, according to the Mosaic law with excision, to which, however, no capital punishment at the instance of a human tribunal is attached.[69]
The Mishna enumerates fifty offenses punishable by stripes, but this enumeration is evidently incomplete. Maimonides gives a full classification of all the offenses punishable by flagellation, the number of which he estimates to be two hundred and seven. The last three in his list are cases in which the king takes too many wives, accumulates too much silver or gold, or collects too many horses.[70]
Slavery was the penalty for theft under ancient Hebrew law. This is the only case where the Mosaic law imposed slavery upon the culprit as a punishment for his crime; and a loss of liberty followed only where the thief was unable to make the prescribed restitution. Exodus xxii. 1-3 says:
If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it, he shall restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep ... if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.
Penal servitude, or slavery, was imposed only on men, never on women. Slavery, as a penalty for theft, was limited to a period of six years in obedience to the Mosaic ordinance laid down in Exodus xxi. 2.
If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh, he shall go free for nothing.
It should be remarked, in this connection, that slavery, as a punishment for crime, carried with it none of the odium and hardship usually borne by the slave. The humanity of Hebrew law provided that the culprit, thief though he was, should not be degraded or humiliated. He could be compelled to do work for his master, such as he had been accustomed to do while free, but was relieved by the law from all degrading employment, such as "attending the master to the bath, fastening or unfastening his sandals, washing his feet, or any other labor usually performed by the regular slave." Hebrew law required such kindly treatment of the convict thief by his master that this maxim was the result: "He who buys a Hebrew slave, buys himself a master."