Study Sanhedrin folio 15B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
אימא לקטלא הוא דאתא! אם כן, ליכתוב ״וגם בעליו״, ולישתוק!
Why not say instead that it comes to teach that the owner of the ox is liable to receive the death penalty? Rava responded: If so, let it write in the same verse only: “The ox should be stoned and also its owner,” and let it be silent and not add more. It would be clear that the owner is also to be put to death. Since the verse added the explicit term: “should be put to death,” it is clear that the intention is to teach that just as the manner of the death of the owner, so is the manner of the death of the ox.
אי כתב רחמנא הכי, הוה אמינא בסקילה. בסקילה סלקא דעתך? קטל איהו – בסייף, ממונו – בסקילה?
Abaye said: Had God written the verse in this manner, I would say that the owner is executed by stoning. The Talmud rejects this: Would it enter your mind to say he should be executed by stoning? If he killed the person himself he would be executed by the sword, which is deemed a lighter punishment; if his property killed the victim, could he be given the more severe execution by stoning?
ודילמא האי דכתב רחמנא ״יומת״ לאקולי עילויה, לאפוקי מסייף לחנק? הניחא למאן דאמר חנק חמור, אלא למאן דאמר חנק קיל, מאי איכא למימר?
The Talmud asks: But perhaps this term that God wrote: “should be put to death,” is to be lenient with him, to remove his sentence from the category of execution by the sword and instead to sentence him to death by strangulation. This works out well according to the one who says that strangulation is more severe than the sword. According to that opinion there is no place for such a claim, as the punishment is certainly not more severe than that of an actual murderer. But according to the one who says that strangulation is a lighter punishment, what is there to say?