Study Sanhedrin folio 84B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
מתני׳ אלו הן הנחנקין – המכה אביו ואמו, וגונב נפש מישראל, וזקן ממרא על פי בית דין, ונביא השקר, והמתנבא בשם עבודה זרה, והבא על אשת איש, וזוממי בת כהן ובועלה.
Mishnah: These are the transgressors who are strangled in the implementation of the court-imposed death penalty: One who strikes his father or his mother, and one who abducts a Jewish person, and a rebellious elder according to the court, and a false prophet, and one who prophesies in the name of idol worship, and one who has sex with a married woman, and conspiring witnesses who testify that the daughter of a priest committed adultery, even though were she guilty, she would be executed by burning. And her paramour is also executed via strangulation as in any case where a man has sex with a married woman.
גמ׳ מכה אביו ואמו מנלן? דכתיב: ״ומכה אביו ואמו מות יומת״, וכל מיתה האמורה בתורה סתם – אינה אלא חנק.
Talmud: The Mishnah teaches: One who strikes his father or his mother is executed by strangulation. The Talmud asks: From where do we derive this halakha? The Talmud answers: It is derived from a verse, as it is written: “One who strikes his father or his mother should be put to death” (Exodus 21:15), and every death stated in the Torah without specification is referring to nothing other than strangulation.
אימא: עד דקטיל ליה מיקטל! סלקא דעתך? קטל חד בסייף, ואביו בחנק?
The Talmud suggests: Say that one is not executed for striking his father or mother unless he kills him or her. The Talmud explains: Does it enter your mind to say that if one kills one other person, he is executed by beheading with a sword, but if he kills his father or mother he is executed by strangulation? That is not reasonable.
הניחא למאן דאמר חנק קל, אלא למאן דאמר חנק חמור, מאי איכא למימר?
The Talmud asks: This works out well according to the one who said that strangulation is a more lenient form of execution than decapitation. But according to the one who said that strangulation is a more severe form of execution than decapitation, what is there to say? Perhaps one is liable to receive the death penalty for striking his father or mother only if he kills the parent, and the added severity for killing a parent is in terms of the specific form of death penalty.