Page:Jewish Encyclopedia Volume 6.djvu/80

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Goring Ox - Gottheil, Gustav
THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA
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pays only for damage proper, or diminution in value : he does not pay for pain, stoppage of work, cost of cure, or shame, as would one guilty of Assault and Battery. And the words of the text, "He shall surely pay ox for ox, and the dead shall be his own," are construed contrary to their apparent meaning; the owner of the killed ox keeps the carcass, and the owner of the goring ox pays in money the difference between the value of the live animal and of the car- cass, just as he pays for a hurt not resulting In death. This rule naturally followed when restora- tion in kind fell inlo disuse and the courts gave judgments for money in all cases.

Where one man's tam kills the ox of another, the text says, "they shall sell the living ox and di- vide the price of it, and the dead also Half they shall divide." Should the gor- Compensa- ing and the gored ox be of equal tion. value, this would amount to making good half the damage; and, in the words of the Mishnah, "this is the ox of the Torah." Nothing is said in the text about any responsibility of the owner beyond the value of tJie offending beast. Hence the sages drew the conclusion that the two purposes of the Torah were: (1) to fix the payment at lialf the damage done, and (2) to declare the lack of responsibility beyond the value of that beast, or, as they put it, beyond " half damage from its body," the latter element answering to the " pau- peries " of the Roman law.

The penalty of "half the damage done from the body " must be paid whether the injury be done by an ox or any other animal ; whether by goring or in any other way except by " foot or eating tooth " ; whether to a man (short of death) or to a beast or other property; and whether the injured animal die or not; the owner of the offending animal, however, is then free from all further liability. And where the oxen of two men injure each other, the harm or diminution of value to each is appraised, and the owner whose ox did the greater harm pays half of the difference, to the extent of the living se- curity (B. K. iii. 8). If the offending ox is in the keeping of a bailee, it may nevertheless be taken for the damage done, and the owner then has re- course to the bailee.

For the case of doubt as to which of several oxen has committed an injury, see Burden of Pkoop.

Bibliography : Malmonides, Yad, Nizke, Mamon, Iv.-xi. 8. s. ■ L. N. D.


GORNI, ISAAC BEN ABRAHAM. See

Isaac ben Abraham Gorni.

GOSHEN : Region of Egypt which the Israelites inhabited during their sojourn in that country. It is described as situated on the eastern frontier of Lower Egypt (Gen. xlvi. 28, 39; Ex. xiii. 17; I Chron. vii. 21), forming an outpost of it (Gen. xlvi. 34) ; apparently not at all (or scantily) inhabited by Egyptians (jS.), but, in the estimation of shep- herds, evidently " the best of the land" (ib. xlvii. 6,11), since Pharaoh's cattle grazed there (6). According to verse 11 " the land of Rameses " (P ?) is synonymous with " the land of Goshen." " Goshen " alone (with- out the addition "land of") is used only in xlvi. 28, 29. In these two verses it may designate a city, as the

LXX. understands it, which here renders " Go.shen " by "Heroonpolis," adding in verse 28 to "unto Goshen " the words "into the land of Ramesses " ; in xlv. 10 the LXX. transliterates "Gesem of Arabia." This name " Arabia " means, in Egyptian usage, either, generally, all land east of the Nile or, as a special district, the "nome Arabia," the 20th of Lower Egypt. Heroonpolis or Heropolis (according to the excavations of Naville, modern Tell al-Mas- khuta) was, however, the capital of the 8th or Hero- opolitan nome, east of the Arabian. Nevertheless, the name " Arabia " seems to be used by the LXX. in the special sense, for in the reign of Ptolemy II. the Greek administration seems to have treated the neigh- boring 8th and 20th nomes as one district (comp. the "Revenue Laws of Ptolemy Philadelphus, " ed. Grenfell, 1890, p. 1.). Later, the two districts seem to have been separated again (comp. , e.gr., Ptolemy, "Geographia," iv. 5, 53).

The name "Goshen" (Egyptian, "Ksm, sometimes abbreviated into " Ks "), occurring first in a papyrus of dynasty 12 (Griffith, " Kahun Papyri, " 3, 14), desig- nated, however, the 8th or so-called " Arabian " nome, i.e., the land west of the Bubastide nome, between the Pelusiac branch of the Nile and the canal now branching off at Belbeis. It touched the entrance to the desert valley, now called Wadi al-fumilat, where a fortification, erected in dynasty 12, pro- tected the easiest entrance to Egypt. It is likely that the capital P(er)-sopd(u) (Pisaptu of the Assyr- ians), situated near modern Saft al-Hannah, had as profane name the same name as the region, because the classical writers speak of a city Phacus(s)a on that spot (Ptolemy, I.e. ; less distinct are Stephen of Byzantium, the " Tabula Peutingerina," Geograplius Ravennatu, and Strabo, who may have confounded with Goshen a city with a similar name, modern Pakus, northeast of Bubastus). If so, the Biblical pronunciation of the name is authenticated as against the "Ges(s)em" of the LXX. and the de- pendent versions.

The synonymous designation, "land of Rameses," has not yet been found on the monuments, but seems to refer to the region bordering eastward on the land of Goshen, the 8th or Hero(on)pol- "Land of itan nome, which is known to have Rameses." been colonized by the famous pharaoh Rameses II. The LXX. certainly errs in identifying Heroonpolis with Goshen, but is ot her- wise correct in seeking the Israelitish settlements in that region ( which contained the towns of Pithom and Succoth, Ex. i. 11, xii. 37, etc.), the narrow valley Wadial-Tumilat of modern time, between the Croc- odile Lake and the old land of Goshen. This part of the country answers perfectly to the description of Goshen in the Bible. It was reached only irreg- ularly by the yearly inundation of the Nile, and therefore was less suited for agriculture. It is necessary only to assume that with the Semites or in popular Egyptian usage the name of "Kosom" (Goshen) was extended beyond the limits of the old country and its frontier fortifications. Unfortu- nately, little is known of the whole region before Rameses II. It might also be assumed that the Is- raelites- settled, in Joseph's time, in the old land of Goshen, and spread in the subsequent period over